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Katherine "Kitty" Katt #6
Alien vs. Alien
Jeff and Kitty Katt-Martini and the rest of the American Centaurion Diplomatic Corps are still recovering from their introduction to Washington D.C. politics, parties, and conspiracies. So when compromising pictures arrive, no one’s too surprised. They’re also the least of anyone’s worries.
Evil androids running amok, birds of all kinds and from all places creating havoc, a Senator trapped in an ever-tightening web of intrigue, and escalating international tensions all seem tough but manageable. But the disappearance of Jeff Martini and Charles Reynolds during the International One World Festival signals more than the usual nastiness — and it looks like even ACE can’t help them.
Then new trouble arrives in old packages and even with the best hackers in the world, beings from near and far, the full might of Earth’s military, and the Wonder Twins on their side, Centaurion Division’s outmanned and outgunned.
Now Kitty’s racing against the clock to find not only Jeff and Chuckie, but to keep the peace between Middle Eastern countries, all while searching for the bases of super-soldier operations — to stop them or die trying.
Evil androids running amok, birds of all kinds and from all places creating havoc, a Senator trapped in an ever-tightening web of intrigue, and escalating international tensions all seem tough but manageable. But the disappearance of Jeff Martini and Charles Reynolds during the International One World Festival signals more than the usual nastiness — and it looks like even ACE can’t help them.
Then new trouble arrives in old packages and even with the best hackers in the world, beings from near and far, the full might of Earth’s military, and the Wonder Twins on their side, Centaurion Division’s outmanned and outgunned.
Now Kitty’s racing against the clock to find not only Jeff and Chuckie, but to keep the peace between Middle Eastern countries, all while searching for the bases of super-soldier operations — to stop them or die trying.
489 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published December 4, 2012
39 people are currently reading
1034 people want to read
About the author
Gini Koch
83 books914 followersGini Koch lives in Phoenix, Arizona and writes the bestselling fast, fresh and funny Alien/Katherine “Kitty” Katt series for DAW Books, the Necropolis Enforcement Files series, and the Martian Alliance Chronicles series. Alien in the House, Book 7 in her long-running Alien series, won the RT Book Reviews Reviewer’s Choice Award as the Best Futuristic Romance of 2013. Book 14, Alien Nation, won the Preditors and Editors Reader's Choice Award for Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novel of 2016. Alien Education releases May 2, 2017, and DAW Books has just contracted through Book 20 in the Alien series.
As G.J. Koch she writes the Alexander Outland series and she’s made the most of multiple personality disorder by writing under a variety of other pen names as well, including Anita Ensal, Jemma Chase, A.E. Stanton, and J.C. Koch.
In addition to her upcoming Alien Series releases, she has stories featured in a variety of anthologies available now and coming soon, writing as Gini Koch, Anita Ensal, J.C. Koch, and Jemma Chase. Writing as A.E. Stanton she will have an audiobook release in 2017, Natural Born Outlaws (The Legend of Belladonna Part 1) coming from Graphic Audio.
For full details on all releases, all the news about Gini's books, signings, events, excerpts, and more, visit her website: http://www.ginikoch.com.
As G.J. Koch she writes the Alexander Outland series and she’s made the most of multiple personality disorder by writing under a variety of other pen names as well, including Anita Ensal, Jemma Chase, A.E. Stanton, and J.C. Koch.
In addition to her upcoming Alien Series releases, she has stories featured in a variety of anthologies available now and coming soon, writing as Gini Koch, Anita Ensal, J.C. Koch, and Jemma Chase. Writing as A.E. Stanton she will have an audiobook release in 2017, Natural Born Outlaws (The Legend of Belladonna Part 1) coming from Graphic Audio.
For full details on all releases, all the news about Gini's books, signings, events, excerpts, and more, visit her website: http://www.ginikoch.com.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 129 reviews
December 19, 2012
Posted on Under the Covers
4.5 stars
If there is one thing I have taken away from this book it’s that I WANT TO BE KITTY!
Gini Koch delivers a stellar installment to the Katherine “Kitty” Katt series. Filled to the brim with action, politics and humor, you’ve got a story that is ready and waiting for your consumption!
Just as Jeff and Kitty are settling into their position as Alpha Centurion Diplomats, pictures are surfacing of Kitty in a compromising position. Kitty knows that these pictures have been doctored, but that doesn’t ease the wariness in her chest. Jeff, on the other hand, doesn’t seem too fazed by the photos of his wife having an illicit affair. It seems a little funny since Jeff is known as the jealous type. After being separated for a month, Kitty is dying to have some alone time with her husband, but it seems that that will have to wait until more pressing matters can be addressed. One thing about this book is the strong romance, yet there is sooo much more to this book as well.
Androids and what seems to be like all the birds in the universe are just the least of Kitty’s problems. Especially when Jeff and Chuckie vanish without a trace. It’s up to Kitty to get them back all while keeping her baby safe and being badass while doing it!
Koch infuses this book with so much humor that it had my laughing out loud in hysterics. I wish I could quote my favorite lines, but I think I would end up quoting the entire book instead. Kitty’s POV is so entertaining and delightful, making her so relatable. Reading about Kitty either makes you want to be her new BFF or actually BE HER. She’s simply too badass and I love her for it! Gimme gimme more Kitty!
*ARC provided by publisher
Read my review of ALIEN VS. ALIEN at Fresh Fiction
4.5 stars
If there is one thing I have taken away from this book it’s that I WANT TO BE KITTY!
Gini Koch delivers a stellar installment to the Katherine “Kitty” Katt series. Filled to the brim with action, politics and humor, you’ve got a story that is ready and waiting for your consumption!
Just as Jeff and Kitty are settling into their position as Alpha Centurion Diplomats, pictures are surfacing of Kitty in a compromising position. Kitty knows that these pictures have been doctored, but that doesn’t ease the wariness in her chest. Jeff, on the other hand, doesn’t seem too fazed by the photos of his wife having an illicit affair. It seems a little funny since Jeff is known as the jealous type. After being separated for a month, Kitty is dying to have some alone time with her husband, but it seems that that will have to wait until more pressing matters can be addressed. One thing about this book is the strong romance, yet there is sooo much more to this book as well.
Androids and what seems to be like all the birds in the universe are just the least of Kitty’s problems. Especially when Jeff and Chuckie vanish without a trace. It’s up to Kitty to get them back all while keeping her baby safe and being badass while doing it!
Koch infuses this book with so much humor that it had my laughing out loud in hysterics. I wish I could quote my favorite lines, but I think I would end up quoting the entire book instead. Kitty’s POV is so entertaining and delightful, making her so relatable. Reading about Kitty either makes you want to be her new BFF or actually BE HER. She’s simply too badass and I love her for it! Gimme gimme more Kitty!
*ARC provided by publisher
Read my review of ALIEN VS. ALIEN at Fresh Fiction
January 10, 2017
Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales
Quick & Dirty: This installment is not quite as crazy with the action, angsty-lust or Jeff and Chuckie. Although the books are funny, this one also had a darker tone.
Opening Sentence: Stephen Hawking warns that when aliens arrive on Earth, it’s be a bad day for all the inhabitants of the third rock from the sun.
Excerpt: Yes
The Review:
Alien vs. Alien is the sixth novel in the Katherine “Kitty” Katt science fiction/urban fantasy series by Gini Koch. This series continues the massive state of confusion that Kitty is known for, especially by revoking her security clearance which forces everyone in her life to keep her in the dark even on matters that concern her and her husband. It also helps that Kitty still doesn’t quite know the basics of A-C security by not reading the important but boring information.
Six weeks have passed since Operation Assassination and Kitty is forced to move to Florida with Jeff’s parents because Jamie is teething. Jamie’s emotions are too much for Jeff so they had to separate for a while which has really put a damper on Kitty’s sex life. It is while in Florida that Kitty is informed by Senator Armstrong (and two very uncomfortable reminders from the President’s Ball) that there are now X-rated photos of Kitty and Chuckie circulating. Kitty is trying to figure out why these photos, which were sooo completely doctored, are circulating among Washington’s elite. Meanwhile, everyone around Kitty has to renew their security credentials, and of course, Kitty fails so she misses out on all the talk.
The One World International event is happening in Washington, D.C. and Kitty is required to back out because of her clearance which forces to her stay at the Embassy. Kitty isn’t totally bored because she needs to find out who is behind the photos. It is during her search that she uncovers (and by uncovers, I mean guessed since no one will talk to her) an impending alien invasion. Kitty and her motley crew are tasked into stopping the invasion while searching for Jeff and Chuckie, whom have gone missing.
I am unofficially calling the events in this novel “Operation Distraction” or “Operation Invasion 2.0”. The theme of this novel was definitely distraction because almost everything was planned out to distract all of the characters involved. I was even distracted because Jeff and Chuckie weren’t officially missing until page 260. There also isn’t very much of them throughout the novel which was strange since Jeff and Chuckie have been staples to this series so far.
One thing I will say that I definitely love about this series are the covers and how accurate they are with a scene in the novel. I didn’t see that coming. The action in this novel really fell towards the end of the book. There were things here and there that happened but it only broke up the monotony of Kitty’s search for the source of the pictures and the “guessing” of what everyone was hiding from her.
These novels are very creative overall and I really like Kitty’s sense of humor, what I don’t really care for is the length. These novels are dialogue heavy with a huge cast of characters. There is also quite a bit happening so when it seems like Kitty figures something out another two or three things jump in to take up her time to get to the ending. I still recommend these novels for fans of science fiction who have a dark sense of humor.
Notable Scene:
“I want to know. I’m a big girl, and I’ve been aware that they were in danger and missing longer than any of you. Tell me whatever it is you don’t want to tell me.”
“Do it,” Mom said quietly. The news moved from not good to potentially catastrophic. I steeled myself.
Reader came closer to me and took my hand. “Kitty . . . once we realized we couldn’t find them, I called Christopher. He filled me in on what he was doing and said he’d been spending his spare time at the Dome searching for both of them.”
“And?”
He swallowed. “He can’t find any trace of either Jeff or Reynolds. And by any trace, I mean he’s looked into the extent of his range.”
Unlike Serene, Christopher’s range wasn’t fifty miles. His range wasn’t even Planet Earth. Christopher’s range went to the outer reaches of the Alpha Centauri system.
Meaning Jeff and Chuckie were really gone. Or they were dead.
FTC Advisory: DAW/Penguin provided me with a copy of Alien vs. Alien. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.
Quick & Dirty: This installment is not quite as crazy with the action, angsty-lust or Jeff and Chuckie. Although the books are funny, this one also had a darker tone.
Opening Sentence: Stephen Hawking warns that when aliens arrive on Earth, it’s be a bad day for all the inhabitants of the third rock from the sun.
Excerpt: Yes
The Review:
Alien vs. Alien is the sixth novel in the Katherine “Kitty” Katt science fiction/urban fantasy series by Gini Koch. This series continues the massive state of confusion that Kitty is known for, especially by revoking her security clearance which forces everyone in her life to keep her in the dark even on matters that concern her and her husband. It also helps that Kitty still doesn’t quite know the basics of A-C security by not reading the important but boring information.
Six weeks have passed since Operation Assassination and Kitty is forced to move to Florida with Jeff’s parents because Jamie is teething. Jamie’s emotions are too much for Jeff so they had to separate for a while which has really put a damper on Kitty’s sex life. It is while in Florida that Kitty is informed by Senator Armstrong (and two very uncomfortable reminders from the President’s Ball) that there are now X-rated photos of Kitty and Chuckie circulating. Kitty is trying to figure out why these photos, which were sooo completely doctored, are circulating among Washington’s elite. Meanwhile, everyone around Kitty has to renew their security credentials, and of course, Kitty fails so she misses out on all the talk.
The One World International event is happening in Washington, D.C. and Kitty is required to back out because of her clearance which forces to her stay at the Embassy. Kitty isn’t totally bored because she needs to find out who is behind the photos. It is during her search that she uncovers (and by uncovers, I mean guessed since no one will talk to her) an impending alien invasion. Kitty and her motley crew are tasked into stopping the invasion while searching for Jeff and Chuckie, whom have gone missing.
I am unofficially calling the events in this novel “Operation Distraction” or “Operation Invasion 2.0”. The theme of this novel was definitely distraction because almost everything was planned out to distract all of the characters involved. I was even distracted because Jeff and Chuckie weren’t officially missing until page 260. There also isn’t very much of them throughout the novel which was strange since Jeff and Chuckie have been staples to this series so far.
One thing I will say that I definitely love about this series are the covers and how accurate they are with a scene in the novel. I didn’t see that coming. The action in this novel really fell towards the end of the book. There were things here and there that happened but it only broke up the monotony of Kitty’s search for the source of the pictures and the “guessing” of what everyone was hiding from her.
These novels are very creative overall and I really like Kitty’s sense of humor, what I don’t really care for is the length. These novels are dialogue heavy with a huge cast of characters. There is also quite a bit happening so when it seems like Kitty figures something out another two or three things jump in to take up her time to get to the ending. I still recommend these novels for fans of science fiction who have a dark sense of humor.
Notable Scene:
“I want to know. I’m a big girl, and I’ve been aware that they were in danger and missing longer than any of you. Tell me whatever it is you don’t want to tell me.”
“Do it,” Mom said quietly. The news moved from not good to potentially catastrophic. I steeled myself.
Reader came closer to me and took my hand. “Kitty . . . once we realized we couldn’t find them, I called Christopher. He filled me in on what he was doing and said he’d been spending his spare time at the Dome searching for both of them.”
“And?”
He swallowed. “He can’t find any trace of either Jeff or Reynolds. And by any trace, I mean he’s looked into the extent of his range.”
Unlike Serene, Christopher’s range wasn’t fifty miles. His range wasn’t even Planet Earth. Christopher’s range went to the outer reaches of the Alpha Centauri system.
Meaning Jeff and Chuckie were really gone. Or they were dead.
FTC Advisory: DAW/Penguin provided me with a copy of Alien vs. Alien. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.
February 6, 2018
Things in the "Win" column:
• Sarcasm & snark level over 1000
• Such action, much kick-ass
• New pet introduced: Extremely intelligent killer peacock like creatures called Peregrines. Who had super cool names!
• Got to see Kitty without her usual crutches.
• A female attention whore African Gray Parrot with attitude & a more than decent intellect.
• Jamie, Kitty & The Wonder Twins showing off some of them powers.
• Sarcasm & snark level over 1000
• Such action, much kick-ass
• New pet introduced: Extremely intelligent killer peacock like creatures called Peregrines. Who had super cool names!
• Got to see Kitty without her usual crutches.
• A female attention whore African Gray Parrot with attitude & a more than decent intellect.
• Jamie, Kitty & The Wonder Twins showing off some of them powers.
December 3, 2012
Kitty and Jeff have started to settle into their new roles as the Alpha Centaurion Diplomats, a career in Washington politics may not have been something Kitty has always dreamed of but she can fake it with the best of them and she's becoming an expert at dealing with both politicians and reporters. If they were normal diplomats then photos showing Kitty in a compromising position with her best friend Chuckie might spell out disaster but they're actually the least of Kitty & Jeff's worries. What with android attacks, more superbeings than they can reasonably cope with and an interesting arrival giving the Poofs a run for their money tension levels in the embassy are high. And that was before Jeff and Chuckie vanish without a trace! Kitty must juggle crooked senators, blackmail attempts, an impending alien invasion and keeping her baby safe while at the same time tracking down the two most important men in her life before their kidnappers can do them irreparable harm. Pretty much a normal day then, but this time she has to do it without the help of Jeff and Chuckie.
I've been a massive fan of Gini Koch's Katherine "Kitty" Katt series ever since I picked up Touched by an Alien last year. In fact it is one of my favourites - one of those series that I pre-order each instalment as soon as it becomes available on Amazon and one that I drop everything else to read as soon as I have the book in my hands. So I can't tell you how excited I was when Gini offered to send me and advanced review copy of Alien vs. Alien, I literally could not wait to start reading it! I had incredibly high expectations for the sixth book in the series but I'm happy to say that Gini not only met them - she surpassed them.
Fans of the series will know exactly what to expect when picking up one of Gini Koch's books. Her trademark humour, action packed story lines and shocking twists make for an edge of the seat thrill ride that will leave you breathless. Alien vs. Alien has all of that and then some and picking up any book in this series like sitting down with old friends for a catch up. I'm immediately sucked into Kitty's world and I'm irritated when real life gets in the way and stops me from reading. I was worried that Kitty and Jeff would have less drama and action in their lives now they're working as diplomats rather than heading up operations but if anything their lives have just got even more complicated. The threats are coming from so many different directions that it is hard to tell which enemy poses the greatest danger to them.
It was strange to see Kitty without Jeff by her side but I really enjoyed watching her prove herself a force to be reckoned with. Nobody is going to get away with taking Jeff from her and she is just as protective of her best friend Chuckie. Thankfully she still has plenty of people she can rely on, I love her working partnership with Richard but of course she still has Chris, Reader and the flyboys to back her up as needed. Without a doubt it is Kitty's wacky way of looking at things that is going to save the day though. I have been a fan of the Poofs since they were first introduced to the series but all I'm going to say is watch out for the latest delivery from Alpha Centaurion, it's guaranteed to make you laugh out loud. That and the new "woman" who is competing with Kitty for Jeff's affection! Alien vs. Alien is a fab instalment to a fantastic series and I'm already dying to get my hands on Alien in the House for my next Martini fix. If you're already a fan of the series then you need to get hold of this book immediately - if you haven't started reading it yet then you really don't know what you're missing.
I've been a massive fan of Gini Koch's Katherine "Kitty" Katt series ever since I picked up Touched by an Alien last year. In fact it is one of my favourites - one of those series that I pre-order each instalment as soon as it becomes available on Amazon and one that I drop everything else to read as soon as I have the book in my hands. So I can't tell you how excited I was when Gini offered to send me and advanced review copy of Alien vs. Alien, I literally could not wait to start reading it! I had incredibly high expectations for the sixth book in the series but I'm happy to say that Gini not only met them - she surpassed them.
Fans of the series will know exactly what to expect when picking up one of Gini Koch's books. Her trademark humour, action packed story lines and shocking twists make for an edge of the seat thrill ride that will leave you breathless. Alien vs. Alien has all of that and then some and picking up any book in this series like sitting down with old friends for a catch up. I'm immediately sucked into Kitty's world and I'm irritated when real life gets in the way and stops me from reading. I was worried that Kitty and Jeff would have less drama and action in their lives now they're working as diplomats rather than heading up operations but if anything their lives have just got even more complicated. The threats are coming from so many different directions that it is hard to tell which enemy poses the greatest danger to them.
It was strange to see Kitty without Jeff by her side but I really enjoyed watching her prove herself a force to be reckoned with. Nobody is going to get away with taking Jeff from her and she is just as protective of her best friend Chuckie. Thankfully she still has plenty of people she can rely on, I love her working partnership with Richard but of course she still has Chris, Reader and the flyboys to back her up as needed. Without a doubt it is Kitty's wacky way of looking at things that is going to save the day though. I have been a fan of the Poofs since they were first introduced to the series but all I'm going to say is watch out for the latest delivery from Alpha Centaurion, it's guaranteed to make you laugh out loud. That and the new "woman" who is competing with Kitty for Jeff's affection! Alien vs. Alien is a fab instalment to a fantastic series and I'm already dying to get my hands on Alien in the House for my next Martini fix. If you're already a fan of the series then you need to get hold of this book immediately - if you haven't started reading it yet then you really don't know what you're missing.
May 30, 2025
Not much time for Kitty and her guys to relax. Her baby girl is teething - and all teeth are coming in at once. Hence, the baby is in agony and her father, being the biggest empath of the galaxy is too. So Kitty packs up the baby and some of her friends and family and heads to her in-laws so Jamie's agony is no longer affecting Jeff. After a few weeks, senator Armstrong comes for a visit with some compromising pictures. According to him and the pictures, Kitty is having an affair with Chuckie - only she hasn't as the pictures are fake. While trying to find out what is happening, Jeff and Christopher come to get Kitty and her entourage back home but before they have to take a test as their security clearance is no longer valid until they pass the test. But this is sabotaged again and Kitty is out of the loop as she has no clearance to get the important information. Strange things are happening in Washington and suddenly Jeff and Chuck are gone and an invasion is looming at the horizon. It's up to Kitty - again - to save the world.. or as she used to say: routine..
It's getting better and better. So many things are happening at the same time that the reader is struggling along with Kitty to keep up. I kind of raced through the book to find out what's happening. We are introduced to some new animals and the birds in this book were quite entertaining. Kitty has to figure out in record time how to save the world again and I'm really looking forward to the next book, now that American Centaurion is outed and the world knows that alien are for real.
Book six was a bit darker than the other books before. The invasion scene was bloody and we witness how people are kind of slaughtered by the intruders. It's no longer funny and harmless - the gloves are off and we see that Kitty's enemies are out to hurt, maim and kill to get what they want. Some scenes had me blinking back tears because it was intense and I feared we were losing some of Kitty's crew.
I really loved the hacker crew! They were great fun and I hope we get more of them in the next books. With roughly 500 pages, this was the biggest book in the series and it was packed with lots of action and many old and new friends and enemy. I hope we get to see more James Reader in the next books as we hardly get any time with him. But being the new commander and with all the action happening, James had other stuff to do. Can't wait to read the next book!
It's getting better and better. So many things are happening at the same time that the reader is struggling along with Kitty to keep up. I kind of raced through the book to find out what's happening. We are introduced to some new animals and the birds in this book were quite entertaining. Kitty has to figure out in record time how to save the world again and I'm really looking forward to the next book, now that American Centaurion is outed and the world knows that alien are for real.
Book six was a bit darker than the other books before. The invasion scene was bloody and we witness how people are kind of slaughtered by the intruders. It's no longer funny and harmless - the gloves are off and we see that Kitty's enemies are out to hurt, maim and kill to get what they want. Some scenes had me blinking back tears because it was intense and I feared we were losing some of Kitty's crew.
I really loved the hacker crew! They were great fun and I hope we get more of them in the next books. With roughly 500 pages, this was the biggest book in the series and it was packed with lots of action and many old and new friends and enemy. I hope we get to see more James Reader in the next books as we hardly get any time with him. But being the new commander and with all the action happening, James had other stuff to do. Can't wait to read the next book!
August 15, 2013
4.5/5
I'm sad that the body count in this book went so high up, but I absolutely loved Peregrines! Bruno, my man, you rocked! :D
I'm sad that the body count in this book went so high up, but I absolutely loved Peregrines! Bruno, my man, you rocked! :D
November 18, 2015
Sixth in the Katherine "Kitty" Katt romantic science-fiction series starring Kitty Katt Martini and her troupe of hunky, gorgeous, delicious-looking aliens.
My Take
On the whole, while it was another fun read from Koch — I did enjoy Kitty's rapport with the Peregrines — can I get an amen! — I can do without Bellie and the too many paths with even more cartoonish effects. It simply left me very confused as to who is doing what and to whom when it comes to the intelligence being thrown about. Heck, with everything being thrown around. What was with those dino birds? It felt as if Koch tried to consider every possibility and couldn't consider leaving even one of 'em out. I'm not saying there wasn't a plot, it was just so buried…
Still, it's a friendly bunch of characters in this series, a cast to which Koch keeps adding more and more. Almost like the various twists and turns and all the action sequences in Alien Diplomacy , 5.
We had the older Martinis upset about Christopher and Amy's impromptu wedding as the "normal" scene to ground us in the story — just another case of a lack of communication and cultural differences, letting us know how human everyone is. But then we get the stupid HSAC test dropped on us. I can't believe everyone is buying into this. It's just lame. The situation isn't consistent with the characters, which just ticks me off. Then the Royal Peregrines getting dropped in and all their antics. Admittedly it is funny with Kitty's interactions with them, but oh brother.
I do love Kitty's categories for Jamie's squeals. It is so sweet how much time Kitty and Jeff are able to — and want to — spend with their daughter.
Hmmm, how very convenient of the Czech embassy building...
Oops, dissension in the ranks! That could turn out to be interesting — I'm wondering what will happen with the current embassy people in Alien in the House?
I don't care...I want the A-C elves to come visit me. A lot!
Ah well, later, Eddie...
The Story
Poor Jamie-Kat...she's teething and her agony is cutting away at her daddy's control, so Kitty and Jamie are at the Martini Manor in Florida where they're forced to endure a visit from Senator Armstrong and Guy Gadoire. One which raises some hefty blackmail issues.
Then there's the HSAC clearance testing. Kitty claims she's done a lot of testing like this in the past, and I'm sure the others have done testing like this as well, and nobody questions the type of questions being asked?? Nuh-uh.
It's all careful preparation...
The Characters
Kitty and Jeff Martini, the world's strongest telepath, are both ambassadors for the American Centaurion Diplomatic Corps. Jamie-Kat is their five-month-old baby girl with hybrid powers. Bellie is Jeff's new best friend and a real challenge for Kitty, a gift from Peter the Dingo Dog. Bellie likes Jeff, Chris, well, heck all the boys. She just doesn't like any of the girls. The Poofs have expanded their circle of love to include Jamie Kat: Poofikins is Kitty's and Harlie is Jeff's Poof (he's head Poof). And Jamie-Kat names her Poof, Mous-mous. Mom, Angela Katt, is head of the Presidential Terrorism Control Unit (PTCU) and the only non-Jew to ever be in Mossad.
Christopher White is Jeff's cousin and an Imageer married to Amy Gaultier White, one of Kitty's best friends from high school and a lawyer. (see Alien Proliferation , 4). Toby is his Poof; Mignon is Amy's. Through some, um, misadventures, Jeff has been enhanced too. Alfred and Lucia Martini are Jeff's parents. Clarence Valentino is Sylvia's husband (Jeff's oldest sister) and both are traitors (see Alien Proliferation ).
Charles Reynolds has been Kitty's best friend since they were thirteen; now he's a self-made multi-millionaire, head of the CIA's Extra-Terrestrial Division, and always the smartest guy in the room---and Fluffy is his Poof. Esteban Cantu is also CIA, but a suspected rogue. Clifford Goodman is the new Head of Special Immigration Services and reports directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security.
Embassy inhabitants includes:
Len and Kyle are former college football players who are now CIA bodyguards for Kitty and Jamie (see Alien in the Family , 3 and Alien Diplomacy , 5). Malcolm Buchanan is a bodyguard assigned by Kitty's mother in Alien Diplomacy . Former Pontifex Richard White is Kitty's new partner and has a thing for the catsuit. Dr. Tito Hernandez ( Alien in the Family ) is Kitty and Jamie-Katt's personal physician while Melanie and Emily, both Dazzler A-Cs, assist Tito. Walter Ward is in charge of embassy security; his brother, William, is an imageer. Pierre is quite talented in styling, culture, and manners and very useful as the new Majordomo Concierge. Denise Lewis is Kevin"s wife, in charge of the embassy daycare, and teacher (Kevin is Kitty's mom's second-in-command at PTCU) and they, with their children, Raymond and Rachel, are living at the embassy. Doreen and Irving Weisman with baby Ezra also live at the embassy. Nurse Magdalena Rijos-Carter has signed on to help Tito.
Alpha team includes:
Paul Gower is a half-A-C/half-human and can read dreams and memories; he's ACE's habitat and the new Supreme Pontifex. Commander James Reader is a gorgeous former supermodel, who is in a relationship with Paul and Head of the Field for Centaurion Division; Kitty considers him one of her best guy friends. Gatita is Reader's Poof. ACE is an alien entity, who thinks Kitty walks on water, and lives inside Paul. Michael Gower is Paul's younger brother and an astronaut at NASA; Fuzzball is his Poof. Naomi and Abigail are Paul's hybrid sisters and the new cultural attaches. Erika is their mother; Stanley is their father. Serene (Ronald Yates' daughter and a full-A-C) is still pregnant and the head of Imageering; she's married to Brian Dwyer (Kitty's old boyfriend).
Gladys is head of overall security for the A-Cs. Jeremy Barone and his sister, Jennifer, are pulled in to help police the festival.
Airborne includes:
Captain Tim Crawford is the new head of Airborne in Kitty's place. The unmarried ones include Captain Jerry Tucker, Matt Hughes, and Walker. Joe Billings is married to Captain Lorraine, and they have a son, Ross Edward. Randy Muir is married to Captain Claudia, and they have a son as well, Sean Zachary.
Mister Joel Oliver is a photographer with World Weekly News. Olga Dalca and Adriana, her granddaughter, are with the Romanian embassy and very interested in events at the AC embassy after events in Alien Diplomacy . Adrien is Olga's husband, the ambassador, and has no idea what's going on.
Senator Vincent Armstrong is the senior senator from Florida and not one of Kitty's favorite people. Guy Gadoire is a lobbyist for the tobacco industry and in interested in enticing Kitty into bed with he and his lover, Vance Beaumont. Mona Nejem and her driver, Khalid, are Bahraini; Oren and Jakob are Mossad. Prince is Officer Melville's German shepherd and they're part of the K-9 unit from Alien Proliferation . The Feliniad, Canus Majorian, and Reptilians show up, thank you very much. King Alexander, the king of Alpha Four and Jeff's cousin, is very useful with the gifts and spaceships.
John and Sandra is in charge of the testing at Kennedy.
Ronaldo Al Dejahl is Yates' son and bent on revenge. The Pontifex, Gladys, Alfred, and Serene are all Ronaldo's siblings. Amy's father's second wife, LaRue Demorte Gaultier, was the brains behind everything in Alien Proliferation and she fled Earth orbit. God knows where! Casey Jones is the stewardess from Operation Drug Addict and a member of Club 51.
The Z'porrah look like mini T-rexes and are too totally clueless. Unfortunately, they do have a lot of power.
Colonel Marvin Hamlin is Cliff's boss. Colonel Franklin is in charge of Andrews Air Force Base; Captain Gil Morgan, his adjunct, is "required" at the Dome. Them Dazzlers do like a smart boy!
Stryker Dane, a.k.a., Eddy Simms, is a brilliant hacker who is the resident UFO and extraterrestrial languages expert and undercover in the military along with Big George Lecroix, who is Europe's best hacker and speaks some twenty languages fluently. Also Doctor Wu, a.k.a., Henry, is a software expert, China's most expert hacker, and covers the languages the others don't; Ravi Gaekwad is India's best hacker and big on hardware and software; and, Omega Red, a.k.a., Yuri Stanislav, is blind but killer with audio cryptology.
Dazzlers are how Kitty collectively refers to the A-C females because that's what they do: they dazzle everyone with their beauty, intelligence, and compassion. Imageers manipulate images electronically and in front of you and can learn all about a person simply by touching an image. Empaths feel emotions. Poofs look like "tiny, fluffy kittens with no ears or tails, but with shiny black button eyes", who can morph into Jeff-sized, very, very protective critters. Once you name one, they're yours for life. With all the weddings, there are LOTS more Poofs. The Royal Peregrines are, initially, a most unwelcome gift from King Alexander that suddenly pops in during the night. Bruno appears to be Kitty's Peregrine; Lola is his mate. Richard's birds are Samson and Delilah; Kyle's are Fred and Wilma; Len's are Barney and Betty. I think George and Gracie belong to Walter; Chuckie's are Han and Leia; and, Harold and Maude are stressed about an invasion.
The Cover
The cover is a scene from the book with fires and monsters on the ground, alien ships in the sky shooting lasers, Royal Peregrines clawing, and Jeff with his back to us protecting Kitty and the baby.
The title is accurate enough, if not descriptive enough, to describe the battles of Alien vs. Alien in Washington, D.C.
My Take
On the whole, while it was another fun read from Koch — I did enjoy Kitty's rapport with the Peregrines — can I get an amen! — I can do without Bellie and the too many paths with even more cartoonish effects. It simply left me very confused as to who is doing what and to whom when it comes to the intelligence being thrown about. Heck, with everything being thrown around. What was with those dino birds? It felt as if Koch tried to consider every possibility and couldn't consider leaving even one of 'em out. I'm not saying there wasn't a plot, it was just so buried…
Still, it's a friendly bunch of characters in this series, a cast to which Koch keeps adding more and more. Almost like the various twists and turns and all the action sequences in Alien Diplomacy , 5.
We had the older Martinis upset about Christopher and Amy's impromptu wedding as the "normal" scene to ground us in the story — just another case of a lack of communication and cultural differences, letting us know how human everyone is. But then we get the stupid HSAC test dropped on us. I can't believe everyone is buying into this. It's just lame. The situation isn't consistent with the characters, which just ticks me off. Then the Royal Peregrines getting dropped in and all their antics. Admittedly it is funny with Kitty's interactions with them, but oh brother.
I do love Kitty's categories for Jamie's squeals. It is so sweet how much time Kitty and Jeff are able to — and want to — spend with their daughter.
Hmmm, how very convenient of the Czech embassy building...
Oops, dissension in the ranks! That could turn out to be interesting — I'm wondering what will happen with the current embassy people in Alien in the House?
I don't care...I want the A-C elves to come visit me. A lot!
Ah well, later, Eddie...
The Story
Poor Jamie-Kat...she's teething and her agony is cutting away at her daddy's control, so Kitty and Jamie are at the Martini Manor in Florida where they're forced to endure a visit from Senator Armstrong and Guy Gadoire. One which raises some hefty blackmail issues.
Then there's the HSAC clearance testing. Kitty claims she's done a lot of testing like this in the past, and I'm sure the others have done testing like this as well, and nobody questions the type of questions being asked?? Nuh-uh.
It's all careful preparation...
The Characters
Kitty and Jeff Martini, the world's strongest telepath, are both ambassadors for the American Centaurion Diplomatic Corps. Jamie-Kat is their five-month-old baby girl with hybrid powers. Bellie is Jeff's new best friend and a real challenge for Kitty, a gift from Peter the Dingo Dog. Bellie likes Jeff, Chris, well, heck all the boys. She just doesn't like any of the girls. The Poofs have expanded their circle of love to include Jamie Kat: Poofikins is Kitty's and Harlie is Jeff's Poof (he's head Poof). And Jamie-Kat names her Poof, Mous-mous. Mom, Angela Katt, is head of the Presidential Terrorism Control Unit (PTCU) and the only non-Jew to ever be in Mossad.
Christopher White is Jeff's cousin and an Imageer married to Amy Gaultier White, one of Kitty's best friends from high school and a lawyer. (see Alien Proliferation , 4). Toby is his Poof; Mignon is Amy's. Through some, um, misadventures, Jeff has been enhanced too. Alfred and Lucia Martini are Jeff's parents. Clarence Valentino is Sylvia's husband (Jeff's oldest sister) and both are traitors (see Alien Proliferation ).
Charles Reynolds has been Kitty's best friend since they were thirteen; now he's a self-made multi-millionaire, head of the CIA's Extra-Terrestrial Division, and always the smartest guy in the room---and Fluffy is his Poof. Esteban Cantu is also CIA, but a suspected rogue. Clifford Goodman is the new Head of Special Immigration Services and reports directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security.
Embassy inhabitants includes:
Len and Kyle are former college football players who are now CIA bodyguards for Kitty and Jamie (see Alien in the Family , 3 and Alien Diplomacy , 5). Malcolm Buchanan is a bodyguard assigned by Kitty's mother in Alien Diplomacy . Former Pontifex Richard White is Kitty's new partner and has a thing for the catsuit. Dr. Tito Hernandez ( Alien in the Family ) is Kitty and Jamie-Katt's personal physician while Melanie and Emily, both Dazzler A-Cs, assist Tito. Walter Ward is in charge of embassy security; his brother, William, is an imageer. Pierre is quite talented in styling, culture, and manners and very useful as the new Majordomo Concierge. Denise Lewis is Kevin"s wife, in charge of the embassy daycare, and teacher (Kevin is Kitty's mom's second-in-command at PTCU) and they, with their children, Raymond and Rachel, are living at the embassy. Doreen and Irving Weisman with baby Ezra also live at the embassy. Nurse Magdalena Rijos-Carter has signed on to help Tito.
Alpha team includes:
Paul Gower is a half-A-C/half-human and can read dreams and memories; he's ACE's habitat and the new Supreme Pontifex. Commander James Reader is a gorgeous former supermodel, who is in a relationship with Paul and Head of the Field for Centaurion Division; Kitty considers him one of her best guy friends. Gatita is Reader's Poof. ACE is an alien entity, who thinks Kitty walks on water, and lives inside Paul. Michael Gower is Paul's younger brother and an astronaut at NASA; Fuzzball is his Poof. Naomi and Abigail are Paul's hybrid sisters and the new cultural attaches. Erika is their mother; Stanley is their father. Serene (Ronald Yates' daughter and a full-A-C) is still pregnant and the head of Imageering; she's married to Brian Dwyer (Kitty's old boyfriend).
Gladys is head of overall security for the A-Cs. Jeremy Barone and his sister, Jennifer, are pulled in to help police the festival.
Airborne includes:
Captain Tim Crawford is the new head of Airborne in Kitty's place. The unmarried ones include Captain Jerry Tucker, Matt Hughes, and Walker. Joe Billings is married to Captain Lorraine, and they have a son, Ross Edward. Randy Muir is married to Captain Claudia, and they have a son as well, Sean Zachary.
Mister Joel Oliver is a photographer with World Weekly News. Olga Dalca and Adriana, her granddaughter, are with the Romanian embassy and very interested in events at the AC embassy after events in Alien Diplomacy . Adrien is Olga's husband, the ambassador, and has no idea what's going on.
Senator Vincent Armstrong is the senior senator from Florida and not one of Kitty's favorite people. Guy Gadoire is a lobbyist for the tobacco industry and in interested in enticing Kitty into bed with he and his lover, Vance Beaumont. Mona Nejem and her driver, Khalid, are Bahraini; Oren and Jakob are Mossad. Prince is Officer Melville's German shepherd and they're part of the K-9 unit from Alien Proliferation . The Feliniad, Canus Majorian, and Reptilians show up, thank you very much. King Alexander, the king of Alpha Four and Jeff's cousin, is very useful with the gifts and spaceships.
John and Sandra is in charge of the testing at Kennedy.
Ronaldo Al Dejahl is Yates' son and bent on revenge. The Pontifex, Gladys, Alfred, and Serene are all Ronaldo's siblings. Amy's father's second wife, LaRue Demorte Gaultier, was the brains behind everything in Alien Proliferation and she fled Earth orbit. God knows where! Casey Jones is the stewardess from Operation Drug Addict and a member of Club 51.
The Z'porrah look like mini T-rexes and are too totally clueless. Unfortunately, they do have a lot of power.
Colonel Marvin Hamlin is Cliff's boss. Colonel Franklin is in charge of Andrews Air Force Base; Captain Gil Morgan, his adjunct, is "required" at the Dome. Them Dazzlers do like a smart boy!
Stryker Dane, a.k.a., Eddy Simms, is a brilliant hacker who is the resident UFO and extraterrestrial languages expert and undercover in the military along with Big George Lecroix, who is Europe's best hacker and speaks some twenty languages fluently. Also Doctor Wu, a.k.a., Henry, is a software expert, China's most expert hacker, and covers the languages the others don't; Ravi Gaekwad is India's best hacker and big on hardware and software; and, Omega Red, a.k.a., Yuri Stanislav, is blind but killer with audio cryptology.
Dazzlers are how Kitty collectively refers to the A-C females because that's what they do: they dazzle everyone with their beauty, intelligence, and compassion. Imageers manipulate images electronically and in front of you and can learn all about a person simply by touching an image. Empaths feel emotions. Poofs look like "tiny, fluffy kittens with no ears or tails, but with shiny black button eyes", who can morph into Jeff-sized, very, very protective critters. Once you name one, they're yours for life. With all the weddings, there are LOTS more Poofs. The Royal Peregrines are, initially, a most unwelcome gift from King Alexander that suddenly pops in during the night. Bruno appears to be Kitty's Peregrine; Lola is his mate. Richard's birds are Samson and Delilah; Kyle's are Fred and Wilma; Len's are Barney and Betty. I think George and Gracie belong to Walter; Chuckie's are Han and Leia; and, Harold and Maude are stressed about an invasion.
The Cover
The cover is a scene from the book with fires and monsters on the ground, alien ships in the sky shooting lasers, Royal Peregrines clawing, and Jeff with his back to us protecting Kitty and the baby.
The title is accurate enough, if not descriptive enough, to describe the battles of Alien vs. Alien in Washington, D.C.
June 28, 2018
3.5 - 4 Stars
A convoluted, over-the-top, action-fueled book with a soundtrack. If you like this series then this book is on par for the series. The Kitty Katt series is not your typical science-fiction. It’s heavy on snark and has sexy times. Every books has so many twists and turns that you could get whiplash! All the info-dumping could be irritating but it does become handy when you well into the series and have lost track of previous events. For those in search of something quirky you’ll want to try book 1 in this series first.
A convoluted, over-the-top, action-fueled book with a soundtrack. If you like this series then this book is on par for the series. The Kitty Katt series is not your typical science-fiction. It’s heavy on snark and has sexy times. Every books has so many twists and turns that you could get whiplash! All the info-dumping could be irritating but it does become handy when you well into the series and have lost track of previous events. For those in search of something quirky you’ll want to try book 1 in this series first.
September 27, 2021
Book 6 Alien Versus Alien: Allegories and Metaphors of Absurdist Faith
Gini Koch’s Aliens series references William Faulkner’s masterpiece Absalom, Absolom! In its themes; a novel which chronicles the fall of the Confederacy in terms of the Biblical Fall of Man and a family history which references the tragedies of Sophocles and the Oresteia of Aeschylus.
Though much of this backstory is alluded to or told parenthetically as a prequel to the royal family civil war and religious schism which resulted in the exile to Earth of her heroes, a multiplicity of clues are left like Ariadne’s Thread for alert readers to assemble the puzzle of both the origin story of the Exile and of the faith which she deftly evades describing but which is a prime driver of her storyline.
These sources and historical models include the aforementioned classical and Biblical sources, but also Shakespeare’s reimagination of these sources; especially the Orestia in MacBeth, Sartre’s The Flies, and Eugene O'Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra, and in parallel lines of transmission Antigone in Othello, and its reimagination by Jean Anouilh in his play Antigone, and the inescapable Oedipus Rex in Hamlet, Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams, and D.M. Thomas’ engagement with Freud in his trilogy The White Hotel, Pictures at an Exhibition, and Eating Pavlova.
Anais Nin wrote the definitive study of his works, D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study, and to a degree Anais Nin wrote her novels as D.H. Lawrence fanfiction, much as Angela Carter wrote her foundational work The Sadeian Woman and her novels as de Sade fanfiction; parallel figures, Anais Nin and her successor Angela Carter.
I have at times wondered if Gini Koch is a scholar of Shakespearean theatre and its echoes and reflections before all else; but this is a subject for a later essay.
In her Aliens series Gini Koch charts the topologies of becoming human as a grand cinematic heroic quest embodied in the figure of Kitty as an avatar through which we can negotiate this labyrinth as a rite of passage, a figure referential to that of Cervantes’ Don Quixote and his shadow, Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
A figure of heroic individualism, of the nobility and beauty of a vision which embraces the Ideal behind the illusion of its outward mask and refuses to surrender this exaltation and rapture to any Authority or force of otherness, Don Quixote is a self-created man, free to forge what meaning and value he can imagine in a universe bereft of any. He is a Promethean figure, a hero of Romantic Idealism but also Existentialist and Humanist in his person, yet affirming an Idealism formed from within, invented rather than discovered, Absurdist in the most modern way.
To believe because we have so chosen, because it is ours, rather than to know because the facts so compel; is this not a definition of faith?
Or was that madness? Shakespeare's Hamlet is a parallel figure, struggling for his humanity and self-ownership as does Don Quixote in a world where reality and truth are equivocal and subjective, a negotiated boundary between self and others. Both authors conceptualize identity as a performance, question and challenge authority and seek redress against asymmetries of power, especially the idea of sin and the doctrine of the depravity of man which is the basis of our law, employ satire and historical revision to these ends, interrogate themes of truth and illusion, and celebrate faith as a chosen madness and Absurdism.
And so we have in Don Quixote a complex, nuanced, conditional, and extremely human hero, who challenges us to be better than we are, as a primary model of Gini Koch’s hero Kitty.
Of her direct model in Surrealism and the literature of madness as revolutionary struggle William Faulkner, whose great themes and signature narrative devices and poetics include madness and the nature of evil, grotesques, stream of consciousness, Rashomon-like multiple perspectives; William Faulkner employed the methods of James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and Ryunosuke Akutagawa in a grand subversion of realism throughout an enormous series of Surrealist alternate reality novels in a brilliantly imagined American South.
Drawing on Shakespearean and Greek tragedies as his sources, as well as a narrative aesthetics and idea of character from Hugo, Zola, and Dickens, he championed vernacular language and the relentless and diverse humanity of ordinary people. And his characters are enmeshed in historical forces beyond their reckoning; class, race, and gender are explored in complex and nuanced prose. His works echo with Nietzschean iconoclasm, the revolutionary poetics of Blake, and the bizarre transgression of de Sade.
William Faulkner was a revolutionary who sought to radically transform his society, a South crippled by the legacy of slavery, by inventing a mythic nightmare South, an imaginal realm in a hobgoblin’s mirror which reveals distortions and flaws in our humanity, thereby robbing them of their power and freeing us. His works are an act of magic, or psychotherapy, which maps the structural maladies we must liberate ourselves from, describing by their negative spaces a new American humanity, free of history and self-creating.
Here is the gateway to the Absurdist faith of Gini Koch, a master key to the code of her novels as therapy journals which put America on the couch to interrogate the subversion of democracy though the internal contradictions of our system and our civilizational collapse in the recent era of the Fourth Reich as failures of our values and as endemic forces of patriarchy, racism, capitalism, and authoritarianism; of fascisms of blood, faith, and soil as madness and as a civilizational crisis of faith.
This authorial intention is best seen in the iconic play which is one of her primary intertexts which she deploys like Margaret Atwood in the composition of her themes, Edward Albee’s Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
With a title taken from the song Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? in the 1933 Disney short film Three Little Pigs, where two of the pigs are convinced they're safe from the wolf in their straw and twig houses, you know that threatening truths will undo the house of illusions George and Martha, emblematic founders of America, have built around themselves.
In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Edward Albee has given us the Great American Play, a mirror in which we see ourselves as we are rather than the illusions we have spun around and through ourselves as a defensive mask. It is about the historical and political consequences of a lie we told at our founding about freedom and equality in a government designed to leave structural power asymmetries of wealth, race, and gender untouched; about the human cost of dysfunctional relationships, and about the implications for meaning and being when the personal and political realms of action collide and change each other.
Here also Gini Koch holds up a mirror to America; and it is a funhouse mirror of distorted images, both comical and grotesque, images which capture and reflect, assimilating or robbing us of our uniqueness in infinite regress to steal our souls, which through her magic of seeing our true selves becomes a Hobgoblin’s Broken Mirror as in in Anderson’s The Snow Queen, fragmented images which multiply our possibilities of becoming human.
In Alien Versus Alien, book six of her Proustian series, these themes include trust and loyalty through the subplot of sexual blackmail by doctored pics, and a secondary themes of refusal to submit to authority and falsification through control of information in the subplot of gaslighting and a mysteriously revoked security clearance used to isolate her from needed information.
There is much shared ground in Surrealism with Absurdism, though Absurdism does not always posit an Infinite Being to whom we are trying to reunite with, especially in its Nihilist form with Samuel Beckett, Thomas Ligotti, and Kobo Abe, but it can as the Pauline Absurdism in Flannery O'Connor's Thomism or in Nicholas of Cusa, precursor of Kurt Gödel’s from whom I derive my epistemology of the Conservation of Ignorance.
Grotesqueries, paradoxes, alarums and terrifying visions, suffering and redemption, the frightening of the horses; Flannery O'Connor, a self-described Thomist, is among the greatest authors the world has ever produced, and possibly the best religious writer of the modern age.
The Violent Bear It Away explores the redemptive power of Love in a world where to live is to suffer; it is a Great Book but not an easy one. Herein Flannery O’Conner offers a definition of Sin, but what is wonderful is the way in which she does so.
Like Coleridge, she used the rich historical symbolism of her faith to describe her insights into the human condition- The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner could even be read as a coda for her work, and The Violent Bear It Away as a direct reply to the Rhyme, so closely aligned and intertwined are they.
Flannery O’Connor has crafted labyrinthine narratives as Stations of the Cross through which her readers may progress toward a Pauline Absurdist faith, with all of the fascinans et tremendum, wonder and terror, that implies.
Flannery O'Connor maps a faith which has transformative powers, can exalt suffering into compassion, in which the faithful can be sublimed by the torment of our mortal condition and wherein the beauty of our humanity is not in our strengths but in our frailties, for we bear the wounds of our humanity which open us to the pain of others and the suffering of the world.
The line of transmission of Absurdist elements in literature as humor and an Absurdism originates with Fyodor Dostoevsky, Lewis Carroll, Nikolai Gogol, and Franz Kafka, develops and diverges from the limits of Humanistic faith with Antonin Artaud, Eugene Ionesco, Witold Gombrowicz, and Albert Camus, and continues today in Haruki Murakami, Kurt Vonnegut, Elif Shafak, and Gini Koch.
As a member of a tradition of Absurdist-Existentialist faith, the works of Gini Koch reference that of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Buber, Flannery O’Connor, and Iris Murdoch, whose exegesis of Platonic philosophy in The Black Prince, a reply to Hamlet, its extension in The Good Apprentice, in which the play of Illusion and Reality, madness and actuality, love, art, all her great themes complicate an inquiry into the nature of the Good, and in her reimagination of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment in The Philosopher’s Pupil illuminate and exalt us in answer to the terror of our nothingness.
“I believe because it is Absurd”, a phrase coined by Voltaire reinterpreting Tertullian’s paradox of credo quia absurdum in De Carne Christi, and referential to Augustine’s City of God 22.5, “Si autem res incredibilis credita est, etiam hoc utique incredibile est, sic creditum esse quod incredibile est”, a phrase wrestled with great eloquence by John Locke and beloved by Sigmund Freud, Ernst Cassirer, and Max Weber, summarizes the Absurdist faith of Gini Koch and of the historical tradition which she bears onward.
Gini Koch’s Aliens series references William Faulkner’s masterpiece Absalom, Absolom! In its themes; a novel which chronicles the fall of the Confederacy in terms of the Biblical Fall of Man and a family history which references the tragedies of Sophocles and the Oresteia of Aeschylus.
Though much of this backstory is alluded to or told parenthetically as a prequel to the royal family civil war and religious schism which resulted in the exile to Earth of her heroes, a multiplicity of clues are left like Ariadne’s Thread for alert readers to assemble the puzzle of both the origin story of the Exile and of the faith which she deftly evades describing but which is a prime driver of her storyline.
These sources and historical models include the aforementioned classical and Biblical sources, but also Shakespeare’s reimagination of these sources; especially the Orestia in MacBeth, Sartre’s The Flies, and Eugene O'Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra, and in parallel lines of transmission Antigone in Othello, and its reimagination by Jean Anouilh in his play Antigone, and the inescapable Oedipus Rex in Hamlet, Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams, and D.M. Thomas’ engagement with Freud in his trilogy The White Hotel, Pictures at an Exhibition, and Eating Pavlova.
Anais Nin wrote the definitive study of his works, D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study, and to a degree Anais Nin wrote her novels as D.H. Lawrence fanfiction, much as Angela Carter wrote her foundational work The Sadeian Woman and her novels as de Sade fanfiction; parallel figures, Anais Nin and her successor Angela Carter.
I have at times wondered if Gini Koch is a scholar of Shakespearean theatre and its echoes and reflections before all else; but this is a subject for a later essay.
In her Aliens series Gini Koch charts the topologies of becoming human as a grand cinematic heroic quest embodied in the figure of Kitty as an avatar through which we can negotiate this labyrinth as a rite of passage, a figure referential to that of Cervantes’ Don Quixote and his shadow, Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
A figure of heroic individualism, of the nobility and beauty of a vision which embraces the Ideal behind the illusion of its outward mask and refuses to surrender this exaltation and rapture to any Authority or force of otherness, Don Quixote is a self-created man, free to forge what meaning and value he can imagine in a universe bereft of any. He is a Promethean figure, a hero of Romantic Idealism but also Existentialist and Humanist in his person, yet affirming an Idealism formed from within, invented rather than discovered, Absurdist in the most modern way.
To believe because we have so chosen, because it is ours, rather than to know because the facts so compel; is this not a definition of faith?
Or was that madness? Shakespeare's Hamlet is a parallel figure, struggling for his humanity and self-ownership as does Don Quixote in a world where reality and truth are equivocal and subjective, a negotiated boundary between self and others. Both authors conceptualize identity as a performance, question and challenge authority and seek redress against asymmetries of power, especially the idea of sin and the doctrine of the depravity of man which is the basis of our law, employ satire and historical revision to these ends, interrogate themes of truth and illusion, and celebrate faith as a chosen madness and Absurdism.
And so we have in Don Quixote a complex, nuanced, conditional, and extremely human hero, who challenges us to be better than we are, as a primary model of Gini Koch’s hero Kitty.
Of her direct model in Surrealism and the literature of madness as revolutionary struggle William Faulkner, whose great themes and signature narrative devices and poetics include madness and the nature of evil, grotesques, stream of consciousness, Rashomon-like multiple perspectives; William Faulkner employed the methods of James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and Ryunosuke Akutagawa in a grand subversion of realism throughout an enormous series of Surrealist alternate reality novels in a brilliantly imagined American South.
Drawing on Shakespearean and Greek tragedies as his sources, as well as a narrative aesthetics and idea of character from Hugo, Zola, and Dickens, he championed vernacular language and the relentless and diverse humanity of ordinary people. And his characters are enmeshed in historical forces beyond their reckoning; class, race, and gender are explored in complex and nuanced prose. His works echo with Nietzschean iconoclasm, the revolutionary poetics of Blake, and the bizarre transgression of de Sade.
William Faulkner was a revolutionary who sought to radically transform his society, a South crippled by the legacy of slavery, by inventing a mythic nightmare South, an imaginal realm in a hobgoblin’s mirror which reveals distortions and flaws in our humanity, thereby robbing them of their power and freeing us. His works are an act of magic, or psychotherapy, which maps the structural maladies we must liberate ourselves from, describing by their negative spaces a new American humanity, free of history and self-creating.
Here is the gateway to the Absurdist faith of Gini Koch, a master key to the code of her novels as therapy journals which put America on the couch to interrogate the subversion of democracy though the internal contradictions of our system and our civilizational collapse in the recent era of the Fourth Reich as failures of our values and as endemic forces of patriarchy, racism, capitalism, and authoritarianism; of fascisms of blood, faith, and soil as madness and as a civilizational crisis of faith.
This authorial intention is best seen in the iconic play which is one of her primary intertexts which she deploys like Margaret Atwood in the composition of her themes, Edward Albee’s Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
With a title taken from the song Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? in the 1933 Disney short film Three Little Pigs, where two of the pigs are convinced they're safe from the wolf in their straw and twig houses, you know that threatening truths will undo the house of illusions George and Martha, emblematic founders of America, have built around themselves.
In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Edward Albee has given us the Great American Play, a mirror in which we see ourselves as we are rather than the illusions we have spun around and through ourselves as a defensive mask. It is about the historical and political consequences of a lie we told at our founding about freedom and equality in a government designed to leave structural power asymmetries of wealth, race, and gender untouched; about the human cost of dysfunctional relationships, and about the implications for meaning and being when the personal and political realms of action collide and change each other.
Here also Gini Koch holds up a mirror to America; and it is a funhouse mirror of distorted images, both comical and grotesque, images which capture and reflect, assimilating or robbing us of our uniqueness in infinite regress to steal our souls, which through her magic of seeing our true selves becomes a Hobgoblin’s Broken Mirror as in in Anderson’s The Snow Queen, fragmented images which multiply our possibilities of becoming human.
In Alien Versus Alien, book six of her Proustian series, these themes include trust and loyalty through the subplot of sexual blackmail by doctored pics, and a secondary themes of refusal to submit to authority and falsification through control of information in the subplot of gaslighting and a mysteriously revoked security clearance used to isolate her from needed information.
There is much shared ground in Surrealism with Absurdism, though Absurdism does not always posit an Infinite Being to whom we are trying to reunite with, especially in its Nihilist form with Samuel Beckett, Thomas Ligotti, and Kobo Abe, but it can as the Pauline Absurdism in Flannery O'Connor's Thomism or in Nicholas of Cusa, precursor of Kurt Gödel’s from whom I derive my epistemology of the Conservation of Ignorance.
Grotesqueries, paradoxes, alarums and terrifying visions, suffering and redemption, the frightening of the horses; Flannery O'Connor, a self-described Thomist, is among the greatest authors the world has ever produced, and possibly the best religious writer of the modern age.
The Violent Bear It Away explores the redemptive power of Love in a world where to live is to suffer; it is a Great Book but not an easy one. Herein Flannery O’Conner offers a definition of Sin, but what is wonderful is the way in which she does so.
Like Coleridge, she used the rich historical symbolism of her faith to describe her insights into the human condition- The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner could even be read as a coda for her work, and The Violent Bear It Away as a direct reply to the Rhyme, so closely aligned and intertwined are they.
Flannery O’Connor has crafted labyrinthine narratives as Stations of the Cross through which her readers may progress toward a Pauline Absurdist faith, with all of the fascinans et tremendum, wonder and terror, that implies.
Flannery O'Connor maps a faith which has transformative powers, can exalt suffering into compassion, in which the faithful can be sublimed by the torment of our mortal condition and wherein the beauty of our humanity is not in our strengths but in our frailties, for we bear the wounds of our humanity which open us to the pain of others and the suffering of the world.
The line of transmission of Absurdist elements in literature as humor and an Absurdism originates with Fyodor Dostoevsky, Lewis Carroll, Nikolai Gogol, and Franz Kafka, develops and diverges from the limits of Humanistic faith with Antonin Artaud, Eugene Ionesco, Witold Gombrowicz, and Albert Camus, and continues today in Haruki Murakami, Kurt Vonnegut, Elif Shafak, and Gini Koch.
As a member of a tradition of Absurdist-Existentialist faith, the works of Gini Koch reference that of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Buber, Flannery O’Connor, and Iris Murdoch, whose exegesis of Platonic philosophy in The Black Prince, a reply to Hamlet, its extension in The Good Apprentice, in which the play of Illusion and Reality, madness and actuality, love, art, all her great themes complicate an inquiry into the nature of the Good, and in her reimagination of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment in The Philosopher’s Pupil illuminate and exalt us in answer to the terror of our nothingness.
“I believe because it is Absurd”, a phrase coined by Voltaire reinterpreting Tertullian’s paradox of credo quia absurdum in De Carne Christi, and referential to Augustine’s City of God 22.5, “Si autem res incredibilis credita est, etiam hoc utique incredibile est, sic creditum esse quod incredibile est”, a phrase wrestled with great eloquence by John Locke and beloved by Sigmund Freud, Ernst Cassirer, and Max Weber, summarizes the Absurdist faith of Gini Koch and of the historical tradition which she bears onward.
August 8, 2018
***2.5***
Well, this one honestly nearly killed the series for me. The two biggest recurring plot threads - Kitty being sidelined, Jeff being a douche - moved into the main plot arc for this book. That coupled with Reader's character being, quite frankly, ruined meant I came pretty close to DNF in the first half.
I hate this transition, with Kitty, Jeff and Christopher being powerless in the Diplomatic Corps and Reader (in particular), Serene and Tim being these egomaniacal douches that order everyone to obey them. Aside from not liking what this does with the characters, I just don't feel like it makes any logical sense. Firstly, because we had been told previously that Diplomatic Corps is a separate branch of the A-C government, serving as a check and balance against the military wing (Centaurion Division). So Reader SHOULD NOT have authority over them, in the same way that Jeff and Christopher did not have authority over the DipCorps when they were Team Evil. The fact that he seems to have that authority now is not only inconsistent, it is concerning. Because... that means the military runs A-C on Earth? They are a military dictatorship - because that's what it is called when your guy in charge is the head of your military division. So, really? Because that's fucked. And it undermines so much of their overall arc. Why are they concerned about being War Division? I mean, who cares, if they are a people already under military rule, right?
Secondly, this makes no sense because it kneecaps the power players. Like, hey, you used to be able to go out and handle stuff, but now you can't without getting a hall pass. And getting snarked at.
In this book, particularly, it just felt like there was boatloads of TSTL stuff happening. Like, hey guys, it is clear the bad guys have manipulated events to keep Kitty out of the loop. Oh well, guess we just do what the bad guys want. Also, who is the one who randomly decided - RIGHT NOW - that Kitty's high security clearance was revoked pending this test? Because she's been working with high security intel for LITERALLY 3 years at this point, and 6-8 months of that was here in DipCorps, so NO, it's not just a thing that had to happen when she transitioned to DipCorps. Frankly, if I wanted to look for the Head Bad Guy, I'd be looking for the guy who revoked her security clearance and set this whole chain of events in motion. But no one - literally no one - even thinks about that at any point in this book.
It wasn't much saved by the coming together of stuff at the end of this book, either, because it felt ... I don't know, jumbled. Like pieces never fit really well, and there was lots of random stuff, and ... at the end of the day, I don't really feel like Kitty - or anyone on the team, really - contributed much to the foiling of the plan. It was very odd to feel like ... honestly, Kitty and team were largely incidental to what was going on. It felt like a heck of a lot of wheel-spinning, and then... *shrug*
I've already bought the next 3 books, so I'm reading on, but not hopeful. This one was pretty dismal. I'd give it 1 star for the first half, 3 stars for the last half as pieces started coming together, but only 2 stars for the resolution.
Well, this one honestly nearly killed the series for me. The two biggest recurring plot threads - Kitty being sidelined, Jeff being a douche - moved into the main plot arc for this book. That coupled with Reader's character being, quite frankly, ruined meant I came pretty close to DNF in the first half.
I hate this transition, with Kitty, Jeff and Christopher being powerless in the Diplomatic Corps and Reader (in particular), Serene and Tim being these egomaniacal douches that order everyone to obey them. Aside from not liking what this does with the characters, I just don't feel like it makes any logical sense. Firstly, because we had been told previously that Diplomatic Corps is a separate branch of the A-C government, serving as a check and balance against the military wing (Centaurion Division). So Reader SHOULD NOT have authority over them, in the same way that Jeff and Christopher did not have authority over the DipCorps when they were Team Evil. The fact that he seems to have that authority now is not only inconsistent, it is concerning. Because... that means the military runs A-C on Earth? They are a military dictatorship - because that's what it is called when your guy in charge is the head of your military division. So, really? Because that's fucked. And it undermines so much of their overall arc. Why are they concerned about being War Division? I mean, who cares, if they are a people already under military rule, right?
Secondly, this makes no sense because it kneecaps the power players. Like, hey, you used to be able to go out and handle stuff, but now you can't without getting a hall pass. And getting snarked at.
In this book, particularly, it just felt like there was boatloads of TSTL stuff happening. Like, hey guys, it is clear the bad guys have manipulated events to keep Kitty out of the loop. Oh well, guess we just do what the bad guys want. Also, who is the one who randomly decided - RIGHT NOW - that Kitty's high security clearance was revoked pending this test? Because she's been working with high security intel for LITERALLY 3 years at this point, and 6-8 months of that was here in DipCorps, so NO, it's not just a thing that had to happen when she transitioned to DipCorps. Frankly, if I wanted to look for the Head Bad Guy, I'd be looking for the guy who revoked her security clearance and set this whole chain of events in motion. But no one - literally no one - even thinks about that at any point in this book.
It wasn't much saved by the coming together of stuff at the end of this book, either, because it felt ... I don't know, jumbled. Like pieces never fit really well, and there was lots of random stuff, and ... at the end of the day, I don't really feel like Kitty - or anyone on the team, really - contributed much to the foiling of the plan. It was very odd to feel like ... honestly, Kitty and team were largely incidental to what was going on. It felt like a heck of a lot of wheel-spinning, and then... *shrug*
I've already bought the next 3 books, so I'm reading on, but not hopeful. This one was pretty dismal. I'd give it 1 star for the first half, 3 stars for the last half as pieces started coming together, but only 2 stars for the resolution.
April 25, 2014
Alien vs. Aliens is the sixth book in Gini Koch's Alien series. The series is an action-packed mix of science fiction and romance with a warp factor pace. There's usually little to no time to breathe when you read.
This book begins with, of course, hints that the bad guys are up to something. It starts with the appearance of some faked but potentially still scandalous pictures of Kitty herself, followed by an assassination attempt on Kitty when she's trying to pass a test that will let her in on some governmental secrets that everyone else seems to already know about. And it rockets right along from there, with strange presents arriving from Alpha Centauri in the form of alien Peregrines, with ambiguous warning notes attached, ACE acting strange but with dire warnings to get everyone to safety, all while Martini, Chuck, and crew are attempting to provide security for the World One festival. Mayhem ensues.
As usual, the action and plot move along at a fast clip, with convoluted plots mixed within plots. Overall, the plotlines here were easy to follow (unlike a few of the previous books in the series), although in this book Kitty is kept in the dark for a good chunk of the book and I have to say it was done with (what I felt) was no good solid reason. I reached a point where I just wanted someone to spill the beans and let her in on all, or at least some, of the secrets being kept from her. Because of this, it felt like it took forever to get to the main plot's big reveal.
I did like that this book went back to some mysteries and loose ends introduced in past books (which I can't reveal because it would be spoilery). But there are at least two major elements from past books that finally get addressed here, and one of those is tied up quite nicely. All while introducing new material as well to keep the series fresh. I also liked (and there are fans of this series out there that will hate me for saying this) that the romance elements that can be far too strong for my taste were almost completely absent here. This was much more an action-packed science fiction book (although not hard SF) than it was a romance book. This may be because part of the plot revolved around the sudden disappearance of Martini and Chuck. Also great was the general abandonment of the rivalry between Martini and Chuck, which (I felt) had been carried on far, far too long in the previous books. They aren't bosom buddies here, but the jealousy thing on Martini's part was absent.
So, lots of good things in this novel. I wouldn't say it was strongest book in the series so far, but it's certainly not the weakest. Probably in my top three for this series. Mostly it's because the plot of this book felt a little looser and not quite as cohesive as in a few of the past books. Looking forward to the next book though.
This book begins with, of course, hints that the bad guys are up to something. It starts with the appearance of some faked but potentially still scandalous pictures of Kitty herself, followed by an assassination attempt on Kitty when she's trying to pass a test that will let her in on some governmental secrets that everyone else seems to already know about. And it rockets right along from there, with strange presents arriving from Alpha Centauri in the form of alien Peregrines, with ambiguous warning notes attached, ACE acting strange but with dire warnings to get everyone to safety, all while Martini, Chuck, and crew are attempting to provide security for the World One festival. Mayhem ensues.
As usual, the action and plot move along at a fast clip, with convoluted plots mixed within plots. Overall, the plotlines here were easy to follow (unlike a few of the previous books in the series), although in this book Kitty is kept in the dark for a good chunk of the book and I have to say it was done with (what I felt) was no good solid reason. I reached a point where I just wanted someone to spill the beans and let her in on all, or at least some, of the secrets being kept from her. Because of this, it felt like it took forever to get to the main plot's big reveal.
I did like that this book went back to some mysteries and loose ends introduced in past books (which I can't reveal because it would be spoilery). But there are at least two major elements from past books that finally get addressed here, and one of those is tied up quite nicely. All while introducing new material as well to keep the series fresh. I also liked (and there are fans of this series out there that will hate me for saying this) that the romance elements that can be far too strong for my taste were almost completely absent here. This was much more an action-packed science fiction book (although not hard SF) than it was a romance book. This may be because part of the plot revolved around the sudden disappearance of Martini and Chuck. Also great was the general abandonment of the rivalry between Martini and Chuck, which (I felt) had been carried on far, far too long in the previous books. They aren't bosom buddies here, but the jealousy thing on Martini's part was absent.
So, lots of good things in this novel. I wouldn't say it was strongest book in the series so far, but it's certainly not the weakest. Probably in my top three for this series. Mostly it's because the plot of this book felt a little looser and not quite as cohesive as in a few of the past books. Looking forward to the next book though.
not-going-there
October 9, 2014GIVE ME THIS BOOK! I CANNOT WAIT! *cry cry cry*
Edit: Okay, now that I have it, I don't want to read it. *sigh* I want to read it, but I don't. Washington has not done any favors to the overall story arc and I'm kinda worried this book is just going to be too much thrown at Kitty & Co at once without Jeff and Chucky being there to keep her sane.
Who am I kidding? I'm totes reading this next weekend.
Another edit: Every Monday, I kick myself for not having taken the time to read this over the weekend. On Friday, I see it on my Kindle and think "I just can't handle it right now." Not only will I not put it down until I'm done and let's face it, I've got shit to do. But I'm actually scared that I'm not going to like it. I've been wondering why I keep putting it off when it's one of my favorite series and I've come to the conclusion that I'm scared I'll be let down. And now we're closing in on the next publication. I need to get over it and just read the damn book, but I'm chicken. So chicken.
And yet another edit: I'm just not feeling it. I've reread the previous books in this series and I've gone over the blurbs and reviews for this and the next few books and I'm just... I think it might actually have gotten too ridiculous for me to continue. It was already ridiculous, but now it just feels like too much. I think... *sigh*... I think I'm giving up.
Edit: Okay, now that I have it, I don't want to read it. *sigh* I want to read it, but I don't. Washington has not done any favors to the overall story arc and I'm kinda worried this book is just going to be too much thrown at Kitty & Co at once without Jeff and Chucky being there to keep her sane.
Who am I kidding? I'm totes reading this next weekend.
Another edit: Every Monday, I kick myself for not having taken the time to read this over the weekend. On Friday, I see it on my Kindle and think "I just can't handle it right now." Not only will I not put it down until I'm done and let's face it, I've got shit to do. But I'm actually scared that I'm not going to like it. I've been wondering why I keep putting it off when it's one of my favorite series and I've come to the conclusion that I'm scared I'll be let down. And now we're closing in on the next publication. I need to get over it and just read the damn book, but I'm chicken. So chicken.
And yet another edit: I'm just not feeling it. I've reread the previous books in this series and I've gone over the blurbs and reviews for this and the next few books and I'm just... I think it might actually have gotten too ridiculous for me to continue. It was already ridiculous, but now it just feels like too much. I think... *sigh*... I think I'm giving up.
March 29, 2016
This series is just so much fun to read and this book is no exception. It's over the top as usual but I found I really loved Kitty when separated from Jeff & Chuckie. Don't get me wrong, I love the gang all together (and I really loved the rundown of whose everyone's Avengers counterpart was), but sometimes the dudes get too much into the macho posturing so it was fun to just have Kitty working through the disaster with the folks on hand. Plus the peregrines of course. I love the AC animals and the peregrines are a great counterpart to the poofs. Seriously, how awesome are the AC animals? I'm prone to be on the animal's side so I even loved Bellie.
As always there was nonstop action and humor. By now I love all the inside jokes, Christopher's "patented glare #whatever", Jeff's bellowing, the conspiracy theorists who are actually right.
I think the tone of this series either works for you or it doesn't. I think that's how it always is with humor. Personally I admit that I'm kind of tired of brooding, destructive superheroes so the fact that Kitty is delighted by her powers so that she can help save the world, and the people she loves, is so refreshing. If I have a complaint is that our cast it so big now I could probably use a character list or family tree or something to remember exactly who everyone is. But that's a pretty minor complaint compared to how much fun I had reading it.
As always there was nonstop action and humor. By now I love all the inside jokes, Christopher's "patented glare #whatever", Jeff's bellowing, the conspiracy theorists who are actually right.
I think the tone of this series either works for you or it doesn't. I think that's how it always is with humor. Personally I admit that I'm kind of tired of brooding, destructive superheroes so the fact that Kitty is delighted by her powers so that she can help save the world, and the people she loves, is so refreshing. If I have a complaint is that our cast it so big now I could probably use a character list or family tree or something to remember exactly who everyone is. But that's a pretty minor complaint compared to how much fun I had reading it.
November 6, 2024
Originally Posted at Welcome to Larissa's Bookish Life
Reading a Gini Koch Novel is like taking a vacation from a job you didn’t even know isn’t that great until you take a break from it. Gini writes literary crack and I for one and not planning to go into rehab anytime soon.
Alien Vs. Alien is all I could have asked for in a Kitty Katt novel. Non-stop, heart stopping action by kick-ass characters that draw you in more and more with each book. One more time Gini Koch gives all the characters we have grow to love involved in out of this world schemes, plots and drama that make it impossible to put down.
I love seeing Kitty and Martini together and dealing with their enemies as a family. The whole AC extended family is always a treat to read about and I was very glad with their developments, especially regarding Chuck! =D
I do have to say that, I would have had a very hard time enjoying Alien Vs, Alien as much as I did, if I hadn’t read the previous books in the series. There are so many overarching plots, small plots, sub-plots, etc; that makes it hard to keep track if you are not intimate with them all from book one.
All in all, Alien Vs. Alien is everything I have come to expect from a Gini Koch book and more. The words she writes are like drugs, every time I finally get my fix, I can’t help wanting much more!
Reading a Gini Koch Novel is like taking a vacation from a job you didn’t even know isn’t that great until you take a break from it. Gini writes literary crack and I for one and not planning to go into rehab anytime soon.
Alien Vs. Alien is all I could have asked for in a Kitty Katt novel. Non-stop, heart stopping action by kick-ass characters that draw you in more and more with each book. One more time Gini Koch gives all the characters we have grow to love involved in out of this world schemes, plots and drama that make it impossible to put down.
I love seeing Kitty and Martini together and dealing with their enemies as a family. The whole AC extended family is always a treat to read about and I was very glad with their developments, especially regarding Chuck! =D
I do have to say that, I would have had a very hard time enjoying Alien Vs, Alien as much as I did, if I hadn’t read the previous books in the series. There are so many overarching plots, small plots, sub-plots, etc; that makes it hard to keep track if you are not intimate with them all from book one.
All in all, Alien Vs. Alien is everything I have come to expect from a Gini Koch book and more. The words she writes are like drugs, every time I finally get my fix, I can’t help wanting much more!
December 3, 2012
Yet another amazing adventure.
This series is addictive and super fun.
I'm amazed how Koch keeps coming up with new, wacky and exciting adventures for Kitty and her friends. Alien vs. Alien is full of intrigue, suspense and has some of the most intense action of the entire series so far.
If I'm completely honest and at my most critical I have to confess that Kitty is maybe a bit too fantastic, a bit too powerful. But if I'm being completely honest anyway I will also have to add that I actually am quite OK with that.
I think Kitty being who and what she is, actually is what makes this series so much fun. Is it believable? When you stop to think about it: no, but Koch's writing grabs you and holds you captive from start to finish and during the over-the-top thrill-ride that is Alien vs. Alien you don't give a rat's ass if things are believable, you just want to keep reading to take it all in and you cheer Kitty and her friends on to save the day once more.
So in conclusion: this book, like all the other books in this series, is awesome and a must read for anyone who likes their SciFi with a firm dose of humor and wit. It will join it's predecessors on my favorites shelf and be reread with the same frequency as them as well.
This series is addictive and super fun.
I'm amazed how Koch keeps coming up with new, wacky and exciting adventures for Kitty and her friends. Alien vs. Alien is full of intrigue, suspense and has some of the most intense action of the entire series so far.
If I'm completely honest and at my most critical I have to confess that Kitty is maybe a bit too fantastic, a bit too powerful. But if I'm being completely honest anyway I will also have to add that I actually am quite OK with that.
I think Kitty being who and what she is, actually is what makes this series so much fun. Is it believable? When you stop to think about it: no, but Koch's writing grabs you and holds you captive from start to finish and during the over-the-top thrill-ride that is Alien vs. Alien you don't give a rat's ass if things are believable, you just want to keep reading to take it all in and you cheer Kitty and her friends on to save the day once more.
So in conclusion: this book, like all the other books in this series, is awesome and a must read for anyone who likes their SciFi with a firm dose of humor and wit. It will join it's predecessors on my favorites shelf and be reread with the same frequency as them as well.
August 3, 2013
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I have no idea why I'm reading this series. It's cheesy. And it's corny. With extra cheese. And I don't like corn with cheese on it. The dish makes no sense. I like both corn and cheese, but when you put them together you can barely taste the cheese. Which is a net neutral for the corn and a net negative for the cheese. This series is a lot like that. I suppose I'll have to call it my guilty pleasure and get on with the review. :)
The book begins with an attempt to blackmail Kitty using faked photos of her and Chuckie (her old boyfriend, who her husband is insanely jealous of, in case you haven't kept up) in an intimate situation. From there it does the usual escalation to end-of-the-world danger. Kitty does her sassy shoot-from-the-hip heroine thing where her insights somehow manage to save the day despite the fact that she refuses to do any studying to learn details that might help her understand the first thing about her resources. (ie "read the boring briefing books")
This story is told in an over-the-top superhero comic style that is just a lot of fun to read with your brain off. At least, it must be since I keep coming back for more. Like I said, it's a guilty pleasure.
The book begins with an attempt to blackmail Kitty using faked photos of her and Chuckie (her old boyfriend, who her husband is insanely jealous of, in case you haven't kept up) in an intimate situation. From there it does the usual escalation to end-of-the-world danger. Kitty does her sassy shoot-from-the-hip heroine thing where her insights somehow manage to save the day despite the fact that she refuses to do any studying to learn details that might help her understand the first thing about her resources. (ie "read the boring briefing books")
This story is told in an over-the-top superhero comic style that is just a lot of fun to read with your brain off. At least, it must be since I keep coming back for more. Like I said, it's a guilty pleasure.
June 24, 2013
*Genre* Science Fiction
*Rating* 3.5-4
*Thoughts*
Yes, I totally just realized that I read this book out of order! I must remedy this situation ASAP reading Alien Diplomacy and then Alien in the House and posting my reviews of all 3! Stay tuned!
Published: December 4th 2012 by DAW
*Rating* 3.5-4
*Thoughts*
Yes, I totally just realized that I read this book out of order! I must remedy this situation ASAP reading Alien Diplomacy and then Alien in the House and posting my reviews of all 3! Stay tuned!
Published: December 4th 2012 by DAW
December 10, 2012
Like to begin to laugh within minutes? This book brings up memories of all that led Kitty Katt to the point she is at now, though one may be driven to reread the first books to fill in gaps. This adds new laughs of a feathery touch. To say more would be spoiler so read and feathers are all over.
July 15, 2017
It's interesting reading the series a second time knowing who the mastermind is. The clues are all there!
December 8, 2016
Oh, wow, this was a huge book! Both the number of words, and the events that happen! So fantastic to read, and I can't wait to read more!
June 11, 2022
She blinked. "What's going on?"
"Oh, the usual crap. Only more of it."
"Oh." She shrugged. "So, routine."
"Yep."
"Oh, the usual crap. Only more of it."
"Oh." She shrugged. "So, routine."
"Yep."
May 25, 2021
Gotta love the snark. Alien vs. Alien was entertaining, fast paced and fun! There's new AC pets! Kitty actually gets jealous (of an attention whore parrot no less)! Big things happen! Alien vs. Alien picks up a months months later. Due to a series of (unfortunate?) events, Kitty doesn't have the security clearance to actually know what's going on, so in typical Kitty fashion--she wings it.
It was refreshing to see Kitty without her normal partners in crime as she figures the plots out and relies on her "random tendencies" to get the job done. Again, I love this series. Koch has delivered again and I can't wait for more.
4/5 stars
“Can I get a bird amen?” Peregrine wings all flapped, there were several coos, and even a couple of hoots. “Can I get a real bird amen?” Peregrines hooted and flapped. They enjoyed the impromptu revival meeting. I looked around the room. Apparently only the Peregrines and I were finding this amusing.
“Wow,” Chuckie said finally, breaking the horrified human and A-C silence in the room. “You’ve become Doctor Doolittle.”
It was refreshing to see Kitty without her normal partners in crime as she figures the plots out and relies on her "random tendencies" to get the job done. Again, I love this series. Koch has delivered again and I can't wait for more.
4/5 stars
December 22, 2017
Empiezo a tener mayores espectativas con esta serie de lo que luego me encuentro.
Kitty sigue siendo la caña, y los personajes, todos, siguen siendo muy interesantes, pero ya no es como al principio, donde había acción sin parar. Ahora Kitty ha entrado en política. Quizás solo como diplomática, pero sin duda esto irá a más, y aunque los malvados megalómanos siguen considerándola un enemigo a abatir, ahora lo hacen de una manera más sutil o, al menos, no tan directa. Y eso hace que la acción sea mucho menor.
Sobre sus nuevos poderes tengo sentimientos encontrados, ya que podrían ser geniales para las escenas de acción, pero como de hecho hay ahora menos, no tengo muy claro que vayan a servir de mucho, salvo para meter más animales extraterrestres y que den más juego que lo que daría cualquier animal en una novela que no trate de animales.
Kitty sigue siendo la caña, y los personajes, todos, siguen siendo muy interesantes, pero ya no es como al principio, donde había acción sin parar. Ahora Kitty ha entrado en política. Quizás solo como diplomática, pero sin duda esto irá a más, y aunque los malvados megalómanos siguen considerándola un enemigo a abatir, ahora lo hacen de una manera más sutil o, al menos, no tan directa. Y eso hace que la acción sea mucho menor.
Sobre sus nuevos poderes tengo sentimientos encontrados, ya que podrían ser geniales para las escenas de acción, pero como de hecho hay ahora menos, no tengo muy claro que vayan a servir de mucho, salvo para meter más animales extraterrestres y que den más juego que lo que daría cualquier animal en una novela que no trate de animales.
June 28, 2023
I feel like I’ve said this before in reviews of the series but I really have to be careful not to let so much time go by in between installments because it’s very easy to get tripped up on what happened when and it’s incredibly easy to forget whole stretches. But the author helps remind you and keep you caught up so that helps. I love the sense of humor in these books, and just the way they are written to be, interesting yet not super serious you know? I mean they definitely have an organize plot but you just don’t know where it’s going to go next or which character is going to be a smart ass. Honestly, a lot of the time I feel like I’m along for the ride and just sort of going with the flow.
April 15, 2019
Mmmmm, this was all over the place. I love the characters, and those adorable Poofs!, but all this political maneuvering is just getting me down. I like the premise, but it shoehorned so much into the book that I felt like I never got the chance to just take a breath, slow down, and relax with the characters. There was always something happening that required Kitty. But for all the problems I had, I did love the latest Royal gifts, and how Kitty is da boss.
Will read the next book in the hopes that life at the Embassy settles into some semblance of a routine and we can get back to some serious conspiracy hunting.
3 stars for the Poofs, and Bruno and Lola 😉
Will read the next book in the hopes that life at the Embassy settles into some semblance of a routine and we can get back to some serious conspiracy hunting.
3 stars for the Poofs, and Bruno and Lola 😉
August 18, 2019
The first 100 pages were a struggle to get through… Nothing captured my interest enough to want to keep reading but something about this series is so compelling to me. Each one seems to be nowhere near the best book I’ve ever read and some aspects of it are really obnoxious (particularly Kitty’s attitude in this book) but something keeps bringing me back to them. I will say at this point there are way too many characters and it’s rather overwhelming but these books are fun reads that are action packed and enjoyable.
August 4, 2021
Like a favorite cookie, coffee or cocktail, Gini's books delight deliciously and make me want more (but with much fewer calories)
Always funny, suspenseful with just the right amount of heat, and enough Easter Eggs to fill any Geek basket with joy. Second time reading the whole series. Third time for this book and if anything, I enjoyed it even more.
Always funny, suspenseful with just the right amount of heat, and enough Easter Eggs to fill any Geek basket with joy. Second time reading the whole series. Third time for this book and if anything, I enjoyed it even more.
September 21, 2017
This is my favorite one so far and it's because Koch's leading lady and her hubbies were rarely together. Generally, I find the mutually obsessive relationship tedious. In fact, not sure why I keep reading the series...
February 7, 2018
Peregrines! Wasn't sure I liked them when they arrived, but they've been great. Although I never think of them as looking like peacocks in my head. Settling down in DC and navigating the world of politics.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 4, 2018
Wieder viel besser als der Vorgängerband. Kittys Witz, Charme und Spekulationstalent sind hier wieder auf dem absoluten Höhepunkt und sie ist in mehr Action verwickelt, auch wenn dahingehend das Finale noch ein kleinwenig ausbaufähig gewesen wäre.
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