Rich Larson began writing short stories in 2011 and quickly established himself as a prolific wunderkind of speculative fiction. Larson's full-length debut, The Annex, is an ambitious and energetic coming-of-age thriller in which a group of orphans fight to survive in a town devastated by alien invaders.
The aliens have turned adults into catatonic zombies. They also imprison children in warehouses to serve as hosts for parasitic "keys" that, when fully mature, will open a dimensional door to other invaders. The parasites endow some children with varying abilities to "shift" objects; these kids must be sedated by their robotic overseers. A group of warehouse escapees known as the Lost Boys, led by Wyatt and Violet, rebel and attack the robotic "othermothers" sent to recapture them. When Violet encounters new escapee Bo on a foraging mission, she invites him to join the group, where his presence threatens to upset its balances of power and allegiance.
The first in a projected series, The Annex alternates between Violet and Bo, highlighting the fluctuating dynamics in their complicated relationship: their yearning for belonging, fear of abandonment and struggle to develop a post-invasion identity. Larson's creatures draw inspiration from H.R. Giger (Alien) but evolve into something more sinister. And while Larson's plot follows many genre tropes, he infuses the story with his own spin to create a moving alien invasion narrative that captures the joys and cruelties of adolescence in a rapidly changing world. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant