Morpho

Morpho (NewCon Press Novellas Set 5 Book 2)
by Philip Palmer

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NKLBB1D?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_tkin_1&storeType=ebooks



I like the idea behind the NewCon Press Novella series. NewCon Press collects four novellas per series from different authors around a common idea. The novellas have no relationship to each other. They are just variations on a theme. For example, Set 5 explores “The Alien Among Us.”

Novellas are cool. Because they are shorter than novels, they have to cut out a lot of fat. But they are longer than short stories, so there is some room to explore character.

In this case, we spend the early parts of the book wondering what is going on. We seem to have two people who are really old and really hard to kill. We might be thinking “vampires,” but they walk in the daylight and don't seem to be drinking blood.

We learn that these people are being hunted. They seem to be monitored by some government. Their blood has surprising life extension effects for humans.

One of them is “killed,” but wakes up in the morgue where she gives a kind of gift to surprised attendant. That starts the attendant's introduction to this alien among us.

I didn't find this NewCon Press novella to be as successful as the other novellas I've read. The perspective jumps were sometimes hard to follow. I am not sure that I approve of an alien invasive species being portrayed as a good thing. On the other hand, the author did provide us with a glimpse of the alien among us. The story read well, and the characters were interesting.