I'll certainly be reading more Russo sooner rather than later. I'm not sure what others were expecting, but I was expecting a good space-based horror novel, and instead I got a great one, with memorable characters and and a fast-paced narrative that's constantly moving forward. There's an ever-present sense of wrongness throughout the latter sections, which I loved, and the alien ship is truly just that. Suffice to say, it's creepy as hell, and the first-person narration by Bartolomeo is very engaging, so much so that I read all 370 pages in two sittings. I've left a LOT out of my description, due to the fact that I'd rather not give away too much of what makes this novel so compelling. But Bartolomeo is eventually chosen to lead a hand-picked crew to explore the awesome and awe-ful ship. But things get really interesting once the ship comes across the gigantic derelict craft, which gives off such an ominous, evil vibe that many feel they should just leave it behind, even though it's a monumental discovery (no signs of alien life have ever been discovered before as far as they know). The early sections of the novel deal a lot with ship politics, and it's actually pretty interesting due to all the shady plots of insurrection going on behind the captain's back. Some, like the ship's bishop, believe it has always existed. The ship has been traveling through the galaxy for so long in search of a habitable planet that no one really knows the ship's origin.

It's told in the first person by Bartolomeo, resident of the upper levels of the generation starship Argonos, which is where the more privileged citizens of the ship reside (government officials, ship crew, etc.), while the bottom levels are reserved for the lower classes. The horrors here are much more psychological than the 'slasher in space' feel of the movie, however. Though considering Alien is probably my all-time favorite horror film, and a top two or three science-fiction film ( Blade Runner will always be tops in my book), I may be slightly biased, as this does have a pretty similar feel, in that a seemingly-abandoned alien spaceship is discovered by the crew of a human-occupied ship. I see a lot of mixed reviews here, but to me, Ship of Fools was an extremely eerie and intense hybrid of horror and space opera*.

Ship of fools richard paul russo