Invasion is a 2015 novel by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant. It focuses on a shrewd film studio executive trying to get his dysfunctional family from New York to safety at a bunker in Colorado as pandemonium erupts across the world due to news of alien ships discovered heading towards Earth, set to arrive in a few days. It is the first in a series.
Invasion provides the following tropes:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The novel takes some years in the future:
- Almost every car is self-driving (though can be manually piloted at the driver's whim) and some gas stations are unmanned and automated.
- The teenagers in the story do not remember a time when every car had to be manually piloted. "Manual" in this universe doesn't refer to shifting the gears manually, but actually driving the car with your own hands.
- In the sequel Contact, the teenagers don't know what microwave ovens are and have to have them explained to them by an older man.
- Absent Aliens: The aliens are on the way but haven't arrived yet. Even in the sequel, after the aliens arrive, the protagonists have yet to encounter them.
- Big Applesauce: Lampshaded. The hero remarks that they should get the hell as far away from New York City as possible, as all the bad stuff always ends up happening there in movies (and real life).
- The Big Rotten Apple: When news of the aliens' impending arrival hits, New York City descends into chaos.
- Canada Does Not Exist: Lampshaded, one of the characters remarks that they should head to Canada to escape the alien invasion as nothing ever happens there in the movies.
- From New York to Nowhere: The story revolves around driving from New York City to Vail, Colorado, driving through rural locales like Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Iowa.
- Gender Incompetence: Pretty much all the women in the story are completely incompetent, useless, and do nothing except whine and moan, getting themselves into trouble to be rescued by the more competent male hero. The narrator of the audiobook (a man at that) does a good job of conveying this.
- Monumental Damage: At the end, Moscow is destroyed by one of the alien ships in a huge explosion after the Russians shoot at the ship.
- Road Trip Plot: The story revolves around driving from New York City to Vail, Colorado amidst a global calamity.
- Starfish Aliens: The ships at least; they're just round spheres.
