Cities were crushed by the falling spacecraft—but one ship didn’t crash. It remained intact, and disgorged hordes of alien soldiers determined to fight to the death. The abandoned vessels also contained a wealth of advanced technology. Led by David Levinson, the greatest minds of our world developed deadly new hybrid weapons. Bases were built on the Moon, Mars, and beyond. A new generation of defenders had to be trained, for the invaders would return. In the headlong rush to prepare, however, not everyone would survive…

Independence Day: Crucible (The Official Prequel)

This prequel is something you should only read after you see the movie, as there’s really nothing that happens in it of note and it’s only interesting to give a minor bit more character development and to fill in some of the side plots that the movie didn’t bother to explain at all. There’s a few items that I was expecting to see: How Hiller died, how the country in Africa was fighting the aliens, where the iMac aliens came from and why the aliens took so long to get back to our planet.

This book answers none of these questions though, and in fact creates even MORE questions about these unresolved story elements. In the book, Hiller just explodes off screen (is that possible in a book? they just reference it, don’t explain it very well at all), the country in Africa does some hand waving and kills off all the aliens in a year or two, and the iMac aliens aren’t mentioned at all, except in a tangential way related to the visions the president (and others) were having. I was extremely unsatisfied with the lack of progression of the world building and makes me feel even worse about the movie.

I’m going to move onto the movie novelization next I think, maybe they answer some questions there, but considering this book series’ track record, I don’t expect much.