Read the The Fifth Wave series if you like Armageddon alien invasions, girl-power leads, plot twists, and well-developed science fiction technology. For those about to step onto a 23-hour flight to Australia – you cannot go wrong. You’re going to be entertained.
So, yes, I recommend The Fifth Wave series to readers of science fiction, including: (1) The Fifth Wave, (2) The Infinite Sea, and (3) The Last Star. If you’ve read and liked The Hunger Games and Divergent series, then you will enjoy this one, too.
Okay, now, that being said, there are some things about these books that left me with a rainy November feeling of “meh.” I’m going to tell you want they are, and I’m also going to talk about the story, with some spoilers. Just sayn’…
Here’s how the quality of these novels break down, PASS or FAIL.
1. Strong plot: PASS.
Aliens arrive and set off several “waves” of destruction on the unfortunate inhabitants of earth. 1. Lights out – All the electricity and machines stop working. 2. Surf’s up – Massive earthquakes and tsunamis wipe out all coastal areas. 3. Pestilence – A bird flu (a plague really) kill the rest. 4. Silencers – Not all humans are humans.
The Fifth Wave
The first book in the series picks up steam when Cassie, her dad and little brother, Sammy, have made it to a refugee camp. The military arrives, wastes all the adults, and rounds up all the kids. Turns out the aliens look like humans, sort of different twist on the Invasion of the Body Snatchers – the bad guys look like the good guys.
In book one, Cassie’s brother is taken to a nearby military base where he is brainwashed to think that most of the other people that survived the disasters are aliens. The kids are trained to be little Special Forces who are to be sent out to kill the bad guys. But, as it turns out, the aliens are the military, and the Fifth Wave is this force of armed kids who are tasked with wiping out the surviving humans.
Cassie’s brother, now known as “Nugget,” is assigned to a squad of other kids who is led by Ben Parish, aka “Zombie,” who happens to be a high school kid that Cassie had a terrible crush on. Zombie’s right hand girl, “Ringer,” is an attractive but inscrutable don’t-mess-with-me half-Asian girl.
Meanwhile, Cassie is shot by a silencer and lives. But the silencer, Evan, an alien who looks human, falls in loves with her, lets her live, and eventually helps her break into the military base, save her brother and blow the place up. Zombie, Ringer, and Nugget realize that they’ve been duped, trained by aliens to kill real humans, and play key roles busting up the joint and helping Cassie escape.
The Infinite Sea
At the end of The Fifth Wave, the fate of Evan is unknown. Cassie, Zombie, Nugget, Ringer and other former Fifth-Wavers come together. But Ringer gets kidnapped with another former Fifth Waver.
At first, Ringer’s capture by the aliens and return to a military base feels very much like a repeat of the first book, when Zombie had been returned to the base and tortured. This time, Ringer is slowly tortured and transformed physically and given almost the same advanced abilities, e.g. run fast, quick reflexes, amazing hearing, etc. Almost like she’s been turned into a vampire who doesn’t drink blood. She even recovers quickly if injured.
While Ringer is being put through … well, the ringer … Evan returns to Cassie, argues constantly with her and Zombie, and then Evan’s old flame, who’s also a crazy powerful alien-type girl, shows up and wrecks everything. But Evan gets too hurt to recover, and his roll becomes more of that of an advisor. Sort of boring, really. Ringer eventually breaks away from the aliens, after several twists, and returns to her clan of survivors.
The Last Star
This is all about Ringer executing an attack on the alien’s military base. Without going into detail, she pulls it off, and Cassie climbs into an little escape pod with a bomb and blows up the alien’s ship, leaving Earth populated with military kids some of whom still think they’re killing aliens, and the human survivors who are trying to survive. Realizing he was duped, and not really and alien, Evan goes off on his own to blow up more bases in North America.
Whew!
There are some things that bug me about the plot. For one, the aliens, as it turns out, are not actually here. Nor are they on the alien ship. Turns out that the whole invasion was just an automated attack. The Silencers and the alien military were all just humans who had been changed before birth, impregnated with the lie that they were aliens, and who executed the absent-alien’s plan. So, at the end, there isn’t really much revenge doled out to anyone except to the few remaining humans who thought they were aliens. That bugs me a little. So, we get what we (the alien/humans) deserved? Over 7 Billion humans die and there’s no one to punish?
2. A great deal of action – PASS
There’s plenty of desperate escape attempts from military bases, narrow escapes from bombs and bullets, gut wrenching fight scenes, and so on, so let’s leave it at that.
3. A strong hero. PASS
Cassie is believable – a girl forced into impossible and horrible circumstances who rises up from the muck to fight for survival. I did get a little tired of her banter with Evan, Zombie and Ringer. There were times when I just skimmed through such dialogue because it wasn’t moving the story along. But there wasn’t enough to ruin the story. Ringer is really the hero of The Infinite Sea and the Last Star, and that is fine with me, since her character is so emotional.
4. A hero who gets into a lot of trouble – PASS
There’s nothing but trouble in The Fifth Wave series so this is a definite pass. Sure, there’s some wins here and there, but definitely plenty of trouble.
5. Clear, believable, character motivations.
In the Fifth Wave, the characters are driven by one thing – save the one(s) they love. In book one, Cassie fights to break into the military base to save her little brother. Zombie fights to save the members of his squad, especially Ringer. Evan falls in love with Cassie, and betrays those he believes to be aliens to save her. In the Infinite Sea, Ringer fights to save some of her squad members, Evan is still trying to keep Cassie safe, and Zombie is trying to figure out how to locate Ringer and save her. In the Last Star, Ringer is trying to get revenge, which is refreshing. But then who got what was coming to them? A bunch of deceived humans.
My primary criticism here is this – seems to me that these characters could have figured out a way to gather together and just run for it. Of course, then there wouldn’t be a story.
6. Well-drawn backgrounds – PASS
There some good and bad here, but overall still a pass. The backgrounds are pretty much two-toned: everything happens either in deserted building in the wasteland or in a military base. There no imagery or settings taking place in cities or elsewhere. Seems like the small battles going on between alien-humans and Fifth-Wave kids who are armed to the teeth are the only meaningful struggles happening on the beleaguered planet. Out of these narrow struggles, the alien ship gets destroyed. Wasn’t there anything else going on around the world? Apparently not. Or at least the people from whose perspective the story is being told are cut off and have no idea themselves.
7. Writing that is familiar with English language / Lyrical language – PASS
Rick Yancey does a good job. His prose carries the story along and doesn’t get in the way.
Austin
Copyright (c) 2016 Austin Reams, all rights reserved.
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