Review: Alien Proliferation by Gini Koch

The Kitty Katt series has reluctantly become one of my favorites. Though written in the style of a humorous urban fantasy, this series is sci-fi all the way (though thankfully, it’s dispensed with most of the incomprehensible technical jargon after the first book). While I’m not really a sci-fi girl, it was actually the humor that turned me off initially. Kitty was too sarcastic, the A-C’s were too unbelievable, and the plot elements were insanely over-the-top. Kitty and Martini were too instantly attracted to each other, and the sex was too gratuitous. It didn’t work for me for nearly three-fourths of the book, but then all of a sudden it did. The end scene was crazy and goofy, Kitty managed to kick some ass, and I realized that I was trying too hard to fit this series into the typical mold that I had ascribed to it. For the second book, I decided to just go with the flow, and wound up falling in love with the characters and the humor. Kitty manages to land herself in some seriously strange situations, but I don’t doubt her capability to get herself out of them. While she might have come across as a little too Mary Sue at first, as the series has progressed I’ve come to believe in her as a character, rock-and-roll obsession and all.

Alien Proliferation by Gini Koch

While I found the first two books to be solid entertainment, I loved the third. Alien in the Family delivered all of the action I’d come to expect from the previous books, but it added a layer of sentimentality that I wasn’t expecting. The last fourth of the book takes place after the crisis has been averted, and I appreciated Koch’s decision to simply stand back and let the characters take center stage at this pivotal time in their lives. If I’d loved Kitty’s friends before, I adored them now. The revelations about Kitty and Reader’s relationship were shocking yet lovely, and her interactions with Martini felt real despite their abrupt, lust-laden start.

To say that I was expecting a lot of Alien Proliferation would be putting it mildly. Sadly, though the book had over 450 pages with which to wow me, it couldn’t meet the high standard set by its predecessor. Kitty and friends are great company as always, yet I felt that this one lacked the sense of urgency felt in previous installments. Perhaps that was a conscious decision on Koch’s part, wanting to spotlight Kitty and Jeff’s introduction into parenthood rather than amp up the steamy scenes and the action, yet while it was great to see the main characters so clearly content with their lives, I didn’t really feel like Koch added anything new. All of the characters are still awesome (some perhaps more obviously so after this installment), yet the personal revelations seemed to rehash what we’ve already seen. Not being a mother myself, I didn’t relate as much as I might have to Kitty’s new maternal role, but that might also be because she doesn’t seem to dwell on it too much herself. She complains constantly about her “torpedoes,” thinks her baby is the best in the world (which is understandable), but that’s really about it. I actually found little baby Martini to be a bit creepy myself; I won’t explain why, since that would ruin some surprises for those who haven’t yet read it, but suffice it to say, she gives Renesmee a run for her money (and for those who recognize that I just made a Breaking Dawn reference, please try to ignore it).

To be sure, there are some important plot developments in this book, the ramifications of which I’m sure we’ll be seeing in upcoming installments. Overall, though, the plot never really captured me. Combined with a small grievance I had concerning the writing (namely, overuse of certain catch-phrases combined with truncated sentence fragments), this one didn’t live up to my expectations.