Literature / Penryn and the End of Days

aka: Angelfall

Do be afraid

The world as we know it ended six weeks ago, when hordes of angels came from the heavens, prompting the humans to panic and shoot their leader, Gabriel. The angels thus wreaked havoc upon the humans, forcing them into animal-like lives.

Seventeen-year-old Penryn Young lives in this world with her schizophrenic mother and her wheelchair-bound little sister Paige. The night she wants to flee the gang-infested neighbourhood to search a safer place to live, she witnesses a fight between some angels, one of which gets his wings cut off in the process. The others leave, but not before abducting Paige. Desperate to find her sister, Penryn decides to pair up with the wounded angel, Raffe, whom she blackmails into helping her by withholding his wings. The two of them travel to San Francisco to the Aerie, the angels' stronghold.

On the way, they witness strange murders involving cannibalism, and stumble into the camp of a rebel group led by the charismatic Obi. All the while, Penryn's mother, who was the only person present when Paige became paraplegic, who doesn't stop rambling about demons and who made Penryn learn all sorts of self-defense so whatever happened to Paige won't happen to her, stays close to them, unseen.

This dystopian YA book series is the first work of Susan Ee. It was first vanity published but soon became so popular that it was handed over to professionals. So far, it consists of:

• Angelfall
• World After
• End Of Days

A deal for a movie directed by Sam Raimi has been signed.

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Penryn and the End of Days contains examples of:

• Action Girl: Penryn, fullstop. Her mother signed her up for a lot of self-defense and martial arts courses and she damn well has memorized what she learned there.

• After the End: In Angelfall, the apocalypse, caused by angels, happened six weeks ago. Humans already have adapted so far as to use old computers to build a latrine wall.
• The Ageless: All angels seem to be this.

• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Discussed For Laughs.
  Penryn: "You're not Fallen, are you?"
  Raffe: "From what I've heard, that would just make me sexier to you Daughters of Men."
• All-Loving Hero: Penryn's little sister, Paige before being experimented on. She was a vegetarian before the apocalypse and only ate meat because Penryn insisted, and gives Beliel water despite being severely dehydrated herself.

• Artistic License – Medicine:
  • Apparently only one human who can't even suture straight developed and performed the operations done on the low demons. Later it's revealed he can reattach wings, despite there being no mention of his education on angel biology/anatomy.
  • Laylah heads everything vaguely science-related that the angels do, wandering between such specialties as medicine, biological engineering, and pathology.

• Barbarian Tribe: The angels can be seen like this or the Proud Warrior Race Guys. They don't mind destroying Earth because we shot their leader and start brawls as way to celebrate. They'll never avoid a fight even when their target is obviously not a threat, as Raffe was when he ran away from the party with Penryn. But they won't attack a weaker enemy when they're down, as seen when Penryn is fighting Burnt.

• Big Sister Instinct: In Angelfall, Penryn's whole motivation to infiltrate the aerie is to get her little sister back by any means necessary.

• Disappeared Dad: Penryn's father left because he could no longer cope with his mentally ill wife.
• Downer Ending: In Angelfall, Paige is recovered and can walk again, but now she is an inhuman monster feeding on people. Penryn is badly wounded and is brought back to Obi's camp. Raffe got wings sewn back on, only they aren't his, they're Beliel's bat-like wings, marking him as an outcast.

• Fluffy the Terrible:
  • The highly dangerous, crafty spymasters who seemingly got their eyes (and hands) just about everywhere? Their names are Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
  • Pooky Bear, the extremely mighty archangel sword who has only got two equals in all the worlds.

• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Invoked in World After. Penryn hopes that this trope makes a teddy bear a fine disguise for her/Raffe's sword.

• Good Wings, Evil Wings: While not good per se, feathered wings are those of actual angels, while angels fallen from grace have leathery batlike wings. There is quite a variety of wing colors among the angels, but Raffe's are pure white.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Penryn falls back on quite harsh, if desperate measures, to get to Paige, like brute force and blackmail. Many humans live as gangs, terrorizing, mugging, and killing others and trading with parts of angels. Others live as servants and courtesans to the angels. Most of the angels, however brutal and dangerous, don't even know why they were sent to Earth. That the humans shot their leader might be a motivation for their cruelty as well. There are also the Nephilim, unholy offspring of angels and humans. If the humans slept with the angels voluntarily is not clear.
• Half-Human Hybrid: The Nephilim are children of angels and humans.

• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: While we're never told Raffe's height, Penryn is 5'2, which is small by human standard, and seeing how Raffe is an immortal warrior angel, he's probably at least six feet tall.

• If It's You, It's Okay: Even though she understandably hates angels, Penryn starts to feel attracted to Raffe.
• Interspecies Romance: Between Penryn and Raffe, subtly. It is also hinted at the apocryphal occasion when some angels fell in love with human women. Nephilim ensued.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Raffe acts aloof and belittling towards Penryn but towards the end of Angelfall, he does stupid things just to help her, up to and including risking his life at gunpoint to return her to her family.

• Major Injury Underreaction: In Angelfall, after a few days, the amputation of his wings doesn't seem to bother Raffe much, as least physically.

• Minor Injury Overreaction: Justified in Angelfall. Raffe is not used to walking long distances, so his feet become raw pretty quickly and he starts moaning.

• Obfuscating Insanity: Not even Penryn knows how sane her mother is. If the demons and ghosts she keeps talking to are real or due to her paranoid schizophrenia remains unexplained. In World After, she certainly helped some people who were seemingly dead but actually just paralyzed to stay alive by making them look like part of a satanic ritual. No one wanted to touch them, while all the other victims got Buried Alive. There is also the pet tracker with the chips sewn into the starburst she sews on every single one of Penryn and Paige's pants "for protection".
• One-Word Title: The first book, Angelfall, the of the events that changed the world.
• Our Angels Are Different: The angels are winged humanoids who brought doom among the humans. They have very light bodies, heightened senses of smell, hearing, and sight, are superhumanly strong, heal very fast, and are extremely beautiful. However, they think of humans as mere monkeys.

• She Cleans Up Nicely: In Angelfall, to disguise herself as Raffe's consort to get into the aerie, Penryn dons a little red dress, strappy shoes, and makeup. Raffe is stunned for a moment when he first sees her like this.
• Shout-Out:
  • Laylah's eyes are describes as “Aryan”. This, combined with what she does, evokes images of Mengele.
  • Obi's spymasters Dee-Dum look, act, and talk in a manner comparable to the Weasley twins. Their name is of course a Shout Out to Alice in Wonderland.

• Technical Virgin: Ever since some angels got banished to hell for messing around with human women and making the Nephilim, sex between humans and angels has been forbidden. However, since All Men Are Perverts a lot of angels are getting around this rule by doing everything but the one thing that can make a baby.

• Waif-Fu: In Angelfall, Penryn, a starving teenage girl, fights trained soldier Boden with her various martial arts techniques. Nobody expects her to win. She does so nonetheless, though with some realistic difficulty.