ARC-review: Gini Koch – Alien Collective

The ninth book in the Katherine 'Kitty' Katt series, to be published May 6, 2014.
Genre: sci-fi romance
Cover: strong and kick-ass, I love it.



Despite not having run for office, nor wanting to remain in office, Representative Jeff Martini is being wooed as the vice presidential running mate for Senator Vincent Armstrong. They’re up against a virulent anti-alien ticket supported by the Church of Intolerance, Club 51, and a host of other enemies. Plus an influential gossip columnist called the Tastemaker has them in his sights.
While the Diplomatic Corps has to deal with a political campaign that is sure to uncover secrets they don’t want shared with the world, Ambassador Kitty Katt-Martini has additional worries.
Tracking down the hidden Yates offspring before their enemies can find them has been hindered by the devastating damage done to Centaurion Division’s date and personnel during Operation Infiltration. But they need to find these hybrids and super-talented A-C’s to have any hope of fighting what’s coming.
Bio-weapon attacks that force the evacuation of the American Centaurion, Bahraini and Israeli embassies, along with bomb’s exploding all over D.C. and at major U.S. Centaurion Division Bases are bad news. But a little old lady in deadly danger because she knows much more than she realizes and the emergence of the bad guys Patient Zero complicates the mix even more. And the arrival of a new superconsciousness determined to find ACE guilty of the crime of interference sets the stakes way too high - and the coming confrontation could expose Algar, too!
Kitty is in the middle of a Battle Royal that will decide more than just the next president of the United States – it’s going to decide the fate of the world … and possibly the galaxy.


This book takes place a year after Alien Research. The American Centaurion aliens are still trying to recreate their hacked data, without much progress. It really hinders them. Even worse is the strange illness the imagineers have caught, almost all of their talents of reading photo’s and film has gone. Now they have to relay on research like humans have to do, to find out stuff about people, instead of just touching a photograph and know everything about the person in it.

Kitty and her entourage are ready for a nice day of a peaceful political protest, when they are all sort of arrested by the police and hauled of to an unknown destination. Bombs have been found along the protest route, but worse, there has been a successful attack on their Embassy, and it is now evacuated. And so Kitty and gang find themselves at the Embassy of an allied country, along with a lot of other friends and allies, all the day care children and their caretakers and animals. Someone has used the secret tunnels underneath the Alpha Centaurian Embassy to bring in the lethal bombs. Luckily, they were warned in time and no one has died or been injured in the attack. Now they will have to make sure all the gas is gone, and that will take some hours.

And then another bomb is sprung upon Kitty: her husband Jeff Martini, who is an alien, will be running for vice-president with Senator Armstrong running for President. Kitty is not happy with that at all, but Jeff doesn’t have a choice. And when Kitty finally realizes what it would mean if their anti-alien opponents would win the election, not just to her and Jeff, but to all their friends in high places, she knows they will have to do whatever it takes. Having an anti-alien President will be a guarantee that the A-C's end up fighting America's wars for them, and no one wants that to happen.

The search for other offspring of Yates, those powerful half Alpha Centaurion/half human children, has proven futile. They have not found anyone since Mahin in the previous book. Nor have they found any trace of the legendary hacker that hacked them and stole all their data. And without knowing how she did it the first time, Kitty’s own team of hackers have no hope at all to prevent it happening again. They are very good, but Chernobog is the best.

While everyone is arguing and discussing things, Kitty needs some alone time to think things through so she takes Prince, officer Melville’s K-9 dog with her to the garden. The whole squad is there as well to offer their protection. A strange servant offers to take Prince outside for her, but Kitty wants to do it herself. She loves Prince, and that is mutual.
After talking to the Embassy’s animals, the Poofs and Peregrines, Prince suddenly needs to go back inside, but when Kitty tries to do that, the door is locked, and no one is there to let her back inside. Prince senses trouble, and so Kitty finally shoots down the bullet proof glass in the door, and lets them inside. To her surprise, no one is there anymore; the Embassy seems to be completely abandoned. But Prince senses someone inside, someone who is somehow invisible. When Kitty focuses she can see some kind of blur, and so she can shoot him. Kitty is a good enough shot that she can shoot an A-C using hyperspeed.
As it happens, the Poofs took everyone to safety, because Officer Melville would never have left Prince behind, nor would Jeff have left without his wife. The Helpful Servant, Benjamin Siler, has planted bombs throughout the Embassy, planning to kill them all and himself in the process. After some talking with him, and yes, he is one of Yates missing offspring, can Kitty really turn him into an ally, or is he just pretending to be one?

From this moment on, disaster after disaster strikes, especially as some of Yates children find them and try to kill them in a horrible way. The enemy have found them all it seems, and have already brainwashed them. There is no chance that Kitty can persuade them to their side anymore.

Kitty does find Chernobog at last. Her two amazing assassin friends/uncles play a nice role in this book, and there are more androids in high places.

New powerful Alien life forms appear before Kitty, wanting to judge her and ACE and take ACE away from earth for interfering too much. But Kitty will fight for ACE, as he is inside her little daughter Jamie and Kitty will do whatever it takes to keep her little Jamie safe. And of course, ACE is her friend.


As usual, I stayed up way too late on a Sunday night to finish this book. There is always a moment in these books, that you are pulled into the story and just have to know what happens next, how they will figure it all out and how they will all survive. Of course, that is not always the case; sometimes they do lose close friends and allies.

It is still very hard to write a coherent review about these books. So many things happen, so many characters, so many plots and I still do not want to spoil anything important for other readers.

I love Kitty as a heroine, she is truly kick ass, she takes charge, she will do whatever it takes to keep her friends and loved ones safe. She has an amazing taste in music, and I love how she uses it to pump herself up for action. Kitty is very smart, even surrounded by exceptionally smart and brainy people, she is the one who figures all the plots out and knows how to thwart them. To all their enemies, she is the main target to take out.
Her husband Jeff is amazingly good looking and extremely good in bed (or the shower, or the elevator) and they are very much in love. He wants to keep her safe and protected but of course Kitty will not hold back when she is needed.

I so felt for Charles, after what happened in the last book. His role in this one is minor, and I hope to see more of him in the next one. Like the Pontifax and Reader, they need more page time as I love those characters.

Again, as usual, this book is chock full of action and confusion, multiple plots are running through. New friends are made, traitors are found but Kitty really stars in this book. She is very busy, and whenever Jeff is doing his political stuff, Mister White is her trusted sidekick. And so are Mister Joel Oliver, Buchanan and her two uncles. The two alien princesses lend their fighting skills when necessary.

I really enjoy the interaction between Kitty and all the animals in this book, Prince has a starring role and he does bite. Even with Jeff running as vice president, there was not much political stuff in this book, except for the final scene when all the states are casting their votes, where the big bad thing happened, and I am very happy with that as well.

Gini Koch always amazes me with the strange and still somehow believable plots she concocts in these books, and how she pulls it off to get Kitty and the gang out of them again. The evil guys and girls are truly evil but I missed the evil clones. I also have no clue whatsoever who the Mastermind is. Someone close to them, someone they will never suspect. That can be a lot of people and I don’t dare to speculate at this point. I think when it is revealed, it will be a bomb blast of astonishment and denial. And it will break Kitty’s heart.

There are so many characters who all keep appearing for a short time in all the books, that it is getting hard to keep track of them all. Some of my favourites I missed in this book, and I hope to see more of them in the next book. Perhaps it is time for a list of characters in the back of the book. Who is who, what is his or her function, and are they a known friend or foe at the start of the book.

I can’t wait to read the next book and find out who the Mastermind is, and what he really is after, except world domination. I do wonder if he is human or alien…
I do think there will be some more traitors found in Jeff’s own family; after all, they are also related to Yates …

9 stars.

© 2014 Reviews by Aurian