One minute the teacher was talking about the Civil War. And the next minute he was gone.He just vanished - along with everyone else over the age of 14 in a 10-mile radius around Perdido Beach, California, which was also enclosed by an impenetrable dome. The children left behind find themselves battling hunger, fear, and one another in a novel strongly reminiscent of William Golding'sLord of the Flies. Things go from bad to worse when some of the children begin exhibiting strange powers, animals show signs of freakish mutations, and people disappear as soon as they turn 15.Written by Michael Grant, co-author of the hit book series Animorphs, EverWorld, Remnants, and author of BZRK. There are five books so far in the series: Gone, released in 2008, Hunger, released in 2009, Lies, released in May 2010, Plague, released in April 2011, and Fear, released in April 2012. The sixth and final installment in the series, Light, will be released in March 2013.Now has a character sheet.No relation to the 2012 Amanda Seyfriedfilm of the same name.
The series provides examples of the following tropes:
A King Am I: By the end of Plague, Caine expects everyone to refer to him as king, and appoints himself supreme ruler of Perdido Beach.
Above the Influence: Inverted in Plague when Taylor took advantage of Sam when he was drunk.
Action Girl: Lana, Dekka, Brianna, Taylor, Penny, Brittany..... it would be easier to list the exceptions (Astrid, Mary, and Diana), though even they have their moments.
Ambiguously Gay: Zil Sperry. Whenever he gets a Character Focus chapter, a lot of it is him admiring Lance and his looks. It's popular Fanon that he is gay but we'll never find out as he's dead as of Plague.
Anyone Can Die: Following in the footsteps of Animorphs, the series has a surprisingly high body count for a YA book series.
Taking charge when things get tough and attempting (not always succeeding) to go back to being a Ordinary High School Student is an established character trait for Sam.
Even before the FAYZ, when he saved a busload of his classmates from going over a cliff.
Ax Crazy: Drake. It gets worse after Sam blows his arm off and The Darkness grants him a tentacle-like appendage to replace it. And even worse now that He's back from the dead and Sharing a Body with Brittany, who Sam won't kill because she's innocent.
Berserk Button: Little Pete is quite sensitive to loud noises, roughhousing, and threatening Astrid. His yet-to-be-clarified power makes this an extremely dangerous button to press.
Do not threaten Brianna in Jack's presence. It makes him angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry.
Threatening Brianna seems to be a bad idea all around. Dekka had a similar if not worse reaction.
Drake pushes this intentionally to draw Sam, Dekka and Jack out. Thanks to Toto, it doesn't work.
Drake: I whipped her, Sam. I broke her legs so she couldn't run. I think she liked it. (grins) She was screaming, but she liked it.
Cruel and Unusual Death: Too many to count, but EZ being eaten alive by mutated worms certainly comes to mind. And anyone who Drake kills. And the kids eaten by coyotes during the Thanksgiving Battle. And the kids who get thrown through a wall by Caine. And Panda's suicide, particularly because of what happened afterwards. Much of the deaths in Plague count as well.
Dangerous Fifteenth Birthday: Anybody 15 and up disappears when the FAYZ is formed, and if you turn 15 while inside the FAYZ then you disappear as well. Although the kids learn how to stay there by the end of the first book.
Dark is Evil: Seeing as how the Big Bad is literally called "The Darkness", that's definitely a no-brainer.
Darker and Edgier: Each book seems to get progressively darker, except for Lies, which was about on the same level as Hunger, though YMMV. Not that it started out on a light note, though. Fear is this on a very literal level.
Disproportionate Retribution: In Fear Cigar kills a fellow fisherman in a drunken brawl. Since he committed murder, Caine sentences him to Penny for an entire day. Thirty minutes was enough to cause a two-day state of shock in the previous victim. Even Caine is horrified at the end result.
Domed Hometown: After the adults disappear, there is a barrier around Perdido Beach.
Doorstopper: While averaged sized for most adult novels, at 500 to 600 pages a piece, the books are gigantic for young adult novels. They are steadily decreasing in length as the series draws to its conclusion, however.
Enfant Terrible: Gaia, so very much. Within the four hours from her birth to the end of Fear, she manages to torture Penny after she accidentally drops her and then laugh at the scene, laugh, once more, at seeing terrified children walk into a fire due to Penny's visions and forcing her mother to relieve her horrible memories of eating Panda. And that's not all... She also attempts to kill both her own father, Caine, by trying to crush him against the FAYZ barrier and Sam, by trying to rip him apart via telekinesis. Thankfully, she doesn't succeed in any of the two cases.
Ensemble Cast: While Sam could generally be called the protagonist (though there are always large portions of the story not focused on him), "Lies" moves all the way into this trope, with Sam getting equal or less attention than Astrid's struggle to lead the council and care for her brother, Sanjit and the island kids trying to fly to the mainland, power struggles among the Coates kids, Mary's growing mental problems, and many other subplots with the rest of the Loads and Loads of Characters.
Even Evil Has Standards: Caine is understandably appalled at what Penny did to Cigar in the twelve hours she had him. To put it simply, she tortured him to insanity. When Lana regenerates his eyes he thinks back to some of the hallucinations she caused, and we get to see them.
Evil Overlord List: Caine fails at 17, 24, 55, 61, 100, 111, 115, 131, 151, 164, 223 and possibly 18 and 19. He actually follows 199.
19. Only the reason for the rule is averted oh so hard.
Express Delivery: Diana's pregnancy develops at an accelerated pace, probably because the baby in question is a mutant.
Eye Scream: What ever is left of Cigar's eyes after Lana tries to regrow them.
Expy: Several characters are reminiscent of Michael Grant's previous series with wife K.A. Applegate:
Sam is very similar to Jake in terms of taking charge and being looked at as a leader figure. There's also a bit of Jobs's dreamer, kind-hearted soul there too.
Astrid is an interesting mix of Ax,Jalil, and Cassie. She loves science and analyzing things like Ax, is a rational thinker much like Jalil but she's every bit of the heart and Team Mom that Cassie was.
Dekka is basically a transplanted Tate, with shades of Rachel.
Caine has every bit of Yago's ambition and ruthlessness and Diana is as manipulative and cunning as 2Face.
Faith Heel Turn: Britney in Plague. Also Astrid, after seriously questioning her faith, becomes much more of an Anti-Hero.
Quinn at his lowest points resorts to actual racism, usually against Edilio. In fact, nearly every villain refers to Edilio as "the Mexican". Lampshaded in the second book by Edilio himself:
Edilio: I'm not just your good-looking Mexican sidekick. Sam: You're not Mexican, you're Honduran. Edilio: Sometimes I forget.
In Plague, Lance goes full-out racist and blames blacks, gays, Mexicans and Jews for all his problems, as well as freaks.
Fire-Forged Friends: "Brittney had no romantic feelings for Edilio, but what she had went a lot deeper. She would rather burn for eternity in the hottest fires of hell than let Edilio down. "
Dekka and Sam:
Sam: I don't want to sound weird, but you know I love you, right?
Harmful To Touch: Touching the barrier feels like sticking your entire arm in an electrical outlet.
The Hero: Mercilessly deconstructed with Sam who by the end of Hunger, gets so fed up with the stress and dealing with everyone else's problems that he quits.
High Heel Face Turn: Zig-Zagged with Diana. Throughout the series, she's probably the least outwardly loyal Coates kid, often to the point of sabotaging their plans, but is the only one that actually cares about Caine. She stays even after half the team Heel Face Turns but is openly critical of how things are being done. Finally, in Plague, she leaves for good. But she remains on her own side the whole time, so there's no technical change.
I Love Nuclear Power: one of the possible sources for the kids' superpowers. Justified because the series takes place in an Alternate Universe where the laws of science have been rewritten.
Infant Immortality: Averted, and how. Sam and some others find a dead baby inside an abandoned house. Also, the final battle scene in the end of Gone kills a lot of children.
Averted again near the end of Fear to a horrifying degree.
Lack of Empathy: Drake. Also, Caine is becoming more this way by Lies.
Law of Inverse Fertility: Diana becomes pregnant quite quickly once her and Caine get down to it, even though not long before that she was very badly starved, which should have had some kind of effect of her fertility/menstrual cycles (it should have stopped them.)
Lampshade Hanging: Astrid has a habit of pointing out the techniques people use in their speech, e.g. "Rhetorical question" or "Defensive humor."
Little Miss Badass : Arguably, all the female cast, but especially Brianna, one of the youngest Action Girl of the series.
Loads and Loads of Characters : At the beginning of Hunger The list of people alive in Perdido Beach is at 332, and at least sixty names come up on a regular basis.
Virtue: I'm going to refuse to do puberty. It makes you stupid.
Meaningful Name: The series has a thing for Biblical names: Caine trying to kill his brother, Mother Mary and Brother John taking care of the children, etc.
Not Quite Dead: Albert gets shot in the head by Lance, yet manages to survive nearly bleeding out.
Played with with Drake. He gets (presumably) killed by Caine in Hunger, but returns in Lies sharing a body with Brittney. Who is also a case, as she gets both legs broken and shot in the chest, yet can't be killed.
Not Using the Z Word: Everyone to Brittney in Lies, though Howard just comes out and says it.
Deconstructed with Sam, who gets so sick of playing the daddy that he quits. Astrid to Little Pete.
Pure Energy: Sam can shoot energy beams from his hands.
Race Against the Clock: You disappear when you turn exactly 15 years old. Not a big deal for the little kids, but Sam turns fifteen in eleven days... It is discovered by Sam and Caine that there is a way to escape disappearing at the end of Gone, so by the second book, Hunger, most people know how to escape it.
Random Power Ranking: Diana, from Coates Academy, has the ability to sense the strength of people's powers. She gives people a ranking in "bars", like the strength of a cellphone signal. Normally they range from 1 to 4, except for Little Pete, who seems to be about 10.
Released To Elsewhere: People who turn 15 or dieinside the FAYZ can choose to disappear. Nobody knows whether they go outside the FAYZ, they go to another dimension, or if they even surive.
It's revealed what happens in Fear. It is [[Understatement not pretty.
Reality Warper: It appears that Little Pete may be one of these, which means that the most powerful person in Perdido Beach is a severely autistic four-year-old.
Running Gag: When Caine meets Duck in Hunger he takes to calling him Goose.
Shout Out: Most of the place names seen on the map are references to works or TV shows related to the themes of the series, such as Stefano Rey National Park (Stephen King—Under the Dome), the Santa Katrina Hills (KA Applegate—Grant's wife), Grant Street (Michael Grant—Gone), Golding Street (William Golding—Lord of the Flies), and even the town name of Perdido Beach (Lost).
The illusion Penny uses on Quinn is the monster from Cloverfield.
Smoking Is Cool: Lana in Lies. Justified because she can heal herself of any damage caused.
Smug Snake: Zil Sperry hates all but one of his teammates, resents not being recognized as a formidable antagonist, and gets himself killed in a poorly planned attempt to gain recognition. Very smug, very irritating, and, in the end, pretty worthless.
Chunk, the Coates Academy toadie gets killed (albeit unintentionally) by Caine when he gets thrown into a wall in Hunger.
Suddenly Sexuality: Edilio is revealed to be gay in Fear, along with Artful Roger and the two are together. There's a bit of lead up to this in the novel itself, but not previous installments which make sense, since Edilio does not get very many POV chapters.
Steven Ulysses Perhero: Mary and her brother John become foster parents for pretty much all children under five. Eventually they earn the nicknames Mother Mary and Brother John.
Little Pete: Many undiscovered, but as of Plague, Teleportation, and can make things disappear. Later becomes a full-on Reality Warper after he "dies".
Super Power Meltdown: The going theory is that Little Pete caused the FAYZ by having a panic attack... in the middle of the catastrophic meltdown of the Perdido Beach Nuclear Power Plant. Later confirmed.
Tall, Dark and Bishoujo : Nerezza. She is described as an extremly beautiful girl with long black hair. Oh, and her name means darkness.... Diana, too.
Third Option Love Interest: Over the first three books there were hints at a possible love triange between Quinn, Lana and Edilio. In Plague Sanjit and Lana become a couple.
And in Lies, Edilio and the Artful Roger become a couple.
Twofer Token Minority: Dekka is a black lesbian. And a Moof, which makes her threefer in the novel's universe. She lampshades it.
Dekka: I'm black and I'm lesbian, so believe me, there are always lines.
Unusual Chapter Numbers: The chapters come with a countdown of days, hours, minutes, and seconds to the climax of the book.
Unusual Euphemism: The kids come up with a few terms to describe what happens when people turn 15 and disappear. Some of the more frequently-used ones are "poof", "blink", and "make the jump". Basically, they're all just euphemisms for dying.
Villainous BSOD: Caine during the period between Gone and Hunger.
Artistic License - Biology: Lampshaded when Astrid points out that there is no gene for shooting lasers out of your hands. Justified, however, when it is revealed that the meteor that carried The Darkness seems to have brokenreality.
0 reviews 