Enders by Lissa Price

Enders is the sequel to Lissa Price's debut novel, Starters.

Despite taking down Prime Destinations, the Old Man lives on. He can talk to Callie via the chip in the back of her head.
"It was like a phone the Old Man could call anytime, a phone I had to answer and could never disconnect. It was the Old Man's direct line to me, Callie Woodland."

Callie now lives in the home of  the Ender, Helena, who had rented her and had used her body to try to assassinate Senator Harrison in order to stop the Old Man. Her younger brother, Tyler, now fully recovered, and a friend, Michael live in the guest house. Tyler tells Callie that he and Michael are going to get him new shoes at the mall.

Callie agrees to meet them at the mall after she takes sandwiches to the starving Starters in an old office building that had been home for Michael, Tyler and Florina when Callie was being rented out. When she arrives at the building, the sandwiches are stolen from her by a young Starter.

Her mission to feed the Starters a failure, Callie arrives early at the mall and heads to the food court where she's to meet Michael and Tyler. Suddenly Callie begins hearing the Old Man's voice in her head. The Old Man directs Callie's attention to a Starter that Callie knew, named Reece. Callie's guardian, Lauren, had rented Reece's body to search for her grandson. Callie knows Reece doesn't know her but she attempts to get her attention since she sees that Reece is being followed by an Ender with a silver animal tattoo. Reece, not recognizing Callie, walks away and in an attempt to flee the Ender, runs towards the shoe store where Michael and Tyler are shopping. She never makes it, exploding before reaching the store, as Callie is taken down and protected by a dark-haired Starter with piercing eyes. The Old Man tells Callie that although she destroyed the body bank and Prime Destinations, he has other facilities and can still access any chip. He can turn these into weapons just as he did with Reece.

Callie contacts Senator Bohn who helped her take down Prime Destinations with an idea of how to track down the Old Man. After contacting her guardian, Lauren, Callie goes to meet Blake, the Senator Harrison's grandson, who has been attempting to contact her. Callie decides to reveal to Blake about the chip implants, how he was kidnapped and implanted and that his body was used by the head of Prime, the Old Man. She explains that the Old Man has an electronic mask and an artificial voice to disguise himself. Callie warns Blake to avoid the Old Man and to ask his grandfather about what really happened to him.

Callie, Senator Bohn who is in charge of the Congressional investigation of Prime Destinations, and Lauren are unsuccessful in their attempt to access the computers at Institution 37, where Callie was once imprisoned. The Old Man once again contacts Callie via her chip and warns her that if she does not cooperate he will harm Michael and her brother Tyler.  He also reveals that Tyler has been implanted with a chip.The Old Man instructs Callie to drive to an unknown location but she never makes it. Instead she is kidnapped by the Starter who saved her in the mall explosion. The Starter reveals himself as Hyden, the son of the Old Man. Callie deduces that the Old Man must be a Middle, one of the rare middle-aged who survived due to vaccination. Hyden's specially designed SUV blocks access to her chip, providing a place to be safe.

Callie learns that she is the only Metal (a Starter who has a chip implanted) whose chip has been altered so that she can kill when someone is inside her head. She is also able to retain her self-awareness, unlike other Metals who have no idea what happens to them when they are being used. Hyden tells Callie that both he and his father, whose name is Brockman, developed the mind-body transfer technology but while he wanted to use it for good, his father was only intent upon selling the technology to the highest foreign bidder.

Hyden informs Callie that access to the Metal's chips can be prevented at either high altitudes or if they go far enough underground.  To that end, Hyden arranges for Michael and Callie's brother, Tyler to be taken to his private mountain chalet where they cannot be tracked by his father. At the same time, he takes Callie to his secret lab which is located underground. There she finds Redmond, an Ender who had altered her chip in the first novel and who had gone missing.

Callie wants the chip removed from her head but Hyden tells her it is not possible and that all attempts to remove the chip have met with failure. After experiencing another of Helena's memories in her head, Callie tells Hyden that they should find as many of the other Metals as possible and bring them back to his lab so that Brockman will not be able to capture and sell them.

Using a scanner, Callie, Hyden and his bodyguard, Ernie (a Middle), begin locating and picking up Metals. Soon they have many Metals with various skills living in a dorm in the lab complex, helping out making meals, cleaning and doing repairs. During this time Callie learns that Hyden has suffered nerve damage as a result of an accident and cannot bear to be touched. The mind-body transfer technology was something he hoped would help him. It is because of this pain that after taking in one of the Metals, Hyden transfers into the other boy's body, revealing to Callie that he too has a chip.

Soon after this, Michael contacts Callie and she and Hyden travel to pick him up. However, while looking for Michael, Callie hears her father's voice in her head. Although Hyden insists that the voice she heard was not her father but was in fact his father, Callie holds hope that he might still be alive. In order to find out, Callie and Hyden go to the Hall of Records and learn that he is dead. At the Hall, Brockman contacts Callie where he demonstrates to her that he is learning how to control her body by making her pinky move. Hyden fights off a hijacked Metal and they manage to cut off Brockman and recover the Metal, taking her to Hyden's lab.

Hyden's lab is attacked and the Metals are all captured except for Hyden, Callie and Michael. Ernie and Redmond are also spared. They learn from a dying Ender that Brockman was responsible for the attack and that he is planning to sell the Metals to the richest Enders in the world, in ten days time. Can Callie rescue the Metals from a terrible fate and stop Brockman in his quest to own the technology and sell it to the highest bidder?

Discussion:

Enders is an fitting conclusion to Lissa Price's first novel, Starters, neatly tying up all the loose ends from the first novel. Callie, who brought down Prime Directions in the first novel, is determined to find a way to rid herself of the chip and get away from the Old Man. But as she discovers more about herself and the two men who designed the mind-body transfer technology, it becomes apparent that she has to stop him from selling the technology to other governments who will have no qualms about using it against America.

Although not as interesting as Starters, Enders strong point is the revelations at the end of the novel. Price does a great job holding her reader's interest, gradually revealing more of the backstory behind Hyden and Brockman, developing the mystery surrounding her father and utilizing many plot twists in the final chapters. However, readers will be somewhat disappointed at how quickly the resolution to the novel occurs. Callie gaining control of her chip simply happens, just like that, diffusing the climax to the story and creating a feeling of the novel rushing to quickly to its resolution.

Enders is weak on characterization as the story is driven by the action in the novel. There's no real depth to the characters, except for Callie who is presented as a girl just wishing for a normal life with her brother Tyler but who comes to realize that she needs to keep fighting for those who have been implanted with this technology against their will. Michael who was a significant character in Starters, is a minor character in this novel. Callie's romantic relationship with Hyden seems bizarre given his lies and manipulation of just about everyone around him. Callie seemed to completely forget the bond she had with Michael.

Price only touches on the implications of biotechnology for individuals and society in a superficial way near the end of novel when Callie is taken over by a creepy Ender. Although what he makes her do is vividly described, the reader doesn't get a sense of what Callie's feeling as she loses her ability to control her actions in front of a gallery of old men,  because she doesn't tell us. This was a great opportunity for Price to demonstrate how such technology impacts bodily autonomy and the integrity of human beings if they are controlled by others.

It is puzzling as to why Price titled this novel Enders, since most of the story does not directly involve Enders, except at the conclusion of the novel when it is the Enders who are the ones interested in the Metals. It isn't even an Ender who is the villain in the novel, but a Middle. And it is Metals who are the prime focus of the novel. As a result, it would have been more accurate to have titled  the novel Metals. It's unfortunate that Price didn't use a different circuitry design similar to the cover of the first novel. The cover of Starters was more in line with the theme of the duology.

Overall though, Enders is a good conclusion to a duology with a very unique and interesting premise. These novels will appeal to those who enjoyed The Adoration of Jenna Fox and Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series which also explore the impact of biotechnology on human identity.

Book Details:
Enders by Lissa Price
New York: Ember, an imprint of Random House    2014
272 pp.

Fox Forever by Mary E. Pearson

Fox Forever picks up the story of Locke Jenkins who is on his way to Manchester where Gatsboro's labs are located to make sure that there are no other copies of him in the labs. However, he is waylaid by Mr. F, who works for the Resistance and told he needs to come with him to complete the favour that Father Andre mentioned they might request in The Fox Inheritance. Father Andre had told Locke that in return for being freed, the Network might want him to return the favour.

Locke is traveling with a fake ID as Nate Smith courtesy of the Network. He and Mr. "F" travel to Boston where they meet two others, Carver and Livvy. Mr F's name is Xavier. The favour they are asking is no ordinary one; to help a special Non-pact.

Carver, Livvy, and Xavier have learned that the Secretary of Security is holding someone in a special detainment area at an undisclosed location in Boston for the past sixteen years. That someone is believed to be Karden Sanders the leader of the Resistance and Meisha Derring's husband. Karden Sanders was the a leader in the underground Non-pact Resistance sixteen years ago. His group fought for those on the fringes of society and those who had no rights - the Non-pacts. Meisha Derring married him even though it was illegal to marry a Non-pact. They had a daughter named Rebecca. They moved and changed names frequently until one day the authorities caught up with them. While Meisha was out, their house was firebombed, and Karden and Rebecca were killed. Meisha spent 11 years in prison when she was finally released.

Although Meisha believed her husband and daughter were killed when their home was firebombed years ago, it now appears that Karden, at least, may be alive. Karden is thought to have stolen a huge sum of money - $80 billion from government contractors who provided the security systems against Non-pacts. That money was hidden in a secret account, the location of which Karden only partially disclosed. Carver and his team want to save Karden and gain access to the money before the grace period for dormant bank accounts expires. If it does, the money will be lost and Karden will be killed by the government which no longer needs him.

Locke owes Meisha, because in addition to her being Locke's only very distant living relative that he knows, she helped him escape from Gatsboro. But getting involved may mean ending up back in prison. Can Locke take such a risk? Locke has been chosen partly becuase of his physical attributes. Locke's body is eighty percent bioengineered human, twenty percent composites which is illegal. He has the ability to read lips and can also read faces meaning he can determine the emotions a person is feeling. Locke's BioPerfect heals his body quickly and he can see in the dark, although his 260 years spent in a cube have made him afraid of the dark.

The plan is to embed Locke in a group, a Virtual Collective - a sort of high school group, which contains the Security Secretary's daughter, Raine. Locke is to use Raine to help him locate Karden. At first, Raine is cold and wary of Locke. But Locke's first meeting with the Secretary at a party scores him an invite to the select group. During this party Locke meets, Han, Raine's gold Bot and bodyguard, as well as LeGru, the slimy assistant to the Security Secretary.

One night Locke unexpectedly discovers that Raine frequents the roof of the building she lives in and often leaves her apartment during the night to explore the city. Initially, he uses this to get to know Raine better and as part of his mission to find the missing bank account numbers and the location of Karden. However, their relationship soon develops into much more. Locke makes an astonishing discovery of who Raine is (although reader's probably won't be surprised) and uncovers the events of that fateful night sixteen years ago. With time running out, Locke must deal with betrayal, injury, and conflict to save both Karden and the future of the resistance.

Fox Forever is a fitting conclusion to the Fox Series. Well written, this novel focuses on a new plot that ties together the lose ends of Jenna and Locke. Pearson doesn't really go into much detail about the science behind Locke, nor much about the future world that he lives in. Although the United States is now two countries, we don't really know much about the resistance, except that with the capture of Karden, came its collapse. Likewise when Locke's mission is successful, Pearson doesn't really delve into the consequences of the resistance coming into a huge amount of money. Instead, that is briefly mentioned in a chapter titled Thirty Years Later.

The novel's focus is more on Locke's relationship with Raine as well as his relationship with Jenna Fox. It turns out that both Raine and Locke are quite similar - both have a mysterious past and both are not who they appear to be. As such, this novel deals with the quintessential questions of identity; who am I? and how do I belong? The same questions face Locke with his changing relationship with Jenna. Although initially Locke believed he loved Jenna, he begins to understand that they have both changed, just as Jenna tried to explain to him in The Fox Inheritance. Jenna has lived a life the past 260 years, working for the resistance, marrying and having a child, while Locke has been held captive in a cube. These experiences have changed her. She is no longer the seventeen year old girl Locke remembers.

The ending of the novel is sad but hopeful. The reader is left with the impression that Locke has come to terms  to some degree, with what has happened to him and his existence in the future. There's an interesting theme of religion and sanctuary throughout the series. Jenna and then Locke, and finally Locke and Raine are given sanctuary by Catholic priests. Locke and Raine meet often in a church where they spend time just being together. And Locke remembers his days as an altar boy, when he was fully human, 260 years ago.

Overall Pearson has written a good series that explores what it means to be human, with a bit of action and some romance.

Book Details:
Fox Forever by Mary E. Pearson
New York: Henry Holt and Company   2013
288 pp.