Thrive by Kenneth Oppel

Thrive is the final installment in the Bloom trilogy opening where the second book left off. A cryptogen ship has just been shot down by the Canadian military. From the vessel three cryptogens emerge; a flyer with dazzling golden wings, a swimmer and a runner. All the cryptogens are wearing special masks to help them breathe, as Earth's environment is still somewhat toxic to them. After Anaya convinces both sides to stand down, the cryptogens are brought inside. 

Seth has also returned to Deadman's Island. He fills Petra and Anaya in on what happened to him and Esta when they were left behind: Sienna was captured by police,  how Darren stung Seth with his tail causing Esta to force him to jump from the boat after blasting him with sound and how the marine police captured Esta from the boat.

The three rebel cryptogens have been placed into the Vancouver Aquarium's biodome, now "a cryptogenic landscape of high black grass, berry-laden  vines snaking  from buried pit plants, and seed-spitting water lilies floating serenely on a pond so acidic no human would dare swim in it..." The cryptogen ship has also been moved into the biodome. 

Colonel Pearson has Anaya, Petra and Seth communicate with the cryptogens so they can learn what they are planning. Terra, the rebel cryptogen, explains to Anaya that there are not many rebels aboard their vessel of over seven hundred thousand aliens which is now orbiting Earth. She also reveals that there were ten rebel landings on the planet but refuses to reveal the locations of the other landings. Terra tells Anaya that they need to extract the code from the hybrid's blood to make a chemical weapon and that the final invasion is planned in a little over a month so they need to move fast. Once the weapon is made, it can be taken back to the alien ship and released there. This will allow the rebels to gain control of the ship, overwhelm the flyers who are in command and leave, preventing the invasion.

In Petra's communications with her cryptogen, she can't sense the alien's gender and decides to use the pronouns ze and zir (in a nod to the current gender ideology fad). She learns that the swimmer is a scientist who took part in creating the human hybrids and that there are thousands of hybrids on Earth. The swimmer tells Petra that they created the hybrids because they needed them as a safe place to keep the "substance" and also as translators.

As Seth communicates with the flyer, whom he calls the general, he is shown the battle on the cryptogen's planet in which the runner and swimmers are destroyed by the sonic blasts from the flyers. The general was wounded but tended to by runners who saved his life. This experience changed how he viewed the swimmers and runners. When those who treated him were all killed he was disgusted by what had happened and became a spy for the rebel cryptogens. The general was responsible for starting the rains on Earth that led to the changes in the ecosystem and to the human hybrids. He tells Seth that the rebels have come to form an alliance with the humans and fight against the invasion. He also tells Seth that they hid a code inside of the hybrids and they now need it. The code is to make a virus which will permanently destroy the flyers ability to use sound as a weapon. Seth also learns that he will never achieve his dream of flying as his body is too heavy.

Later that day, over dinner, Anaya reveals that Terra told her they can repair their damaged ship's hull but the levitation system is damaged. There is however a ship that crashed sixteen years ago when they first came to Earth, and if they can locate it, they might be able to salvage the part.  

Seth continues to be focused on helping Esta, who Dr. Weber reveals is being held in a detention center in the U.S. She is accused of murdering Dr. Ritter. When Seth protests that she's innocent and that he killed Ritter, Dr. Weber tells him he's considered an accessory to the murder. When Seth expresses his determination to find Esta, Dr. Weber promises to ask Colonel Pearson where she's being held.

Pearson arrives and reveals to the group that intelligence has discovered that at least two ships, one over North Korea and another over the Suez Canal have been shot down. Pearson refuses to tell the Americans anything, for fear of jeopardizing their ability to make the weapon. 

The next day Terra takes Anaya inside their ship to extract what they need from her body to make their weapon. While they are working on making the virus into a weapon, Terra works on locating the crashed cryptogen ship in the hopes they can use its levitation device for their own ship. The crash site turns out to be located in northeastern British Columbia, in a swamp, with the ship underwater. To recover the levitation device, Petra and the swimmer are flown out to the site in a helicopter. But the retrieval proves to be daunting as Petra and the swimmer must fight off giant squids while the helicopter is almost taken down by giant parasitic creatures.

Meanwhile Seth has learned that Esta is being detained at Point Roberts. This leads him to sneak away from the aquarium to rescue her, but he only succeeds in getting himself captured and back into the hands of the cruel Dr. Ritter who it turns out has survived. Back at the base, Terra, with the help of Anaya and Dr. Weber is successful in creating a virus that affects the flyers' ability to use their sound weapon. But are they too late?

The early arrival of the cryptogen invasion force throws all their plans into chaos. As the cryptogens attack new plans are needed if they are to use their weapon on the flyers and give the rebel cryptogens and Earth a chance.

Discussion

Thrive is a fitting conclusion to Kenneth Oppel's Bloom trilogy about human's overcoming an alien invasion. In this series,  the story focuses on a group of human-alien hybrids, bred by a rebel alien faction, determined to thwart their planet's colonization of Earth. The novel is filled with character-driven action scenes including an epic battle between humans, hybrids, rebel cryptogens and the invading cryptogens. The ending is predictable and upbeat, with a final battle between the cryptogens, rebels, hybrids and humans.

Thrive is arguably the weakest of the three novels, with the events almost anti-climatic. Readers know the humans will prevail in the end. And after so many gruesome creatures in the first two books, any new ones the humans encounter seem almost expected. But in Thrive, the three main characters, Anaya, Petra and Seth, finally come into their own, each facing their own fears and challenges. This is especially true of Petra and Seth. 

In Thrive, Petra steps up to do her part to help out. Initially she has been reluctant, still struggling to accept the physiological changes she's experiencing and wanting her old life and her human body back. But with the help of the swimmer and as the situation becomes more dire, Petra rises to the challenge, helping in the recovery of the levitation device, saving the swimmer's life, devising a way to spread the viral weapon when the rebel's plan falls apart, and attempting to rescue the trapped hybrids on the cryptogen ship over Point Roberts.

Seth also commits himself. Abandoned by his mother, Seth has struggled to belong, and is now forced to choose who he will fight for; humans or cryptogens. The commander of the cryptogens tells him the human hybrids were mean to inherit the new earth and that they will thrive in it. He is also told he will fly, something he has dreamed of all his life. But this doesn't fit with what Terra has told them back in the biodome. Unlike Esta, Seth notes the difference in the way the commander and Terra have presented what is happening and he's not sure who he can trust. He also has, in the back of his mind, "the general's sonic message...wanting to be opened." From this message, Seth learns the truth about the cryptogen commander and her intentions for the hybrids. He also learns that he must finally make a choice, a painful one because he learns the truth about the one person he has come to identify with but who is a traitor.

For Esta, there is only one choice, solidarity with the cryptogens. On the cryptogen ship, Seth, Esta, Darren and Siena are given accounts of what happened on the cryptogen's planet that are much different from what Terra has told Anaya . While Esta accepts what she is being told, Charles counters, "Even if we don't know whose story is true...we know one thing for sure. These guys are here to take over our planet. That does not make them the good guys. Are you okay with everyone dying but us?" After the general and the swimmer rebels are captured and killed by the cryptogen flyer commander, Esta tells her fellow hybrids they have to make a choice. She tells them the choice is obvious because the cryptogens are going to win, meaning the hybrids will be safe. And so she acts on what she believes.

Thrive is an exciting read, with lots of battles, gruesome creatures, evil cryptogens and human traitors. Young readers will enjoy the satisfying ending, in what is one of Oppel's best offerings to date.

Book Details:

Thrive by Kenneth Oppel
Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers Inc.  2021
405 pp.

Hatch by Kenneth Oppel

Hatch, the second novel in Kenneth Oppel's Overthrow trilogy, picks up exactly where the first book, Bloom left off. The spraying of Stanley Park with an experimental herbicide appears to be working.  The cryptogenic black grass and vines that have spread throughout the world, "crowding out crops, sending strangling vines into houses, waiting underground to trap and eat animals and people in the acid-filled sacs" are dying. However, Petra, Anaya and Seth's joy is cut short when it begins to rain, not just raindrops but "gleaming, translucent beads" that quickly burst, releasing some kind of new life form. Anaya, realizing what they are, acts quickly to trap some eggs into a coffee cup. 

In the lab they discover that there are several new and frightening cryptogenic life forms that quickly try to hide. These are another part of the alien ecosystem that is invading Earth. Suddenly, Colonel Pearson arrives with soldiers, informing them that the lab is now under the authority of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and that the children are to be taken to holding cells downstairs.

All three teens are interrogated by Dr. Ritter who is in charge of a special task force in the United States, along with Dr. Weber and Colonel Pearson. Dr. Ritter informs Petra, that MRI scans of their brains have revealed that they have something in their brains that transmits radio pulses. On the morning the black grass began dying, the comms team picked up powerful radio pulses coming from where the three teens were sleeping. Dr. Weber believes that the children are transmitting biological data to the cryptogens to see if they can survive on Earth. They are also able to receive transmissions, as Seth's strange dreams seem to prove. After his interrogation of Seth, Ritter determines they are a threat and has the three teens transported to a secure location in the United States.

In the new location, they are given medical exams, ordered into jumpsuits identified with W for water, L for land and A for air and taken to a gymnasium where there are many other kids like them. Paul Samson, a military intelligence officer tells Petra that they are in an underground bunker that blocks all radio communication. 

The three teens make new friends with those who are undergoing similar changes; Petra meets a boy named Darren who is shedding skin, growing a tail but who also has a unique patterning developing on his body, Anaya meets Charles who seems super smart, and Seth meets Esta a flyer like himself but who is very angry.  In the gym, everyone is being evaluated; the runners are encouraged to run treadmills and practice jumping, the flyers to use their sharp feathers to slash and to try to fly, and the swimmers are evaluated for endurance by holding their breath. While Darren is certain they are being trained as soldiers, Petra believes they are simply being studied.

At bedtime, Dr. Ritter takes Anaya out of the bunker and mildly sedates her so that she can transmit with the cryptogens, allowing them to locate the source of the radio pulses. While sedated, Anaya begins to communicate with a cryptogen, named Terra, hearing the word, "help". Back in the dormitory that night, Anaya tells Petra what she experienced and tells her the presence felt motherly.

The next day Seth reveals that he and Esta have discovered that they can communicate telepathically. Petra and Anaya also have this ability. Petra wants to tell Dr. Ritter but the others are against this. After a nuclear attack on the cryptogenic ship fails, Ritter has Anaya attempt to contact the cryptogens again. When the transmission ends abruptly, Ritter accuses Anaya of stopping it. However, Anaya finds that the cryptogen has implanted in her mind a box that shows her what happened to the cryptogen's world. A war between the three major species resulted in the enslavement of the runners and swimmers by the flyers who could destroy the other two using a kind of sound weapon. The runners and swimmers were made to forge spacecrafts and were eventually loaded onto these ships as slave soldiers. These ships docked together to become the ship now orbiting Earth. 

Petra decides to tell Paul Samson about Anaya's vision. However, unknown to her, Ritter has heard everything and has many questions about what Anaya's experienced. The next day, during an unexpected birthday party, Ritter informs the teens that they will be implementing a protocol to remove the changes they are experiencing with the goal of returning all of them to their human selves. Petra, Anaya, Seth, Darren, Charles and Esta argue about what this means. Petra also reveals that she's told Ritter about Anaya's vision and that he knows about their telepathic abilities through monitoring the radio activity. 

Seth now believes they need to escape, but Petra and Charles are against the idea. Their views change when Seth is taken away after he and Darren fight, and Esta who likes Seth, uses telepathic sound to hurt Darren. After goading Seth to hurt him, Dr. Ritter tells him he plans to remove Seth's transmitting organ in his brain. Meanwhile, Petra approaches Paul to tell him that it was Esta who hurt Darren, not Seth. Paul tells Petra that they are no longer safe at the bunker and that he's contacted Dr. Weber to help them escape.

During their escape, Seth and Esta become separated from Anaya and Petra who are safely taken back to Deadman's Island. There, Anaya continues receives more messages from the cryptogen Terra who claims to be a runner who is awake in the ship. She promises to help Anaya and arranges a meeting. But the rendezvous appears to be a trap as it seems the final battle for their planet is just beginning.

Discussion

Hatch is an exciting second novel in the Overthrow trilogy by Canadian author Kenneth Oppel. In this novel, readers learn about the cryptogen's world and how they came to Earth, although their reason for doing so is not yet clear. But the main focus is on the continuing terraforming of Earth to suit the cryptogens as well as the developing abilities of Seth, Anaya and Petra and the other teens like them and the role they may play in all of this.

As the two girls, Anaya and Petra watch their bodies changing to be come more and more alien, both struggle with their identity, with the changes and who and what they are becoming. Anaya who has never considered herself pretty and who was not athletic before the changes began, finds she has incredible stamina on the treadmill. When she is complimented by Charles, Anaya thinks, "...she was pleased by his compliment. I like myself better like this. The moment she had the thought she realized how crazy it sounded. But it was true. She liked this new, healthier, stronger version of herself."

For Petra, the changes make her worried she won't be loved. When Seth, whom she is attracted to, leaves their group for Esta, Petra believes she's no longer pretty. Anaya remembers "...how Petra had confided her worst fear to her: she was terrified that if her body changed, she'd become monstrous and no one could ever love her." Petra asks Anaya, "I'm still me, right?" Although Anaya answers in the affirmative, she wonders. "...lately she'd caught herself wondering if it was true. Everything that had happened to her body -- her speed, her strength, her brain that could talk to an alien species -- it had started to change how she thought. And wasn't that an inside change?..."

In contrast to the girls, Seth and Darren both like the changes that are happening to their bodies. Darren sees himself as a soldier, while Seth, who's been dreaming of flying for years, sees the changes he's experiencing as good. Unlike Petra who volunteers to have surgery to remove her cryptogenic features, Seth is determined to keep his.

However, as the changes continue, the three teens begin to feel less and less human and notice they are becoming more like the cryptogens. For example, they begin to notice that they crave cryptogen plants and animals. When Darren orders a Big Mac and fries, he finds this favourite food suddenly doesn't taste very good.  Seth, who along with Esta and Sienna eats the flesh of an insect he has killed, and finds it delicious. "As he chewed, he felt like the meat was satisfying a hunger he'd never known he had. It tasted right. He couldn't believe he'd gone so long without it." Anaya finds a black vine growing up from the pavement on Deadman's Island and eats not only the red berries but the entire vine itself too. And Petra gobbles the eggs she is supposed to capture in the bay, finding them "deliciously salty."

Petra tells Anaya she feels like a monster for eating an egg and finally admits, "We're changing. We have no control over ourselves. What're we going to do next?" Anaya admits that since they are part cryptogen, they are behaving as they do, eating what they eat. Petra questions what they are becoming. "Remember when you said, I'm still me? What if it's not like that? What if we're not going to stay the same inside? What if we're going to change on the outside and the inside? What if we start thinking like them?"

Later on Anaya, after the death of Petra's mother wonders if she might be right about the changes."They had changed. They weren't the same people, even on the inside. Petra craved cryptogenic insects, she loved being underwater, and she had a venomous tail that seemed to act on its own. And she, Anaya, felt the same kind of hunger for cryptogenic plants. But the biggest change for her was the powerful mental connection to Terra, which seemed to guide her own thoughts. Was she being brainwashed?"

Overall, Hatch is a good second novel that sets the stage for the arrival of the cryptogens and the final showdown. There's plenty of gross monsters and heart-pounding battles between the teens and these alien life forms to keep readers engaged and wanting more. At the same time, Terra, the cryptogen who has been communicating with Anaya offers enough mystery as to whether she's really on the side of the humans and is part of a "resistance" as she claims, or simply misleading the young girl. And readers are left to wonder which side will the three teens choose, as they become more and more like the invading aliens.

The final installment, Thrive, will be published in May, 2021.

Book Details:

Hatch by Kenneth Oppel
Toronto: HarperCollins Publishing Ltd.   2020
397 pp

Bloom by Kenneth Oppel

Teenager Anaya Riggs is allergic to everything and she has acne. She is allergic to smoke, dust, tree and grass pollen, gluten, eggs and milk to name just a few. She carries EpiPens everywhere with her. She's constantly sneezing and her eyes are often swollen. Her father Michael is a botanist with the Ministry of Agriculture's experimental farm so Anaya knows a bit about plants. Her mother Lilah Dara is a pilot. 

One day, on her way home from school, Anaya notices a black shoot, almost a foot high, jutting out from a barren patch on her family's front lawn. She can't imagine what this strange plant might be since her father hasn't been able to ever grow anything on that patch of lawn.

Petra Sumner is allergic to water, a disorder called aquagenic urticaria. No one, even her specialist in Vancouver, B.C. seems to know how to help her. So after school one rainy day, Petra, encased and totally covered by her large umbrella, walks to Alicia Dumont's office to see if she can get a walk-in appointment. Dumont is a naturopath. However, because Petra isn't accompanied by her parents, she is refused an appointment. 

Walking home in the rain, Petra gets wet. But when she is picked up by her mom and taken home, she is shocked to see that the rain has not harmed her. She races outside to collect some of this amazing water.  Over the next day Petra wipes her face with the water she's saved and even drinks some of it.

Seth Robertson is now living on Mr. and Mrs. Antos broccoli farm. The Antoses are Seth's seventh family since his mother abandoned him as a baby. At first he hadn't helped out much on the farm, but today Seth decides to help the kindly Mr. Antos pull out the large black plants that have suddenly started growing between the rows. The towering plants are hard to cut down and Seth cuts his hands on the sharp spikes on the stalks.

The next morning Anaya and her father visit the Antos's farm to investigate the large black plants. Her father has no idea what these strange plants are. When they return home, they learn that the strange black plants are being reported all over the world. Meanwhile, Petra wakes up to discover that the water she collected and saved now seems to be growing black plants in it. She panics because she's been washing her face with the water and drinking it.

The next day as the black plants, now close to twelve feet high, begin to clog out their crop, Mr. Antos decides to burn it. The thick black smoke seems to go after the older man and he has to be taken to hospital. At a community meeting that night, no one seems to know what is happening but some suspect that the night's previous rain has had something to do with the appearance of the black grass. Petra brings forward the bottles of water she saved, explaining that black plants have sprouted in the water overnight. The meeting abruptly ends when the black plants outside begin spewing forth massive amounts of pollen, causing everyone to experience a serious allergic reaction. Only Anaya, Petra and Seth are not sneezing.

At school Anaya notices that the school field has no black grass. Puzzled she and her friends decide to bag some soil samples. Meanwhile at home that night, Anaya's mother who is a pilot, shows them pictures of Cordova Island at  the top of the Gulf Island Archipelago. Anaya's mother noticed while banking over the island, that the black grass on a small island in a marsh, is dying. Anaya's dad decides to travel to the island to investigate.  The next morning Anaya discovers the soil sample she bagged now has thick black vines growing out of it and up their house. On the vines are flowers that trap and eat birds.

The true nature of the empty field at school is revealed when Anaya and her friends watch a deer suddenly pulled into a pit that has opened in the ground. Ignoring Anaya's warnings, some of her classmates run out onto the field only to fall into other pits. Soon Anaya, Seth and Petra find themselves trapped as well. The pits are giant plants that spray a mist which numbs their victims and then release acid to burn and digest them. The three teens are able rescue their classmates who are badly injured, but they are mysteriously unharmed. In the hospital, Anaya, Petra and Seth begin to realize they are different. Seth points out that they are not allergic to the plants, and the plant mist and acid did not affect them. When Petra talks about how she was born with a tail, Seth reveals that he was born with bony growths on his arms that look like feathers.

From this point on, conditions on Salt Spring Island begin to rapidly deteriorate. The power goes out and Petra and her mother are almost trapped by a gigantic pit plant that swallows their car, while Anaya and her mother are almost killed by the black vines while they were sleeping. Seth discovers that the black vines have overtaken the Antos farmhouse, killing Mrs. Antos in her bed.

Because they were largely unharmed by the pit plants, all three teens are brought to the local hospital by CSIS. Dr. Stephanie Weber, a scientist from CSIS wants to study Anaya, Petra and Seth to find out why they seem to be immune to the effects of the plants. She reveals that the plants are not from Earth but are cryptogenic or alien and that this information is not yet common knowledge. Dr. Weber tells them their planet is being invaded and colonized. 

The three teens are taken by helicopter to a military base near Stanley Park, on Deadman's Island. While Anaya and Petra's mothers are not allowed to accompany them, Carlene Lee, Seth's appointed guardian is. Testing reveals the true nature of Anaya, Petra and Seth. Their mixture of alien and human DNA is evidenced by the changes all three are experiencing in their bodies. They also learn there are others  just like them. As they set out to rescue Anaya's father who hasn't been heard from, it becomes increasingly apparent  that humanity's survival may depend on understanding the changes they are experiencing and how they came to be.

Discussion

Bloom is the first book in a trilogy by well respected Canadian author, Kenneth Oppel. Bloom is a sort of cross between The Day of the Triffids and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a mixture of science fiction and horror in the tradition of classic sci-fi writer John Wyndham.

Oppel employs a great deal of foreshadowing in his novel, providing his readers hints of events to come. For example, medical tests reveal that Anaya, Petra and Seth are part alien. That they are different is evident early in the novel as two of the teens have unusual allergies. And later on when the three teens not only are not allergic to the black plants but Anaya and Petra begin to lose their own serious allergies. Anaya's acne and allergies begin to subside almost immediately after the rain and she begins to feel strong, excelling at gym. "She'd even done gym today...What was most amazing was the high jump. Usually she just crashed through the bar, but this time she cleared it, even after Mr. Hilborn raised it twice. It was like she'd finally figured out how to use her legs. They felt strong as they pushed her into the air...."  Petra who is highly allergic to water, finds the rainwater healing and invigorating.

Soon these changes are more pronounced with Anaya's toenails turning black and jagged like claws, Petra shedding scaly skin like a snake molting and re-growing the tail she was born with, and Seth re-growing feathers out of his arms. These changes all foreshadow the revelation that they are half alien and are undergoing some kind of internal physiological change. This is just one of the many ways Oppel builds tension and suspense in his novel. The reader begins to suspect that Anaya, Petra and Seth are connected to the black plants in some way that is not yet apparent.

Oppel quickly sets the stage as the invasion overwhelms the planet: crops are overrun, power fails, people are encased in black vines as they sleep, clogging their nose and mouth, and pit plants lure animals to their death with beautiful red berries. The author keeps his readers engaged as the novel races from one terrifying event to the next. After saving some of their classmates from the pit plants, Anaya, Petra and Seth accompany a rescue mission led by Dr. Weber to find Anaya's father. But this too goes terribly wrong, with the plants taking down their helicopter and attempting to kill everyone. This event allows the characters the opportunity to demonstrate how their changing bodies are enabling them to successfully fight back the alien plant and animal invaders.

Just when the reader has hope that humans are getting the upper hand by using the bacterial spray that successfully targets the black plants, Oppel throws in the cliffhanger, a second rain, not of water but of eggs that hatch!

The characters in the story are realistic and well developed with typical teenager fears and struggles. Anaya and Petra used to be best friends but Anaya's betrayal by revealing Petra's secret, destroyed their friendship. Anaya with her acne wants to be beautiful like Petra, while Petra fears losing her looks because she is afraid of what this might mean for her in the future. Oppel also reveals how each character is coping with the changes they are undergoing. Of the three, Petra is the one most afraid of what she might be turning into, something that no doubt will be addressed in the next book.

Bloom is one of the better science fiction novels to come out in recent years and will appeal to a wide audience. Ironically, some of the behaviours of minor characters and situations mirror the current pandemic situation, even though this novel was penned before the pandemic. It is well written, thrilling and very suspenseful. A great start to this new trilogy!

Book Details

Bloom by Kenneth Oppel
Toronto: HarperCollins Publisher Ltd.      2020
313 pp.

Every Hidden Thing by Kenneth Oppel

Every Hidden Thing is based on the the decades long feud between American two paleontologists, Edward Drinkwater Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh which took place in the middle of the 19th century. Their feud which became known as the "Bone Wars" saw both men attempt to outwit the other in the hunt for dinosaur fossils in the American Midwest. Their rivalry new no bounds and lasted until Cope's death in 1897. Canadian author Kenneth Oppel has used Marsh and Cope's rivalry as the basis for his story in Every Hidden Thing.

The story begins with Samuel Bolt's father, Professor Michael Bolt presenting his latest find at a meeting of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. Bolt is a gentleman scientist without a university education but well respected as a self-taught paleontologist. Professor Bolt is the second to discover a dinosaur in America - a partial skeleton, but enough that he could name it.

Also in attendance at this meeting is Professor Cartland from Yale. The self-taught Bolt is seen as an amateur by Cartland whose connections to Yale give him important status. It is at this meeting that Samuel Bolt meets the homely but highly intelligent Rachel Cartland, Professor Cartland's daughter, whom he finds most captivating. They spend a short time conversing, neither aware that the other is the child of their father's rival.

Bolt had been sent crates of bones by a dentist, Dr. Hawthorn of Kansas. From these bones, Bolt was able to reconstruct a skeleton of a large sea creature he named Elasmosaurus. However, during his presentation, Cartland informs Bolt and the audience that Bolt has erred in his reconstruction of the creature. He has placed the head of the Elasmosaurus on the wrong end, mistaking the long length of vertebrae as the tail when in fact it is the neck. Cartland picks up the skull and clicks it into place on the other end of the skeleton stating, "Which would indicate to me, Professor Bolt, that the tail is in fact the neck, and you have built your dinosaur backward, sir." This outrage leads to the two men brawling at the meeting.

The next morning Samuel discovers an unopened crate in his father's office. In the crate, Samuel and his father find the largest tooth they have ever seen as well as a note written nine weeks earlier by a fossil hunter named Edward (Ned) Plaskett. Plaskett writes that he located the large tooth northeast of Fort Crowe and is offering his services to help find the rest of the fossil. Samuel's father determines that a creature with such a large tooth would be bipedal and "of some fifty feet in length, whose height measured from the ground, would be in the area of thirty feet." Samuel, tells his father that this would be the king of dinosaurs, so Professor Bolt decides to partially name it rex.

Professor Bolt wants to simply telegraph Plaskett that he is hired but Samuel argues they should travel to Fort Crowe to find the rex themselves. However, lack of money is a huge problem because Samuel's father has used up all the capital from the sale of his inheritance. Samuel takes the initiative and at a Quaker's meeting tells the men he feels called to find God's creatures buried in the ground. The men take up a collection and raise enough for the Bolts to launch an expedition.

Meanwhile Professor Cartland and Rachel are on their summer expedition to the Western Territories. The Cartlands will have an army escort, twelve paying Yale students as well as free rail passes from Union Pacific. Initially Professor Cartland had decided that Rachel would stay in New Haven with her Aunt Berton attending picnics, church socials and a debutante ball. Rachel wants none of it; she wants to attend university and hunt fossils and the expedition offers her a chance to work towards that goal. When she's sent to her aunt, Rachel releases a snake in her aunt's bed and is sent home. With her father having no other alternative, Rachel joins him on the expedition.

Coincidentally, Samuel and Rachel meet up at Omaha Station to take the Union Pacific train heading out west, although neither party knows the exact destination of the other. Samuel continues to be completely enamored with Rachel. Their fathers set them both to spying on one another to try to determine their plans.  One of the Yale students appears to reveal to Professor Bolt that the Cartland's expedition is traveling to North Platte. This leads Samuel to tell Rachel about the tooth they have been sent by Plaskett. However the Bolts soon discover that the Cartland's destination is the same when they all leave the train in Crowe. To the frustration of the Bolts, they discover that Cartland has bought up almost all the supplies. When they finally meet up with Plaskett, his rough appearance at first worries Professor Bolt but he is determined to help them get to the badlands. While the Cartland's are burdened with their thirty soldiers and the Yale students, Samuel and his father along with Plaskett and a driver named Hitch Powers set out for the badlands. Samuel and his father set up camp and begin exploring. 

When Bolt discovers Cartland's expedition camped on the banks of the nearby river, he is furious and confronts Cartland. The two men agree that whoever finds a bone first owns the site which will be staked with a flag. The two men race to find the rex of dinosaurs against the backdrop of hostile Indians bent on recovering what was stolen from them. Meanwhile, Samuel and Rachel become increasingly infatuated with one another, leading them to make an outlandish choice to control their own destinies.

Discussion

Every Hidden Thing is a story loosely based on the intense rivalry between two American paleontologists in the mid to late 19th century. In the novel the rivalry is between two fictitious paleontologists, Professor Bolt and Professor Cartland, who are also loosely based on the real paleontologists, Edward Cope and O.C. Marsh. Other than their determination to find dinosaur fossils before the other, and to quickly name them, Oppel's story is very much different. In the novel Professor Bolt's son Samuel is portrayed as having discovered the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton after having a vision resulting from a rattlesnake bite. In fact, both Cope and Marsh did discover pieces of the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton in the late 1890's but these pieces were not identified until much later in the 20th century. Although Cope married and had a child, Marsh never did.

Instead Oppel re-imagines the feud from the point of view of the two paleontologists' teenage children who form an alliance and eventually run off to get married. Samuel and Rachel share the storytelling in alternating narratives. The main strength of Oppel's story is the characters who are well crafted. Professor Bolt is described as a man who isn't "afraid to talk with his fists." Samuel describes his father as having a deranged look about him due to "his left eye had a slightly awkward angle to it..." Compared to Cartland, Bolt is a man with a bit more integrity who is deeply angered by Cartland's dishonest methods to obtain fossils. He also appears more willing to respect the Indians than his rival.

Cartland is the most vile of the characters, stealing from just about anyone he can. He is described as short and "solid as a potbellied stove" with "sparse hair" and a mustache.  Rachel mentions that her father has a "rather unfortunate verbal tic of saying 'yes yes' in the midst of his sentences. And it rarely meant he agreed with you." He doesn't support Rachel's ambition to attend university and become a scientist. He's bought off his rivals so they can supply him with information on fossil finds and has blocked Bolt's papers from being published. Cartland shows profound disrespect for the indigenous people of the plains when he desecrates an Indian burial site, chopping the heads off the bodies to take back for research. Thoroughly in a rage when he discovers his daughter has married Samuel Bolt, Cartland attempts to kidnap his daughter.

Samuel is portrayed as an awkward teen definitely not comfortable with his changing body. He is determined to make Rachel both trust and like him so he tells her about the large tooth fossil.  Rachel describes Samuel as being "tall, with a mop of wavy, coarse hair. He looked like one of those puppies that hadn't grown into its body yet but gave all the signs of its full size to come..." Samuel sees Rachel as a potential wife and partner, working together to hunt fossils and do research but he's confused by her lack of feeling towards him.

Rachel is not considered attractive and she knows it, often focusing on how she is rarely complimented about her appearance. "But without a mother I was never told I had lovely hair or a pleasing figure or striking eyebrows..." Samuel's compliment that she has "the most extraordinary eyes." make her feel special. She's also described by Samuel as being unromantic, "She was like a fortress. Impenetrable."  Rachel is determined to attend university even marrying Samuel in the hopes of achieving this goal despite not wanting to marry.

Oppel moves the story about a fossil hunting rivalry into one that focuses on Samuel and Rachel's awkward relationship. The story is somewhat contrived with Rachel being brought into the expedition after throwing a snake in her aunt's bed (really???) and the coincidental meeting at the train station. Their blossoming romance is in contrast to the violent rivalry between their fathers. To that end there is Samuel's description of how his body responds to Rachel  in a way that most readers really don't want to know. When he first meets Rachel Cartland, despite her being somewhat unattractive Samuel narrates how he becomes aroused. Why the author felt this was necessary is uncertain. When the two elope and end up in a hotel room on their wedding night, the reader is subjected to a three page detailed account of their struggles and awkwardness. It's possible Oppel felt this might attract the interest of teen readers, but it's done at the expense of the story telling and was completely unnecessary to the story. 

In contrast, Oppel's descriptions of the badlands are welcome and colourful. "The steep slopes showed all their ancient layers -- tawny, black, gray, red -- like the diagrams in Father's geology books...Some of the stepped buttes looked like Mayan temples. There were gaunt castles. Archways and spires of a great Gothic cathedral..." When they arrive in the badlands Samuel narrates, "It was surprisingly lush along the brown, slow-curving river lined with cottonwoods and tall grass and flowers. In the sun's low evening light, the stone was rich yellow and peach and purple. The wind made a pleasant dry rustle in the cottonwoods." The ravines are described with equal eloquence: "The ground was scattered with rocks of all shapes and sizes, gray basalt and pink granite and yellowy limestone and great speckled silver hunks and creamy pebbles, all broken and crushed by glaciers and rounded and smoothed by rivers over thousands of years. There were green sage and spiky cactus and clumps of perfectly spherical deer droppings."

For those readers with an interest in geology, this novel may initially seem intriguing. However, Samuel's wedding night narrative and the whole elopement subplot really distracts from the overall story. Readers truly interested in Tyrannosaurus rex and the rivalry between Cope and Marsh can learn more from the PBS website. Every Hidden Thing had such potential in the hands of such an accomplished author. Hopefully another author will make an attempt to portray this interesting rivalry in a way that will be more informative and less sensational than Every Hidden Thing.

The Marsh and Cope Rivalry: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/dinosaur-rivalry/

Book Details:

Every Hidden Thing by Kenneth Oppel
Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.    2016
361 pp.

Such Wicked Intent by Kenneth Oppel

"I won't go back inside because it's such a wicked endeavor, and if you were smarter, you wouldn't go back either."

A prophetic statement by Elizabeth, which Victor Frankenstein should have taken to heart. Such Wicked Intent picks up where This Dark Endeavor left off; the books from the Dark Library are being burned by Victor's father, and the library is to be sealed up. As they watch them burn, Elizabeth reveals to Victor that she has decided to enter the religious life, now that Konrad is dead. Victor mocks Elizabeth for her decision, causing the two of them to quarrel. When he turns to leave the scene of the book burning, he makes an astonishing discovery of a red metal book that was not consumed by the fire. Inside this metal "book" he discovers the instructions for a "spirit board". Unable to resist, Victor follows the instructions which lead him to make a kind of Ouija board that uses a pendulum. Against the advice of Elizabeth, Victor uses the spirit board in the hopes of contacting his dead twin, Konrad. A message is received, which Victor is convinced has come from Konrad, although as Elizabeth points out, he can't really be sure who the message is from.

Victor and Elizabeth tell Henry Clerval what has happened. Convinced he has received a message from Konrad to raise him from the dead, Victor decides that he will not give up on black magic to attain what he wants - raising Konrad from the dead.

"I sighed. 'I've no idea, not yet. Here's all I know: that the world is uncontrollable. Chaos reigns. That anything and everything might be possible. I won't subscribe to any rational system again. Nothing will bind me.'

Henry realizes that he has seen the red metal book before -- in a portrait of Wilhelm Frankenstein in the chateau. The three of them study the portrait and from what they learn, they make an astonishing discovery of a secret room in the ceiling of the chateau's long abandoned chapel. There they find Wilhelm Frankenstein's notebook and an elixir that allows them to enter the spirit world for short periods of time.

Initially only Victor travels into the spirit world where he meets Konrad. But eventually Victor manages to entice Elizabeth and then Henry too. This spirit world is a sort of parallel world in which Victor and his friends can see through the layers of time in the Frankenstein chateau.

Around this time, workmen, who are sealing up the Dark Library and filling in the well in the library, discover that the well leads to a series of subterranean caverns underneath the Frankenstein Chateau. These caves contain many primitive paintings but also some kind of mysterious writing that no one can yet decipher.

When Henry, Victor and Elizabeth return to the spirit world, they investigate the caves and Victor with the help of some kind of supernatural force, learns what they need to do to raise Konrad - essentially build him a body. However, both Henry and Elizabeth sense that there is something very ancient and evil in the caves.

When they return to the real world, the trio set about creating a new physical body for Konrad, although how they would merge his spirit with this new body I can't imagine. As this creature grows, Victor begins to suspect that not all is as it seems. It has a hidden malevolent side, that Elizabeth refuses to recognize and Henry can't understand. Meanwhile, a visiting professor researching the paintings and caves beneath the chateau discovers an ancient burial mound that held a monstrous creature, who bears some physical similarities to the creature Victor is growing.

As Victor makes more visits to the spirit world, he also visits the caves beneath the chateau. He learns more about what was buried in the caves so long ago and begins to understand that this creature is using them to be reborn. Through the use of the occult and black magic they have opened the door to a great evil. Can Victor end what he started?

There's no doubt that Kenneth Oppel is a gifted author. His development of Victor Frankenstein as a young man increasingly obsessed with creating life is brilliant. Victor is a megalomaniac - a man hungry for power but not just any power. It is the power that is gained through knowledge and a desire to use that knowledge to control the physical world around him, including the very force of life. Even after the dark and terrifying events described in this novel, he still can't quite let go of his obsession and the ending hints at where his thoughts might lead him next!

The characterization of Victor is aided by a well conceived storyline which not only portrays the lengths a person might go to be godlike but also develops the idea that Victor Frankenstein's desires span generations. Wilhelm Frankenstein, Victors grandfather, lived in a chateau that had given up God and closed the chateau's chapel, replacing it with a library filled with books about dark magic.

Elizabeth is portrayed as a devout Catholic, yet she goes along with Victor's escapades - so I feel in this sense that she is a character that is not true to herself. No truly devout Catholic would dabble in the occult in this manner. Konrad was portrayed in the first novel as the kind twin, gentle and caring. This is what attracted Elizabeth to him. As a Catholic she would take great solace in the fact that at death, he would be in the hands of God. Apparently, her desire to see her true love and the possibility presented to her by Victor of creating a body for Konrad are too tempting for her to ignore.

Most of the characters we met in the first novel, Victor's brothers, his parents and even Henry, are not much further developed. This is plainly a novel that continues the characterization of Victor Frankenstein as a young scientist headed towards madness and ruin.

There is plenty of objectionable content for Catholic youth in this book; the use of Ouija-like objects, necromancy which is communication with the dead, and possession by demons, as well as Victor Frankenstein's blasphemous attitude towards God. I understand that all this is setting the stage for Shelley's Frankenstein, the madman scientist who creates a hideous monster from dead bodies. The book ably demonstrates the dangers of flirting with the occult, as Victor unleashes a horror that they barely survive, suggesting to young readers that there exist powers we cannot understand. Such Wicked Intent does offer an opportunity to discuss the occult and black magic, although I certainly have strong reservations about recommending this book to younger readers. I'm betting the final book in The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein will be even more disturbing.

Such Wicked Intent has a good trailer that sets the stage for the novel:



Book Details:
Such Wicked Intent by Kenneth Oppel
Toronto: HarperCollins 2012
310 pp.

This Dark Endeavour by Kenneth Oppel

Well-known Canadian author, Kenneth Oppels' newest novel presents readers with a inventive imagining of the life of young Victor Frankenstein before he created his famous monster. This Dark Endeavour is a modern return to the Gothic thriller that tells the story of Victor, his twin brother Konrad, and their cousin Elizabeth Lavenza and friend Henry Clerval as they undertake a very dark endeavour - the search for the Elixir of Life.

Victor and Konrad, are the twin sons of William Frankenstein who is one of four magistrates in the city-republic of Geneva. The Frankensteins, whose family consists of Victor and Konrad, and their younger brothers, Ernest and William, live in a chateau outside the city.

One day Victor, Konrad, Elizabeth and Henry discover an abandoned library in the basement of the chateau. The creepy library which is filled with old volumes containing information about the occult, was built by their ancestor, Wilhelm Frankenstein when the chateau was constructed. Wilhelm was an alchemist who became involved in the occult and eventually abandoned the chateau and his family, never to be heard from again. The library was known as the Dark Library because it contained many books banned by the Catholic church. Victor and Konrad are told by their father that the books do not contain knowledge but a corruption of knowledge and that they must never return. Of course, this serves only to pique their interest, as we see later on. For Victor, it remains a fascination he cannot deny.

When Konrad becomes deathly ill, Victor decides that he must try to find a cure for his brother's illness. When he overhears a maid telling his mother that there are other ways to heal, Victor becomes convinced that he must return to the Dark Library to learn more. He also learns the name of an alchemist, Julius Polidori, still living in Geneva and he and Henry and Elizabeth set out to find him.

Reluctantly, Polidori agrees to help them in their dark endeavour. He translates the recipe for the Elixir of Life and sends them on a quest for the three ingredients necessary to make this potion. It is this quest and the relationship they have with Polidori that form the storyline for the book. It is a quest that pits the two brothers against one another and involves them in the forbidden practice of alchemy.

Discussion

In This Dark Endeavour, Kenneth Oppel has crafted characters that are realistic and interesting. Although Victor and Konrad are twins, Victor has the darker personality of the two. It's almost like a Jekyll and Hyde split. Konrad is a better student, and has a more pleasant nature, whereas Victor is more passionate, impulsive and has a cruel streak. This difference in their natures is effectively contrasted in the way that they relate to their cousin, Elizabeth, whom they both love. Their rivalry for the love of Elizabeth is one of the many dark themes of the novel. The characterization is effective enough that the reader is easily drawn to like Konrad and Elizabeth while feeling a bit of revulsion towards Victor, whose intensity is a stark reminder of the future he has!

There are plenty of religious themes to explore, especially relating to magic, and the proper use of knowledge.

The novel's unique storyline is enhanced by Oppel's smart, witty dialogue. This Dark Endeavour is the first in the Victor Frankenstein series, with the next installment, Such Wicked Intent due out in the summer of 2012. 

Book Details:
This Dark Endeavour by Kenneth Oppel
Toronto: Harper Collins 2011
297 pp.