Reviewed by: Marianne Dyson, July 14, 2003 (Updates on July 27, 2003)
ParasitePig is a sequel to InterstellarPig. The main character is 16-year-old boy named Barney who previously metup with a bunch of aliens playing an interstellar game to capture somethingcalled the piggy. Now working after school at a library to pay for the damagesthe aliens did to his parents' beach house in the last book, he starts a newadventure by recruiting another player to what he thinks is now just a boardgame. The recruit is an alien tapeworm who kidnaps Barney to help win the real game.Another alien kidnaps Barney's friend Katie. Barney has a parasite in his brainthat controls his behavior through hormones, but also gives him immunity to analien lichen that has the piggy. The parasite needs Barney to be eaten by aliencrabs in order to complete her life cycle. Barney and Katie end up prisoners ofthe human-eating crabs. Katie helps Barney overcome the parasite's control, escapethe crabs, get the piggy, and return to Earth with the tapeworm alien.
I'mnot a biologist, but I found it rather implausible that the simplest of life forms,cysts and tapeworms and especially lichen, could be self-aware, develop FTL starships,and have telepathic powers. The book says the aliens believe the one withthe piggy at the end of the game is the only one to survive. But it was never clear to me why species withincompatible biology would compete against each other for survival. (Perhaps this was covered in the previous book which I haven't read?) It wasalso difficult to believe that aliens would find humans edible (we can't eveneat most of the living things on our own planet), and certainly not likely thata self-aware cyst would evolve to use imported humans as a host to complete herlife cycle. How this same cyst would then provide immunity to yet another alienlife - a lichen that can move like a slime mold and eats everything in its path- is just, well, nonsensical. The token game "rule" that some of the aliens mustuse breathing masks to visit various planets seems silly alongsidethese illogical assumptions. However, this is fiction, and no one can say thatthese things are impossible. It certainly was creative and humorous to have a tapeworm as a primarycharacter.
Barneyis concerned that his onboard weeks will be months or years back on Earthbecause of time dilation effects. The alien tells him not to worry, that bygoing faster than light (FTL), the time passage will balance out. Currentphysics states that nothing can go FTL, and that only light can go that fast. Asa body speeds up to light speed, its mass becomes infinite, and its time (asviewed by the outside observer) slows to a stop. It is not clear what wouldhappen if a body could go faster than light because that is considered impossible.The math seems to indicate that objects might appear to move backwards in time theway a slower car seems to fall behind another on the freeway even though bothare moving forward. So perhaps the alien is correct saying that time wouldbalance out in this impossible situation. However, instead of using FTL driveto avoid time dilation and communication problems, I would have preferred thealiens slip in and out of wormholes or other dimensions - both of which areallowed though unproven to exist by current science. Still, the use of FTL isso commonplace in science fiction, I can't really take off any points for this.I applaud the author's mention of relativity and offering a plausibleexplanation rather than ignoring the problem altogether.
Anothertechnology used in this book is called a disguise selector. The person or alienpresses a button and becomes some other shape. Barney and Katie use it to becrabs, and must learn to walk and see sideways. This gadget makes as much senseas a Star Trek transporter (another thing these aliens have), in other words,it doesn't. It probably works by the same principles as the impossible FTLdrive. The author wisely didn't make up some techno-babble to explain thesethings, but rather just used them like we would use a microwave or car withoutstopping to explain how they work.
Experiencedreaders who expect the kind of characterization and plot complexity found inHarry Potter will be disappointed with Barney and his story. He is about asunsophisticated as the purple TV character of the same name. (Whose image I hadtrouble getting out of my head, especially when Barney is inside a dinosaurwith the tapeworm. Was this on purpose?) Reading about his experiences in the previous book, it justwasn't credible that he could be so easily fooled into thinking the alienplayer was a human. In this and his reactions to being kidnapped and imprisoned,he came across as a gullible, yet likeable, 12-year-old. He's supposed to be16. His deepest thoughts were about his mother's cooking. The gross descriptionsof the tapeworm's habitat and of two girls being tortured by the crabs are sureto entertain 9-year-old boys, but will probably have girls of any age lookingfor something else to read. It wasn't the grossness that bothered me as much asthe fact that the kids didn't try to rescue these girls or any of their fellowvictims. They selfishly just got themselves out and went home. They showed morekindness to the dumb dinosaur. I think the book is best suited for 8-12year-old boys who haven't done much reading, and thus won't easily guess whatmust happen next.
Igive this book 1 point for consistency, 1 point for interesting alien characters,1 point for clarity of descriptions and terms, and 1 point for readability (Ididn't find even one typo!). It loses 1 point for not using science in the plotor solution of the problem, and 1 point for providing no insight or newperspective on the future. Total: 4 points. Parasite Pig is a "grossly"entertaining book with no real science content that may be most enjoyed bymiddle-grade, and mostly male, readers. Rating: Okay.
