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The Host by Stephenie Meyer
01/06/2008 . Source: Sue Davies 
pub: Sphere/Little Brown. 631 page hardback. Price: £14.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-84744-183-6. Buy The Host in the USA - or Buy The Host in the UK  check out websites: www.atombooks.co.ukwww.littlebrown.co.uk and www.stepheniemeyer.co.uk
Imagine yourself as an inter-planetary traveller. You exist as a small symbiot with no true body of your own. Going to a new planet means that you slip into the dominant life-form to experience the richness of living as another species. It's a wonderful life and can be extended as long as you please. All of your species does this. It is the chance to explore worlds and live multiple lives.
Imagine then when you get to a planet to take over its dominant species and that species objects rather loudly. Imagine you slip into the body and the mind refuses to leave. Imagine having shouting matches in your own head with the being you have tried to obliterate.
Such is the premise of 'The Host', the latest book from Stephanie Meyer. Her previous successful trilogy about the problems of vampires co-existing with humans has given her cause to think about the body-snatchers that haunted the TV and cinema in the 1950s and 60s. Before we only saw the human side. The fear of being replaced and being totally erased from existence is a very strong one in humans. How clever then to turn it around and consider how the symbiot might feel. Just to further muddy the waters these symbiots call themselves 'souls'.
Wanderer, the soul, is given the body of a rebel, Melanie Stryder, shot down whilst trying to escape who would prefer to die rather than submit to the invader. How surprising that Wanderer is not alone in her head and Melanie makes her definite presence felt. What begins as a battle for survival for both of them turns into a reluctant team as together they attempt to locate Melanie's brother and her one-time lover, Jared. Complications ensue, of course, as Wanderer with Melanie's face encounters fear, hostility and death threats. Wanderer find herself drawn to Jared but Melanie, trapped within her mind and with no senses of her own, rages against the prospect of being superseded by the new model.
Deep thoughts about the nature of existence are now the stuff of teenage fiction and, alongside Phil Pullman's epic denunciation of God in the 'Dark Materials Trilogy', this book has a great stab at what the meaning of the soul is and how relevant personal appearance is to the person inside. There are also the ethics of assuming that other species are not as important as yourself.
I really like the way this novel approaches these deep thoughts and combines it with lots of plot activity and character development. With some novels you just want the time back but this one I felt rewarded the time spent with it. This is a very worthwhile book which throws up lots of talking and thinking points and is far more rewarding than the original body-snatching premise.
Sue Davies
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