The world changed on a Tuesday. 
When a spaceship landed in an open field in the quiet mill town of Sorrow Falls, Massachusetts, everyone realized humankind was not alone in the universe. With that realization everyone freaked out for a little while. 
Or almost everyone. The residents of Sorrow Falls took the news pretty well. This could have been due to a certain local quality of unflappability, or it could have been that in three years the ship did exactly nothing other than sit quietly in that field, and nobody understood the full extent of this nothing the ship was doing better than the people who lived right next door. 
Sixteen-year-old Annie Collins is one of the ship’s closest neighbors. Once upon a time she took every last theory about the ship seriously, whether it was advanced by an adult or by a peer. Surely one of the theories would be proven true – if not several of them – the very minute the ship decided to do something. Annie is starting to think this will never happen. 
One late August morning, a little over three years since the ship landed, Edgar Somerville arrived in town. Ed’s a government operative posing as a journalist, which is obvious to Annie – and pretty much everyone else he meets – almost immediately. He has a lot of questions that need answers, because he thinks everyone is wrong: The ship isdoing something, and he needs Annie’s help to figure out what that is. 
Annie is a good choice for tour guide. She already knows everyone in town, and when Ed’s theory is proven correct – something is apocalyptically wrong in Sorrow Falls – she’s a pretty good person to have around. 
As a matter of fact, Annie Collins might be the most important person on the planet. She just doesn’t know it.

“The Spaceship Next Door” is a fun book: witty, fast-moving, great dialogue, original ideas, a twisty plot, aliens, zombies and a whole bunch of in-jokes for those of us who live and breathe SciFi and horror.

It’s told in a raconteur third-person style that heightens the amusement, keeps things from getting too serious and allows the parts of the puzzle to be nudged into sight at just the right pace.

The basic premise is that a spaceship lands in the small mill town of Sorrow Falls, Massachusetts in the middle of the night and then… nothing much happens… for three years.. long enough for the good folks of Sorrow Falls to get used to having a spaceship next door and even to take for granted the strong Army presence that is guarding the ship.

Then things do start to change and it seems the end of the world is at hand. At least, it will be if sassy sixteen-year-old Annie Collins doesn’t help the thirty-something government agent who absolutely no-one believes is the reporter he claims to be, to solve the mystery of what the ship wants and what it will do if it doesn’t get it.

Annie Collins is the heart of this book. If you don’t like her, then the book will just pass you by. Fortunately, she’s very likeable. She’s open, friendly, preternaturally smart, always has a clever question to ask and is hiding a hugely important secret from just about everyone.

I was smiling almost all the way through this book. I listened to the audiobook version and felt entertained the whole way through.  In addition to being witty, “The Spaceship Next Door” manages to twist a number of tropes around aliens andzombies and the reaction of the military to a space invasion in very clever ways. It makes constant reference to science fiction movies and books and I could almost see the author’s gleeful grin in my mind when he managed to include the line, “Take me to your leader.”

If you’re a sci-fi fan looking for a smile and a few surprises, come and spend a few hours in Sorrow Falls and let Annie Collins show you around.