Invasion at Bald Eagle

by Kris Ashton

A malicious alien race as old as the universe itself has invaded Earth. Standing between them and the annihilation of the human race: an aging sheriff, the hippie who stole his daughter, a prissy bureaucrat and a booze-addled reporter.

We could be in trouble.

When the residents of Bald Eagle, Colorado, begin to act strangely, Sheriff Bert Grayson suspects hippie guru Derek Brolin is to blame. But Brolin has a very different story to tell – one about a mysterious silver object that changed the members of his new commune in terrifying ways.

Bert is skeptical, not least because Brolin has been conducting a secret affair with Bert’s daughter. But as Bald Eagle’s residents begin to disappear, the lawman must accept what Brolin has tried to tell him: his sleepy town has become Ground Zero for an extra-terrestrial invasion.

Bert rounds up a ragtag band of deputies to try to repel the creatures, but he is about to discover the alien invaders are not the most imminent threat to his beloved town.

A compulsively readable tale that peers into humanity’s darkest recesses, Invasion at Bald Eagle recalls the golden age of horror fiction.

306 pages, Paperback

First published January 22, 2015

About the author

Award-winning writer and editor Kris Ashton has published four novels, nearly fifty short stories, and numerous essays and reviews. His work has appeared in Aurealis, Midnight Echo, Andromeda Spaceways and many international titles, including The Fiction Desk.

Graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from Western Sydney University in 1997, he has had a 25-year career as a journalist and is currently associate editor of Open Road, one of the longest running and most widely read magazines in Australia.

He lives in the wilds of western Sydney with his wife, two children, and a crippling mortgage.

Reviews

[Gilbert Stack · Rating 4 out of 5]

This promising tale of alien invasion in a sparsely populated Colorado town in the 1960s has a lot going for it despite taking a swerve toward the parody Sex Zombies in the first third of the story. Bald Eagle is a tiny little place with one hotel, a two-man sheriff’s department, a weekly newspaper, a nuclear plant and a hippie commune. Life is pretty tame in Bald Eagle despite the fact that the hippies enjoy protesting nuclear power and the manager of the facility freaks out every time they arrive with their signs. Bert, the sheriff, is pretty laid back and sensible about his job, at least until he discovers that his daughter, Sharna, who is supposed to be in Denver has actually joined the commune and its free love lifestyle.

While the sheriff tries to figure out how to stick all the hippies in jail without forever alienating Sharna, strange things begin happening at the commune. A silver egg plummets from the sky into the lettuce patch and “stings” the hippie who picks it up. The next day he begins to act stranger than usual as does the woman he sleeps with a short while later. This is where the Sex Zombies parallel comes in as the “strangeness” spreads like a venereal disease in the free love community (and later in the larger area of Bald Eagle).

I don’t want to give too much away, but things really start to heat up when Derek, the leader of the commune, gets undeniable evidence that his fellow hippies aren’t just sick, but have something sinisterly wrong with them. He runs for it, eventually encountering the sheriff who locks him up and is uninterested in stories revolving around strange eggs from the sky and the changes they have wrought on a hippie commune. Yet within a couple of days, the sheriff can’t pretend that the problems growing in his town (a large number of disappearing persons and more of the silver eggs) are all originating from hippies taking bad drugs and he is forced to deputize Derek, plus the head of the local nuclear plant and a journalist in an attempt to save his community. The federal government also gets involved but they seem more intent on quarantining the town and wiping all the infected out than in helping people.

This is where this novel goes from being merely entertaining to gripping. These unlikely defenders of humanity have to come up with a plan to save Bald Eagle—both its handful of uninfected residents and those who have already been contaminated by the eggs. Their plan is a little hokey but frankly, with the pressure they are under, it’s totally believable they would try it. One of the strengths of the story is how Ashton deals with this effort and the extraordinary pressure on these men as they try to save everyone—especially the handful of very young kids who seem to be immune to the contagion. People you come to like die painfully and frankly I quickly reached the point where I couldn’t figure out how anyone was going to survive the crisis.

If you enjoy a good mystery turned horror-thriller, you’ll like Invasion of Bald Eagle. I know I did.

If you liked this review, you can find more at www.gilbertstack.com/reviews.

[I C Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

First read by this author

And have to say I thoroughly enjoyed this story.
Good characters and story line that could possibly be extended to another novel or even Trilogy?
Well recommended if you like Alien Invasion Sci-Fi

[Amanda Cookson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intresting read but no mrntiin of what tje second or sequel left like a cliff hanger

Enjoyable read very good portrayal of characters. Liked the story not my usual read but will be reading more from this aithor

[Jenneth Orantia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a thoroughly enjoyable read. Invasion at Bald Eagle has a very Stephen King-like quality to it, with spooky things happening in everyday life, gradually escalating to craziness but tackled head-on by an unlikely band of heroes.

The characters are well-developed and likeable, even with their flaws, and Kris Ashton has created a fictional scenario that's detailed enough to be believable.

Highly recommended as a fun summer read. Can't wait to read this author's other books!

[T.W. Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was fortunate to be introduced to Kris Ashton via the short story. I am equally pleased that his talent extends to the full length novel.

I received an ARC of this title and took far too long to dive in. Once I did, it was quickly apparent that the story-telling ability does not get diluted with a larger offering. This is a pulpy tale that has enough going on to keep you turning the pages well into the night once you get started.

This is a good old-fashioned science fiction story that has a few twists and turns to keep you interested all the way to the end. I found a few Indie editing errors, but overall there was little to detract from the experience of a very good book.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

How can you not love a book that begins, "The whiskery, alien mouth pouted and gasped for air"? I was hooked. Kris Ashton executes a great plot and well rounded characters that had me engrossed. His words ricocheted from one page to the next. He's an Aussie Stephen King who has created a whacky set of ingredients to make a riveting read. Aliens, hippies, a rag tag bunch of sheriffs and a boozy reporter on a roller coaster ride. Highly recommend for sci fi horror readers.