A review by porcelainheart_
Hunted By The Alien General by A.M. Griffin

3.0

I had been meaning to review this one for a while, but got sidetracked.

I was on the fence about reading this book for a while. After reading the first in the series, and getting to know who each of the other characters are, the only character that really stood out to me was Miranda, if only for the circumstances of her abduction and the situation she found herself in. Ben seemed like he would do okay by himself, and the conflict wasn't obvious at first. Realizing this made up my mind to read the book.

As we learned in the first book, Ben is a U.S. Marine. He was serving a deployment in Afghanistan at the time of his abduction, and he adapts to the Hunt's taxing survival conditions like it's second nature to him. Ben was originally partnered with Esme from the first book

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and Miranda from the fourth book, before she ultimately split from their group

, and an injury separates the two. Ben spends a grueling several days hiding in several hard-to-reach spots from the various alien hunters who want to capture him, but one of them is persistent.

The hunter in question is Adiya Yamma. She's from a planet called Sigi, where she rules as General, over a race of people she belongs to called the Skets. The military distinction isn't just for show. Adiya is a fierce and capable fighter, and has no problem dispatching the other hunters who get in her way. Her participation in the Hunt is strategical - her reign as General is in jeopardy because she's not married

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and the marriage prospects she's been presented with all have political motivations behind them

. The solution to her dilemma is to find a mate unaffiliated with Sigi, bring him back, and formally present him as her mate before anyone catches wind that she's been gone

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because Sigi has an oppressively restrictive ban on travel to and from the planet, and before she left for the Hunt, her assistant made arrangements to make it look like she was on an extended mountain retreat

. She participates in the Hunt using a camouflaging system that displays her appearance to others as a reptilian species, tall and covered in scales. It's only after Adiya claims Ben and they're back on Sigi that she reveals her true form to him.

When they finally arrive on Sigi, Ben struggles to grasp how everything in this new matriarchal society works. At first, Adiya wanted Ben to be a mate in name only. This was to be a marriage of convenience to her, since her position as General was in jeopardy without one. And she doesn't involve him in any of her meetings, discussions, or decision makings when it comes to her duties as General

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causing Ben to inadvertently make a blunder that throws a wrench in her plans later on

. The romantic feelings came later when they spend more time together, and Ben learns to navigate the new world he's found himself in with the help of Adiya's assistants. The author demonstrated that this was an area of difficulty for Ben pretty well

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since he grew up with his mother and his sisters, and came with a natural instinct to protect women

, and I felt that the rest of his reactions were realistic too. He is curious about the world he's in, wary of Siah and her scheming after his first encounter with her, and he expresses worry and concern over the other humans whom he left behind in the Hunt.

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By the end of the book, he reunites with Miranda and her children, Esme, and Payton, and is appointed by the Commander herself to head a search for the rest of them

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There were several inconsistencies about the story that I couldn't make sense of. For the scant world-building and backstory given to Adiya's people, they really seem no different than humans on Earth.

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The Skets descended from an advanced race of humans called the Pharaohsites, and their history is loosely based on Egyptian mythology. Eventually they "got tired" of Earth, and the Pharaohsites left. But seven Pharaohsites stayed behind, presumably one for each of the seven continents on Earth, as it's said they each claimed land for their own. They shared advanced technology with the hybrids of Earth humans and Pharaohsites, originally called Pharaohs but renamed Skets by the seven Pharaohsites.

. Every description of the people around Adiya paint them as basically the same as humans on Earth, and it was hard to picture what made them alien in appearance and even mannerism

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as they didn't act that much different from humans on Earth, either, aside from technological advancements at their fingertips

.

Another was Sigi itself. The story begins at the funeral of Adiya's mother, General Elutil. It's worth noting that Adiya and her older sister, Siah, never once refer to their mother as "mom" or even "mother", she is always Elutil or General Elutil. Adiya and Siah are in attendance, and it is expected that after the funeral, Siah would formally and officially be named the new General, following their mother's will

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but the shock comes after the recorder reading the funeral rites announces that their mother has chosen Adiya to succeed her instead of Siah, even though Siah had been groomed for the position since she came of age, and had extensive training and knowledge for the position that Adiya did not

.

I thought the social hierarchy was interesting in that it's not often a militaristic society is also a matriarchal society, where leadership is passed from mother to daughter and men have no military power, dominance or authority. But considering that Sigi is borderline isolationist

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and has an absolute ban on any travel to and from the planet

, it didn't make sense to me that they would have the military hierarchies, capabilities, or trainings that they do now. Their main enemies

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called the Okuthyu

haven't been seen or heard from for at least a millennia, and even that plot device seemed like it wasn't fleshed out completely

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because the first few paragraphs of chapter 1 is a prologue, detailing the history of the Skets, and towards the end it was described that the Okuthyu had instituted strict protections of humans and left them alone when the Pharaohsites left, then came back after a millennia and found the Skets had grown incredibly powerful and wanted no overseers for their planet, and there was no resolution or clarification on what the Okuthyu did after this point

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And this ties into my biggest gripe with the story - the plot, while not entirely predictable, had an anticlimactic ending. Throughout the story, Siah is witnessed in various places seemingly plotting against her sister Adiya. Part of the plot centered around how Siah had access to the central building where Adiya lived and conducted her duties as General, and how she was able to throw metaphorical wrenches in Adiya's plans

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and it was quickly resolved that some of the lieutenants Adiya had appointed were loyalists to Siah, and believed she should have been the true General and not Adiya, disagreeing with their mother Elutil's final decision and helping her plot against their own General

. The other part of the plot centered around Adiya facing punishment from her Commander for leaving Sigi and bringing back an outsider for a mate

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which was also resolved when they learned the circumstances of Ben's arrival, and Adiya's findings that other humans were involved in an illegal hunting game

.

But as the story progressed, with Adiya and Ben's relationship growing, Siah becomes increasingly more unhinged and volatile. At one point, she openly accosts Adiya while she and Ben are at a public event. I guess this connects to why Adiya was ultimately chosen to be General and not Siah

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because according to their mother, Siah lacked the empathy and compassion needed to be General and would not be able to put the needs of their nation over her own, which made Siah unfit in their mother's eyes. The Commander revealed this in front of Adiya, who had no prior knowledge of this, while she was scolding Siah for her inappropriate behavior, along with the revelation that Siah knew this all along, and never once bothered to tell Adiya

. But it does something of a disservice to Siah's character development. It paints her as a sister literally gone mad with vengeance and betrayal

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who ultimately snapped after the bombshell revelation, openly assaulting Adiya, and being sentenced to prison time, which is something else that bothered me. There were several other people in the room other than Adiya, Ben, the Commander and Siah when the assault occurred. Yet Ben was the only one who interfered in the fight between the two sisters. Was everyone else just frozen? In shock, maybe? If they all had the military training to earn the ranks they had, why didn't anyone else step in to subdue Siah? Especially considering that Adiya is the General, the highest ranking official in the room, second only to the Commander???

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It would have been a lot more dramatic and action-packed if Siah, for all her scheming, managed to bypass Sigi's planetary travel restrictions and brought foreign enemies

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like the Okuthyu supposedly were

to invade Sigi and kickstart a war. Up until this point, Adiya acted like a General in name only. She had fighting skills, but we only ever saw them in the Hunt and in the final scene with Siah. In this sense, she was more of a leader than anything else.

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And the prologue never mentions what the Okuthyu do after they find how powerful and formidable the Skets have become after a millennia.

With the prospect of invaders and a potential intergalactic war on her hands, we would have seen her as an actual General, and it would have proved once and for all that their mother made no mistake in choosing her over Siah. It also would have given us an opportunity to see how Sigi dealt with foreign invaders and other enemies, considering they're a largely militaristic society

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and the prologue explained that a "fight" not to have any overseers for their planet was continuing to this day

. It would have been an opportunity for Ben as well; the fact that he was an outsider was an issue for many, including most of Adiya's lieutenants. If Ben fought by Adiya's side, it would have been seen as him proving his worth as a soldier and as a mate to Adiya.

And even if the foreign invasion scenario wasn't feasible, a tidbit that was frequently mentioned was that Siah had loyalists in Adiya's own Cabinet. What if there were loyalists elsewhere on Sigi? Those who opposed Adiya's rule as General and wanted Siah to take over? It was explained that Siah had garnered some support over the years, yet none of it culminated in anything other that her loyalists in Adiya's Cabinet feeding her information, and Siah using said information to try and undermine her younger sister. Siah could have started a campaign against her sister, sowed dissent among her subjects, and kickstarted a civil war. And with everyone having military training of some degree, this would have been a personal battle for Adiya since she would have had to fight off and possibly kill her own subjects.

Overall, this book was alright, and it does provide some context to the other humans that were involved in the Hunt. Many remain, some were captured but found, and two that were widely believed to have died in the very beginning are actually still alive

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and working as servants on another planet from what I remember, an insult to the high-class privileged life they had on Earth

. I just wish the plot was more fleshed out instead of it being as anti-climactic as others have mentioned.