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The Host | 
 enlarge | Author: Stephenie Meyer
Publisher: Sphere
Category: Book
List Price: £14.99
Buy New: £7.31
You Save: £7.68 (51%)
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Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 360
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 617
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 8.7 x 5.5 x 2.1
ISBN: 1847441831
EAN: 9781847441836
ASIN: 1847441831
Publication Date: May 6, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: brand new, quick dispatch
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 Soul Survivors July 10, 2008
Zarla (UK)
This is an unusual sci-fi novel in that the souls have succeeded in creating a utopia rather than a dystopia. I really liked the originality of this and the idea of the silver souls being inserted into the brain of humans and making them a more peaceful species.
As far as characterisation goes, Jared and Ian have an awful lot in common with Edward and Jacob from Twilight - roaring, snarling, growling and throwing punches at the slightest provocation. Melanie/Wanda is torn between the two, just like Bella is torn between Edward and Jacob. I think Ian could have done a bit less roaring as we are supposed to see him as a gentle character who appreciates the gentleness in Wanda, rather than a fiery, feisty type like Jared who loves the fierce Melanie.
Another inconsistency was the idea that Wanda could only experience a sense of smell for the first time as a human - what happened to her sense of smell when she was a Bear? Then there is the description of her gorging out the soul from a bear with knife like hands - how does this correlate to the delicate operation she describes to Doc at the end of the text, when you have to feel for the nodule? How would she have done that with knife like bear hands?
Still a compelling read for me because I love all the action phrases and knowing what they look like and do. The ending was perfect - I really hated the idea of Wanda going on to reproduce hundreds of silver souls but die herself so was pleased with the lovely, joyous last chapter.
 Epic new series for Vampire Author July 7, 2008
Gareth Wilson
Renowned for her Vampire love story that began in Twilight it was a bit of a departure with this Sci-Fi offering that's part Stargate part Terminator where the aptly named Wanderer becomes implanted in freedom fighter Mel. Yet instead of letting go Mel mentally fights against Wanderer in order to keep hold of her body so that the two have no choice but to work together to further their co-existance. Wonderfully adaptive, highly interesting and above all a tale that makes you face many questions in much the same way that Stephs other books do. Highly invocative with the discussions between the two principle protagonists (or should that be the singular with it being one body?) and definitely a book to recommend to others that will allow the readers to experience a whole new type of Sci-fi.
 Hmmm... July 3, 2008
M. Atkinson (UK)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Although often exciting and eventful, The Host grated on me for a number of reasons. Told in the first person by the invading parasite Wanderer (later known as Wanda) the broad strokes of the story are fine. But underneath the quasi-sci-fi elements and the love quadrangle lies a low-grade sexism, some disturbing ideas about sexuality (along the lines of "this body didn't belong to me or to Melanie, but to Jared,") and an awful of lot crying, whimpering and cringing. The men are angry and violent, and the invading Souls are the only ones depicted with any compassion. Not to be too sarcastic, but "have a little humanity" is a phrase this author perhaps hasn't encountered. The Soul's compassion for one another is deeply ironic given their complete disregard for the original owners of the bodies they wear.
We also come across the pervasive, lazy sci-fi element of alien worlds having only a single eco-system (the ocean world, the ice world, the mist world, etc.) Having a planet with arctic, temperate and tropical climates is apparently as much of a stretch as having a single character with multiple motivations. Admittedly the sci-fi is kept to a minimum, presumably so as not to scare the genre-nervous, but the best fiction starts from fact.
This is obviously a pet peeve of mine.
I would not recommend this to any impressionalbe teenage girl as the Wanderer-Jared relationship is very close that of an abused spouse and her abuser. Any relationship that ever involves flinching is not one to base your forming romantic notions on. Other relationships in the book are controlling, and even Wanderer's final decision is disrespectfully reversed with neither her knowledge or consent.
And I almost tossed this out a window when a character expressed the opinion that virtue equals prettiness. My buck teeth and acne mean I torture puppies, obviously.
Having said that, I enjoyed the bulk of it, I wanted to find out what happened and it hasn't put me off the author. Wish me luck with Twilight.
Thoughtful and adult July 3, 2008
Pale Jesson (London)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Like many people I came to this book after reading about the Meyer phenomenon. What I found in The Host was a serious, crisp and beautifully thought-out delineation of a possible future world in which human irrationality has been replaced with alien logic. The results, both comic and serious, are considered by Meyer with admirable balance. The future world is liberated from mania, from violence and fanaticism, but it is also bereft of romanticism, longing and art. Its two heroines, Melanie and Wanderer, are intelligent, resourceful and tough - alien and human souls learn from each other in this clever, philosophical take on the old Close Encounters idea. Highly recommended.
Stephenie who? June 13, 2008
IanW (Sunderland, UK)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Unlike the other reviewers of this book, I'd never heard of the author until I read a review in SFX magazine which caused me to be interested enough to seek it out in the library where I work. Also unlike the other reviewers I'm a dyed-in-the-wool science fiction fan.
And I thought it was pretty good.
The plot is a variant on the old SF standby, the parasitical alien invader which is to be found in Jack Finney's original novel Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the countless (well, four) movies made from it. There's also Robert Heinlein's equally paranoid Puppet Masters (also filmed). But what Meyer does is to look at the world after the parasites have won and, and I don't think I'm being sexist here, this could only have been written by a woman. From a male point of view, the aliens have won, it's over, we're dead. Or in Heinlein's case, WE CAN'T LOSE! KILL! DESTROY! DEATH AND DESTRUCTION! (the last three words, memory tells me, is a precise quote from the end of his book).
Wanderer, our narrator and worm-like parasite, is reborn in a human body after years on a series of other worlds and in other forms. She expects the host's soul to be gone as they have always been in the past. Her host's mind, however, is still very active and, reaching an accomodation with it, they go in search of her younger brother and boyfriend. Quite early on they are captured by rogue humans.
And at this point I thought if the rest of the novel is about her experiences underground then I'm giving up. It was (in the main) and I didn't, though my synopsis ends here as I don't want to give too much away.
Meyer visits places most other SF writers don't go. She writes well and the character of Wanderer is absorbing. The parasites are not presented as monsters and, in many ways, they are better than humanity which is presented as far from angelic. Human in fact.
This is a warm and thoughtful novel. I'd like to see Meyer try adult SF again (she's better known for her teenage vampire romance series -which I've just started to read), though not, as I've heard she is doing, by writing a sequel to The Host. As far as I'm concerned she's said everything she needs to say on this topic and sequels are redundant.
Not that that will stop me reading it.
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