The Last Star by Rick Yancey

Note: those who have not read the novel should NOT visit Rick Yancey's website as there is a major spoiler by a fan on his home page.

The Last Star begins with Cassie, her little brother Sam (Nugget), the human-alien Evan Walker, Ben Parish (Zombie), Dumbo and Megan hiding out at Grace’s well stocked house. Cassie furiously confronts Evan telling him she doesn’t understand WHY the aliens killed off the human population using such cruel methods when they could have done it differently. Evan tells her that they could have lived with humans indefinitely, sharing their knowledge and bringing peace and order to the world. He tells her he wanted to do it differently but they wouldn't listen. He tells her that for ten thousand years they have had immortality. “An existence without pain, without hunger, without any physical needs at all. But immortality has a price. Without bodies, we lost the things that come with them. Things like autonomy and benevolence. Compassion.”

Ben Parish (Zombie) tells Cassie he doesn’t buy Evan’s explanations, that Ringer was right, that there is something that doesn’t add up about all this. “Ringer was right Cassie. This doesn’t make a lot of sense. He kidnaps a human body so he can murder all the unkidnapped human bodies. Then one day he decides he’d rather murder his own kind so he can save all the unkidnapped human bodies. And not just murder one or two of his kind…All of them. He wants to destroy his entire civilization, …For a girl. A girl!” Ringer didn’t understand why aliens who don’t have bodies need a planet and why they came for ours.

Ben wants to go with Dumbo to the caverns to find Ringer and Teacup. However both Cassie and Evan think he should wait until Evan blows up the mother ship. Evan tells them he needs to blow up the mother ship because on the spring equinox the ship is set to unleash bombs over the entire world that will destroy every city on Earth to complete the cleansing. This is the last step before the launch of the 5th Wave. Before the bombs are unleashed all the Silencers will be brought on the ship.

Meanwhile Ringer (Marika) who has now been enhanced with the 12th System, a nanotechnology that allows her superhuman abilities is allowed to escape the military base. Razor killed Teacup because he knew that Ringer would never leave her. He wanted her to be free to do what she needs to do. When Vosch does not come after her Ringer goes back because she believes that she needs to kill Evan Walker. Ringer knows that Vosch is human and he tells her that he is necessary to facilitate the radical intervention to save mankind. "...we were doomed to destroy ourselves and our home. The only solution was radical intervention. Destroy the human village in order to save it." Vosch tells Ringer that it wasn't enough to just destroy all of humanity, but that it had to change human nature.

He assigns another woman, Lieutenant Constance Pierce whom Ringer hates to accompany her to find Evan. In a briefing with Vosch and Pierce, Vosch reveals that a reconnaissance flight has discovered that Dumbo, Poundcake, Sullivan, Nugget, Walker and Zombie are holed up in a house about fifteen miles southeast of Urbana. However, two nights ago two people left the house heading towards the caverns. Ringer tells Vosch they are heading to the caverns to look for her. He tells Ringer that she and Pierce will be dropped in ahead of their arrival and that Pierce's job will be to bring back Evan Walker. Vosch wants Walker because his program is no longer functioning and he wants to know why. He tells Ringer once he has Walker she and her friends will be free to go. Ringer knows however that Vosch intends to kill all of them. He gives her a green capsule - a modified bomb similar to the one the child in wheat carried but six times more powerful. She refuses this at first. When Vosch asks Ringer what is the lesson of the child in the wheat, Ringer tells him that it is to kill trust and love in humans. No one can trust anyone, not even a child. "Without trust there's no cooperation. And without cooperation there's no progress. History stops." Vosch states "The answer to the human problem is the death of what makes us human."

In the C-160 Ringer tries to explain what is happening to Pierce who believes she is an alien. "Everything you think is bullshit. Who you think you are, your memories,all of it. Before you were born, they embedded a program in your brain that booted up when you hit puberty...You've been infected with a viral program that literally rewired your brain to 'remember' things that didn't happen. You aren't an alien consciousness here to wipe out humanity and colonize Earth. You're human. Like me. Like Vosch. Like everyone else. " Ringer tells Pierce that if she believes she will return to the mother ship and the 5th Wave will finish off humans she is mistaken. Instead she will be fighting the army she's created until there are no bullets to fight with. Without trust and cooperation, a perpetual Stone Age will be born which mankind will never progress out of because no one will ever trust anyone else. Constance's refusal to believe her leads Ringer to decide she has to kill Pierce and she has to kill Walker too. They are dropped in near a farmhouse and Ringer and Pierce quickly separate. Ringer experiences nausea - her second bout since returning to Vosch and she wonders if there's something wrong with the 12th System. Outside the farm, Ringer meets a priest who seems kindly enough at first. But when Ringer tells the priest she's a Silencer he attacks her. Ringer realizes that Constance was here to neutralize a Silencer. He beats Ringer and is able to penetrate into her mind discovering what happened to her, Razor and Teacup. He also tells her there is another and asks her if she knows of its existence.(This is a reference to her unborn baby.)

Back at the house, with Zombie and Dumbo gone, Cassie's little brother Sam takes an M9 Beretta he has found and hides it in the belt of his pants. Sam decides he will watch over Megan and also Evan. Evan and Cassie make love.

Meanwhile Zombie and Dumbo reach Urbana where Dumbo is shot in the back. Zombie manages to get him to a safe place, pack his wound and then sets off to find the killer. He discovers an old lady living in a boarded up room with cats. He wants to shoot her but it isn't until she attacks him that Zombie realizes he's found the Urbana Silencer. He barely survives the encounter - a cat eating old lady silencer who's been enhanced. Zombie returns to Dumbo and tells him has to leave him but promises to return.  Zombie arrives at the welcome center buildings outside the caverns where he sees a priest. After setting off a grenade, Zombie falls into a pit containing hundreds of decomposing bodies. In the pit someone calls his name and tells him to play dead. The priest peers into the pit and tells him to not be afraid, to climb out not knowing that Constance is also in the pit. She pulls the priest into the hole and blows his brains out. Out of the pit Zombie meets Constance and Ringer. Ringer lies to Zombie about how Teacup died and about who Constance really is, telling him that Constance was in the caves and that the priest began to kill people. Eventually she realized that the priest was a Silencer.

Zombie fills her in on what happened to the squad. Although Zombie is leery of Constance she wins him over by pretending to be vulnerable. They travel into Urbana and find Dumbo who has crawled out of the building Zombie left him. Dumbo dies and Zombie buries him.  Zombie wants to kill Constance but Ringer doesn't allow him even though she knows what Constance is. The three travel back to Grace's house where Constance almost immediately attempts to kill Walker. She grabs Sam when she offers him her hand to shake but takes him hostage. However Constance is killed by Sam who uses the gun hidden in his pants. Ringer wants to kill Evan but Zombie refuses and she shoots him in the thigh.

Since Constance was being tracked, Vosch knows their location and the group finds itself attacked by a Black Hawk helicopter firing hellfire. Zombie, Cassie, Sam, Megan and Evan head to the basement but Evan decides to surrender because he knows Vosch wants him. The helicopter removes Evan while three hundred meters from the house, Squad 19 is waiting to move into the house. However Ringer takes each of the kids who belong to the squad down.

Zombie watches Ringer bury the young kids and asks her what happened to her as she is no longer the person her remembers. She tells him that she is enhanced like Evan, Constance, the priest and the cat lady and that she is also pregnant - which she asks him to keep secret. Zombie brings Ringer into the basement to Cassie, Sam and Megan and tells her that Evan got on the chopper and that Ringer has killed the strike team. Ringer explains to Cassie and Zombie (Ben) what she believes has happened. She tells them that the mother ship is possibly automated and that the aliens may not even be on it and maybe never were. It's also possible that the aliens who sent the ship might even be extinct.

Cassie is not sure she believes what Ringer has told them; that alien probes found earth a few thousand years ago. After observing humans they decided that we are harmful to both ourselves and the planet and they built a mother ship. The mother ship contained bombs, drones and a viral plague. This along with the use of humans infected with a computer program would be used to wipe out ninety-nine point nine percent of Earth's population. Ringer tells her that her Silencer theory - that a computer program was downloaded into fetuses and activated at puberty to make them believe they were aliens is true and was confirmed by Vosch. What Ringer doesn't understand is why Vosch wants Evan Walker whose Silencer program malfunctioned. The next stage will be the unleashing of bombs to destroy all the cities on Earth but before that pods will be sent to pick up the Silencers. Ringer doesn't know if the pods will actually come, but she does believe that all the cities on Earth will be bombed as cities hold the memories of human civilization. A culture without memories is a dead culture.

Cassie and Ben and Ringer must now decide what to do. Cassie believes that they are now at the point where they are likely to die and that their death should be meaningful. They could flee into the wilderness, but they know eventually the 5th Wave will find them. Ringer tells them that the Black Hawk chopper will be returning to pick up the strike team. Cassie wants to hijack the Black Hawk, fly to the military base and rescue Evan Walker. She also notes this will give Ringer the chance to kill Vosch. They work out a plan, taking the uniforms from the dead strike team and their trackers so the Black Hawk will zero in on them. Before they leave, Ben finds Ringer ready to drink antifreeze to cause her to abort Razor's baby, but he refuses to allow this. He tells her he will be there for her. As the chopper returns, Ben, Sam and Megan hide under blankets so the Black Hawk won't detect their body heat and Cassie and Ringer trick their way onto the chopper. They force the pilot, Bob to fly all of them to the Ohio caverns where they leave Ben, Sam and Megan. Bob flies Cassie and Ringer towards the military base so they can be captured as planned. Ringer knows that Vosch will now be aware of the dead strike team and the commandeered chopper. Cassie and Ringer's plan is the only one that seems to offer any hope to mankind. But what will the cost be? And can they succeed in turning the tide in the war against humanity?

Discussion

The Last Star is an exciting finale to the 5th Wave series by Rick Yancey. Like the previous novels in the series it is detailed, lengthy and intense. It presents readers with the fate of all the remaining characters in the novel. In the Last Star, although the cast of characters remaining has dwindled, the main characters are Cassie and Ringer. It is Ringer who learns what is really happening and who understands how the alien program has functioned, but it is Cassie who out of love for her brother Sam, makes the ultimate sacrifice. And that's the main theme of this novel, the mystery of human love and how it is humanity's most redeeming quality. It turns out, love is the one thing the aliens who were observing Earth could not understand.

Ringer's theories about what is really going on are confirmed when Evan is captured and Vosch reveals to him the truth of the alien invasion. He tells Evan that a mechanical owl visited his mother when she was pregnant with him and installed the program into his developing brain and then returned when he went through puberty to give him the 12th System. Vosch also reveals that there are no aliens on board the mother ship nor inside of him. He brags to Evan about the carefully constructed program designed to save Earth.   "It is completely automated, like your old friend here, designed by its makers after centuries of careful study and deliberation and sent to this planet to wean the human population to a sustainable level. And, of course, to keep it there indefinitely by changing human nature itself...A flawless, self-sustaining loop, an immaculate system in which trust and cooperation can never take root." The goal was to change human nature so that it would be indifferent to the suffering others.

However, unexpectedly Evan reveals a fatal flaw in the alien's plan. Evan's Silencer program, installed in him when he was still in utero seems to have failed as he did not complete his mission of killing Cassie when he found her. Vosch captures Evan because he needs to find out the cause of the failure. After running tests on Evan, Vosch realizes that love - Evan's love for Cassie is what overrode his Silencer program. "She may be right: Love may be the singularity, the inexplicable, ungovernable, ineffable mystery, impossible to predict or control, the virus that crashed a program designed by beings next to which we are no more evolved than a cockroach." And so Vosch decides that his answer to Ringer's claim will be to erase what Evan loves so that he will kill. He will remove Evan's human qualities, erase his memories of Cassie and turn him into a Silencer he was meant to be. He will be a human indifferent to the suffering of others.

Later, when Ringer is lying broken after her encounter with Evan who is now a Silencer, Vosch finds her. He tells Ringer he's been on the mother ship and that he agreed to work the program in exchange for having his consciousness preserved aboard the mother ship. He also tells Ringer that these aliens have "saved" other planets besides Earth. Vosch admits that there was no flaw in Evan's programming, that the aliens simply had no understanding of love and therefore could not develop an algorithm to deal with this factor.

When Cassie and Ringer break into the military base, they find the room where memories are downloaded into Wonderland, a program that stores memories and winnows out the weak soldiers in the 5th Wave. They hope to locate Evan by finding his memories which will tell them what happened to him here. But sifting through all the millions of downloaded memories to find Evan's will take too long, so Cassie courageously has all the memories of people downloaded into her mind including those of Evan before Vosch erased him. From his memories she learns that the aliens had no answer for love, no solution for love. She sees what Vosch told Evan: "They thought they could crush it out of us, burn it from our brains, replace love with its opposite - not hate, indifference. They thought they could turn men into sharks." This was a reference to the alien's belief that in order to save humanity they needed to make men like sharks. Studying Earth they discovered rule the ocean because "their complete indifference to everything except feeding, procreation, and defending their territory. The shark does not love. It feels no empathy. It trust nothing. It lives in perfect harmony with its environment because it has no aspirations or desires. And no pity. A shark feels no sorrow, no remorse, hopes for nothing, dreams of nothing, has no illusions about itself or anything beyond itself."

The major symbol of the mystery of love in the novel is Sam's teddy bear, named Bear.  Sam Sullivan's bear is a symbol of the indomitable force that is love. Cassie marvels that of all the things mankind has accomplished, from inventing poetry to designing rockets to take man into space, the "most wonderful thing of all ...is stuffing wads of polyester into an anatomically incorrect, cartoonish ideal of one of nature's most fearsome predators for no other reason than to soothe a child." Sam's bear motivated Cassie to continue to fight after Sam goes missing in the first novel. She hung onto his bear as a sign of hope and her love for her little brother.

In The Last Star, Sam refuses to take back his teddy, Bear, after having given him to Megan. He is a soldier now and done with toys. Megan has renamed him Captain, but Sam tells her his name is Bear and that he can't have a new name like the rest of the squad because he isn't a part of it -an oblique reference to what Bear really stands for. Bear is love and love has no part of a soldier. However, when Sam tries to give Bear to Cassie before she and Ringer leave for the military base, Cassie refuses. She tells him to keep Bear, that he's very important. "So hang on to him, understand? You take care of him and protect him and don't let anybody hurt him. Bear is very important to the grand scheme of things. He's like gravity. Without him, the universe would fall apart." This is Cassie telling her younger brother that love is the most important thing of all because it is what keeps us human and what holds the world together. He needs to remember what love is and how he was loved by their parents, by her.

This is an important message for Sam because he's lost the ability to trust people - exactly what the alien program wants. At the house Sam feels he cannot trust anyone any more. "There's no way to tell who's human anymore. Evan Walker looked human but he wasn't, not inside, not where it matters. Even people like Megan, who are human - maybe- couldn't be trusted, because you can't know what the enemy has done to them. Zombie, Cassie, Dumbo... you can't really trust them, either. They could be just like Evan Walker." Sam has also lost his faith in God. "He used to pray every night, all the time, and the only answer God ever gave was no...You can't trust God, either. Even God is a liar...All the people who died must have prayed too, and God said, No, no, no, seven billion times, seven billion nos, God said no, no, no." But what is the antidote for a lack of trust in others? Unconditional love.

The fates of all the remaining characters are sorted out in The Last Star. Perhaps the most interesting is that of the character Vosch. Vosch turns out to be the facilitator of the entire cleansing of Earth. He tells Evan, "I have been entrusted with the greatest mission in human history: the salvation of our species. Like you, I've known since I was a boy what was coming. Unlike you, I knew the truth." This suggests that Vosch was given a program that would make him the manager of the cleansing. He also reveals his loneliness to Evan and that only a few knew the reality of the invasion. He sees himself as much a victim as Evan is.

Ringer whose real name is Marika is the one character who seems to have grasped the reality of what is happening. The strategy of the alien programing was to wipe out most of humanity and reset it in order to save the planet and humans. Ringer states, " 'Not enough to level what we built. We'll repopulate. We'll rebuild. To save the planet, to save our species, they have to change us.' She touches her chest. 'Here. If the Others can take away trust, they take away cooperation. Take away cooperation, and civilization is impossible.' " Ultimately it was a battle over the heart of humans, but the aliens were at a disadvantage because they couldn't understand the human heart and its ability to love. The proof of the power of love is in the relationship that develops between Ringer and Ben. She reveals that she can't go on but Ben tells her he will carry her.

The Last Star ends hopefully despite the tragic end of one of the main characters. However the reader is left feeling that this was not a senseless loss because it leads to a turn in the war. The Last Star is well written, filled with sequences that are both thrilling and terrifying. It is a study in human nature, what makes us human, and challenges us to define the purpose of our existence in the universe.

Book Details:

The Last Star by Rick Yancey
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons       2016
338 pp.

The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey

The Infinite Sea is the second installment in the 5th Wave trilogy. In The 5th Wave, aliens who have been watching Earth for thousands of years finally decide to put into action their plan to remove the infestation of humans on the planet. They began by knocking out power with an electromagnetic pulse, then triggering giant tsunamis which wiped out the populations living near the coastal areas. This was followed by the third wave which was the red plague. The fourth wave saw the aliens consciousness inserted into the bodies of humans and then activated at puberty. The apocalypse is in full gear, with the Others working to eradicate the last of the humans. 

Teenager Cassie Sullivan spends much of the first novel searching for her younger brother, Sam, and in the process uncovers the horrifying 5th Wave. The 5th Wave is comprised of children who under the pretense of being "saved" and being trained to kill, not the aliens as they believe, but their fellow humans.  This is being done, Cassie discovers, in a huge military camp run by an "Other" named General Vosch. She also meets Evan Walker, a human hosting an alien consciousness, who falls in love with her and who does not wish to follow through with the plans to annihilate the entire human race. With the help of Evan, Cassie and a group of teens take out Vosch's base with a massive explosion leaving the fate of Evan unknown and the destruction of the base only a minor setback for the aliens.

The novel opens with a short prologue which recounts the event of a child being used as an IED to destroy a group of humans hidden in a farmhouse demonstrating that no one can now be trusted - not even small children who might be deadly weapons. This is a foreshadowing of what might be in store for Cassie's group of survivors.

The Infinite Sea picks up the story several weeks after the destruction of Vosch's base. It is winter and without food, many of the surviving humans face the reality of freezing and starving to death. Cassie's ragtag group of survivors is holed up in an abandoned hotel infested with rats. They have gone there because it was Cassie's prearranged meeting place with Evan after the attack on Vosch's Camp Haven. In the hotel are Cassie, Ringer, Teacup, Nugget (Sam), Dumbo, Zombie (Ben Parish) and Poundcake. Ben is not doing well, feverish from the bullet wound Ringer gave him when they escaped Camp Haven. Cassie continues to hope that Evan has survived the blast and will return.

Ringer is preparing to leave, to scout out the caves where they plan on moving to. As she travels along the highway, she thinks about Evan Walker and what he told Cassie, that the aliens are pure consciousness occupying a human body and that they don't need the planet to exist. The reason for the aliens needing a planet seems puzzling to her and doesn't add up. Ringer is outside Urbana and headed to the Ohio Caverns outside of West Liberty. In the woods she discovers another 5th Waver like herself only he's been shot dead. This can only mean a Silencer must be around. Ringer removes the tracking pellet from the dead kid and puts it in her mouth. But instead of shooting a Silencer, Ringer shoots Teacup. Just as she's about to finish her off, a black chopper arrives and Ringer decides to allow them to be captured.

Meanwhile back at the hotel, Cassie keeps watch on the parking lot while the others sleep. She is remembering a conversation she had with Ringer and Ben. Cassie remembers what Evan Walker told her about the aliens and about himself, that he began life as Evan and then at thirteen his alien consciousness awoke and then Evan came back into the picture again later on. He told her that the aliens no longer have bodies, it was the only way they could make the journey and that their consciousnesses were downloaded onto the mothership; some are still there awaiting the completed cleansing. The camps were set up to select the best humans for brainwashing so they could complete the annihilation. But Ben wants to know why they just didn't download enough of their troops into humans to wipe the remaining humans out. Evan proved however that there was a risk to this, that by becoming human they might actually take on a human identity.

They have decided to wait to see if Evan will show giving Ben time to heal from his wounds. However, things go bad fast when Cassie spots Teacup sneaking away after Ringer. Poundcake is sent after her. As they wait for Poundcake to return, Ben wonders why the aliens waited centuries to exterminate them when they could have done it earlier when there were fewer humans on the planet.

Soon Ben and Cassie realize that Dumbo is missing. Waking Sam and ordering him to lock the door to his room, Ben and Cassie begin working their way through the hotel. They decide to check the elevator shaft. Ben lowers Cassie into the shaft and she moves into the elevator car. After checking the lobby, gunshots ring out on the upper floor and Cassie races back up to her brother's room where she finds and shoots Evan Walker in the knee.

The story picks up with Evan's narration. He reveals that as a child he remembers dreaming of owls but when he turned thirteen the dreams stopped. The alien in him had awakened, ready to use the gifts the owl had given him and his life as a thirteen year old boy became a lie. Evan apparently has survived the blast and has been rescued by another Silencer, a tall, blonde woman with icy blue eyes named Grace. Grace tells him that he has sixteen broken bones including a broken ankle, a fractured skull and second degree burns. Evan met Grace when they were sixteen. Evan was already struggling with the knowledge that every person he met would be dead in two years time. It was the first time either of them had met someone like them.

"They all understood the risk in donning the human mantle. Sharing a body with a human psyche carried with it the danger of adopting human vices -- as well as human virtues. And far more dangerous than greed or lust or envy or any of those things -- or anything -- was love."

Grace asks Evan how he came to be at the base and learns only the bare details of what happened. She and Evan journey to her house in her sector on Hwy 68 where she takes him to recuperate. It will take almost  three weeks for his ankle to heal sufficiently for him to use it again. When Grace leaves to get supplies, Evan makes the decision that he must neutralize her. He can't wait three weeks for his ankle to heal and he can't take Grace with him to meet Cassie and the other survivors.  Grace will never let him go and she wouldn't think twice about killing him. So when she returns he strangles her and leaves her for dead.

But traveling along Hwy 68 Evan soon discovers that he has not killed Grace as he suspected and that she is tracking him. Evan starts a huge bonfire in the middle of the highway with the intention of drawing  the 5th Wave so they will attack. This happens and during the gunfire, he manages to escape from Grace and find his way to the hotel when Cassie is hiding. By the time Evan arrives, he sees Ringer leaving to look for the caves. Evan realizes that his enhanced body is giving out and he is becoming more like a typical human.

At this point in the novel Yancey provides some of the backstory to Poundcake because his actions are important in this part of the novel. Poundcake came to be picked up by the school buses after the death of his mother from the plague. She had been sick for days while Poundcake and his baby brother had to fend for themselves. Running out of food, Poundcake left to search for food for him and his baby brother. He searched in all the nearby grocery stores but managed to find only a piece of cake wrapped in plastic. When he returned home, Poundcake found his brother gone and his mother violently ill, the plague now infecting her brain. Six weeks after her death Poundcake began walking along the abandoned highways and was eventually picked up by a school bus filled with children and soldiers. Poundcake has never uttered a word after his mother's death.

Evan storms into the hotel but is shot by Cassie after she runs up the stairs from the lobby. Dumbo tells Cassie that Evan has a broken ankle, a stab wound in one leg, a bullet in the other, covered in burns and is running a high fever. Ben's abdominal wound has been repacked by Dumbo but he's furious at Evan and wants to leave the hotel. Cassie's five year old brother Sam also wants to go with him. In his lucid moments Evan tells Cassie he saw Teacup and Poundcake heading north and he tells her not to go after them warning her about Grace. Poundcake returns but does not have Teacup nor Ringer and because he never speaks, Cassie's group has no idea what has happened to Teacup and Ringer. Ben believes that Teacup has caught up with Ringer who has taken her to the caves.

The next day the group hears a helicopter overhead and twenty minutes after it passes by, a friend of Sam's, Megan appears in the hotel wearing shorts, a thin T-shirt and flip flops, tells them her throat hurts and then collapses. Puzzled at her sudden appearance and her strange clothing given the onset of winter, they believe Megan may have a tracker but Cassie can't find any evidence of one. What Cassie does see is a little girl bruised and abused by the indifference, cruelty of the Others. Ben asks Cassie to check the girl's throat which she has done and finds only that it's red. Evan tells them that she is not implanted with a tracking device but that her throat is rigged with an incendiary device rigged to blow when it detects CO2 - the child is a bomb. Evan tells them its almost impossible to remove the bomb without detonating it. This leads Ben to want to simply kill the girl and it is his attitude that makes Cassie realize that he has lost a great deal of his humanity. But Ben can't kill little Megan and he asks Cassie to cut the wire to the bomb.

Cassie realizes that the Ben Parish she crushed on a year ago is dead and gone just like the school girl who desired him is also gone. With the help of Evan, Cassie manages to extract the bomb from Megan's throat. Evan tells Cassie that the bomb is a test, that if they didn't blow up it either means that the bomb was defective or that they might have a Silencer with them. Ben figures that they know Cassie and the other group are at the hotel possibly indicating that Ringer and Teacup have been captured. Cassie suggests that they blow up the hotel using the bomb and they hit upon using the CO2 canisters from the soda fountain from the diner next door. They decide to rig the canisters to dispense the CO2 slowly within the confined space of the elevator and blow the hotel. Ben and Poundcake go to the diner to get the canister, while Dumbo watches the hall and Sam goes to care for Megan. This leaves Cassie alone with Evan who tells her that they have to go to the last place anyone will look - Grace's house on Hwy 68. He draws Cassie a map and then tells her that the way to end it is Grace - that she is the doorway and that Cassie can finish it. This doesn't mean much to Cassie at this time however, she has little time to ask him more because Grace shows up at the hotel.

What follows is a battle between Grace and the four humans, Cassie, Ben, Dumbo and Poundcake.  Evan tells Cassie they must leave and go to the house he told her about and that he will take care of Grace. Ben, Cassie, Dumbo, Sam and Megan all leave. However, Poundcake, who has been fatally shot by Grace scrabbles back into the hotel, knowing that Sam has dropped the baggie containing the IED that was in Megan's throat. As Grace coldly tortures him by shooting him repeatedly, realizing that he's mortally wounded, Poundcake confronts her with the IED, shoots her in the back and blows up the hotel with him, Grace and Evan in it.

The novel then switches over to tell the reader what has happened to Ringer after she is captured by General Vosch. Under Vosch's direction, Ringer also known as Marika has a hub placed in her that will enhance her body. This is a kind of nanotechnology - "a microscopic command hub affixed to the prefrontal lobe of her brain" that control the 40,000 units, 10 arrays of four thousand that enhance each of the different systems of her body.

While Ringer is recovering, she is kept company by a man named Razor. When Ringer tries to teach Razor a chess game, Razor teaches her a game, chaseball,  he invented which is really a secret way to communicate. He plans on helping her escape which she does. They commandeer a Black Hawk helicopter and Razor and Teacup parachute out while Ringer with her enhanced body dives out of the helicopter and free falls to earth. She meets up with Razor who takes her to the warehouse and there Ringer meets Vosch who tells her this was all a test. He also tells her that there are no alien consciousness inside any humans because it was too risky. Instead they used a program, inserted into unborn children and activated at puberty. Evan is a human who is enhanced but the program in him has crashed and he's now off the grid. If there are others like Evan, enhanced, off the grid, this could be a problem. Vosch needs Ringer to help him find Evan. His only hold on Ringer is Teacup who is alive.

Ringer tells all this to Razor. After several days, Ringer along with Razor are brought back to Vosch who asks her if she's solved the mystery. She tells him that Evan falling in love causes unpredictability. Evan doesn't yet know the truth, but he knows enough to stop the aliens and he's off the grid. Razor sets Ringer free by killing Teacup, thereby allowing her to flee from Vosch.


Review:
The Infinite Sea was a thrilling novel, that captures the reader from the horrific prologue to the very last page with its surprising ending. Readers may find that the initial chapters narrated by Ringer are somewhat slow, but the pace evens out and the twists and shocking revelations keep the story truly enthralling.

Like its predecessor, The Infinite Sea tells its story through the eyes of a group of teenagers, possibly one of the few groups of surviving humans on the planet, who are trying to figure out how to stay alive and how to outwit the aliens. They each have their own ideas as to what the key element is to survival. At the beginning of the novel, Ringer believes the key is rage but later on she comes to realize that it is something else.

The Infinite Sea is another novel with several strong female characters; in the first novel it was Cassie Sullivan, in The Infinite Sea, it's Ringer or Marika (we learn her real name). Cassie is a somewhat minor character in this novel which focuses more on Ringer who is now a major character. Ringer takes on the qualities of a superhero near the end of the novel, physically enhanced to match her strong personality. She's become a weapon, but it as it turns out, a rogue one. We also learn more about Evan and General Vosch. Yancey also provides his readers with some backstory for other minor characters such as Grace and Poundcake to flesh out the story.

We also learn more about the aliens through Vosch, especially the reasoning behind the strategy used to cleanse the earth of humans. 


One of the great themes of these novels is that of courage, perhaps best exemplified by Poundcake who makes the ultimate sacrifice to save his friends from Grace.  Another strong theme is that of love, its unpredictability and how love can lead to the most unpredictable of actions. This happened in the first book between Evan and Cassie, with Evan helping her rescue her brother and destroy Vosch's base - something he finds remarkable. In the second book, the unexpected love that develops between Ringer and Razor lead him also to act in an unpredictable manner, something which Vosch did not foresee.

Because of the ending, readers will have a certain expectation as to what the plot might be like in the third novel, so it will be interesting to see if that expectation is met. The Infinite Sea is young adult fiction crossover into adult fiction with strong appeal to a wide age range. The writing is great, captivating and Yancey moves between narrators seamlessly. 

The 5th Wave is currently in development for a film adaptation which will be released in January, 2016.

Book Details:
The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons     2014
300 pp.

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

I may be the last one, but I am the one still standing. I am the one turning to face the faceless hunter in the woods on an abandoned highway. I am the one not running, not staying, but facing.
Because if I am the last one, then I am humanity.
And if this is humanity's last war, then I am the battlefield.

The story opens with Cassiopeia Marie Sullivan's first person narration which describes the waves of the alien invasion and then her hiding in the wilderness. She is one of the last survivors of the human race. It began with the appearance of a huge green ship in orbit around the Earth. For ten days nothing happened while people speculated, fretted, and wondered why the aliens did not make contact. The attack came in waves. 

The first wave was a electromagnetic pulse that knocked out everything - cell phones, electricity, car and airplane engines. Nothing worked. Cars stalled on the roads, planes plummeted to earth. Half a million people died. The second wave was the creation of an earthquake that caused a massive tsunami. Forty percent of the earth's population lives within sixty miles of a coastline. Three billion people perished. The third wave was an Ebola-like outbreak, spread by Earth's three hundred billion birds. The fourth wave was the "Silencers" or those who are aliens inhabiting human bodies whose job it is to kill the remaining humans.

Cassie's father, mother and younger brother Sammy had stayed through the first three waves, barricaded in their home. However, when her mother died from the Red Tsunami, Cassie's father decided to leave and head for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, over one hundred miles away. When they arrives at a refugee camp twenty miles from their home, Cassie, Sammy and their father waited to see what would happen. Then one day a grey drone appeared, followed later by troops who separated the children from older teens and adults. This resulted in Cassie becoming separated from Sammy. She then witnessed the mass murder of all the adults but manages to escape.

The novel picks up the story with Cassie's current situation, hidden in the forest. Cassie realizes that she cannot stay hidden forever, that she will eventually be hunted down and that she wants to keep her promise to Sammy to come get him. She decides to make her way back to the Wright-Patterson Base where she believes Sammy has been taken. However, despite her care in traveling, she is shot and wounded by what she suspects is a "Silencer" - an alien who looks like a human who kills those who remain. Seriously wounded, Cassie is surprised when he lets her go. However, further into her journey, she becomes stranded during a snowstorm and is rescued by a stranger.

Meanwhile, although Cassie assumes seventeen-year old Ben Parish is dead, he is in fact barely alive, suffering from the Red Plague. Ben is a boy that Cassie liked prior to the alien invasion. He narrates his story beginning with his arrival at Wright-Patterson Airbase after the soldiers clean out the tent city next to the base where he has been staying. They save his life and he is encouraged to find the will to fight against the aliens. He learns from the doctor there that the aliens have infected certain people and that these people are now activated into hunters to kill the remaining humans - the fifth wave of the invasion. The preceding four waves were merely to whittle Earth's 4 billion population down to a manageable size for annihilation.

Parish, along with many other children, are trained to be soldiers and are told that they can help fight back against the invaders. They are tagged with a small capsule that allows them to be tracked and are told that the aliens are inside some humans and that with the use of a special headset they can be detected and will glow green. Those who are not infested will be red. From the very beginning all of their training reinforces this understanding, giving them no reason to question otherwise. Parish, who used to be a high school jock and who is deeply depressed over the loss of his sister and his family, is gradually trained into a proficient soldier. His unit includes a young woman named Ringer who is a crack shot, several young boys named Dumbo and Flinstone, a young girl named Teacup and a little boy named Nugget who is in fact, Cassie's brother, Sammy.

When their training is complete, Parish, who now goes by the name, Zombie, along with his unit (excepting Sammy) are sent on a mission into a city. They are given special headsets that glow green indicating a person is infested with an alien and are told to take out anyone who registers as "infested". However, Ringer begins to realize that the situation doesn't make sense and soon figures out that they are being used by the aliens as the 5th Wave - humans who are trained and duped to kill those humans who have survived the previous four waves of attack. Ben and Ringer must decide what to do as Ben knows he needs to return for Nugget whom he promised he would not leave behind.

During the time that Ben and Sammy are at Wright-Patterson Airbase, Cassie awakens to finds herself being cared for at an isolated farmhouse in Ohio. Her caretaker is a handsome young man, Evan Walker, who claims to be the sole survivor of his family. The house is Evan's family's farmhouse, but soon many things about Evan just don't add up. Cassie soon begins to realize the truth of what he is too. This is complicated by the fact that Cassie begins to fall for Evan, all the while struggling between attempting to trust him and wanting to kill him for who he is and what she's sure he's done.

Cassie tells him she must go back to get her brother, even if it means her dying in the process. Evan who is in love with her, decides to debrief her on the base so that she will have a reasonable chance of succeeding. How will Cassie sneak into a death camp for humans, that is surrounded by drones and soldiers controlled by advanced alien technology?

Discussion

Rick Yancey is an adult writer whose previous works have been immensely popular. The 5th Wave which is the first in his new YA series, feels like a mix of original Star Trek (Return to Tomorrow) and the television series V which ran in the 1980's and deals with humans battling malevolent aliens intent on taking over Earth. Of course these storylines - the aliens so advanced they have no physical body and are only a consciousness, and the alien invasion that sees a few good aliens side with their human prey, are a common trope in science fiction literature and movies.

The novel is narrated in several voices; 16 year old Cassie, Sammy, 17 year old Benjamin Parish who is a boy Cassie had a crush on before "The Arrival", and Evan Walker, a mysterious stranger who helps Cassie. The first part of the novel, narrated by Cassie is excellent, capturing the reader's interest with the fascinating backstory of the appearance of the aliens and their gradual assault on Earth. However, the novel slows considerably when Yancey goes into great detail regarding Ben Parish's training at Wright-Patterson. Readers will find this part of the novel slow going, but the detail here is important, because the author is setting up the events that lead to the climax of the novel.

All of this is used to create a twist in the plot which leads to a heart-pounding climax and sets the stage for the next novel. It's like a game of chess now; with the aliens in check and the humans awaiting their next move. And the odds are stacked against the humans.

Cassie is the strong-willed, courageous heroine in this novel. Her relationship with Evan is the dominant one is this first novel. It creates a great deal of suspense because the reader knows who Evan is but doesn't yet know his motive for helping Cassie and because Cassie isn't completely certain who he is. The end of the novel sees Cassie meet up with her crush, Ben Parish, who has changed considerably since their high school days, only months ago. He is now a hardened soldier bent on revenge. Yancey has set up the possibility of a love triangle between Ben, Cassie and Evan in the next installment.

My only complaint about this book was when Yancey first switches his narrator. The novel is broken into different sections separated by black title pages. The second section, titled Wonderland is confusing because the reader assumes they are still reading the narration by Cassie when in fact the story is now being told by Ben's point of view.

Like many recent young adult novels, The 5th Wave is long, a whopping 457 pages. But those pages are filled with a mixture of horror, suspense, romance, grit and action that keeps the reader engaged throughout. The reader wants the humans to win, but the odds against them are so high that this creates the tension necessary for the next book!

Book Details:
The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
Toronto: G.P. Putnam's Sons   2013
457 pp.