Rebellion

December 15, 2014
Clementine must rally resistance against an evil government.Clementine, now safe with rebels, has been badly traumatized by Commander Charlie during his attempt to kill off most inhabitants of their planet (Extraction, 2014). The resistance, though, does not believe Clementine's horrific nightmares and trauma-related hallucinations should keep her from an undercover mission, even though she kills allies during one particularly bad freak-out. Her mission is to infiltrate the Surface colony as it is resettled underground, beneath the poisoned earth. Once in the colony, her job is to rally the people to rebel against Commander Charlie. This brilliant plan doesn't have any mechanism for countering the serum given to the populace that makes them docile and subservient-not surprising, considering the resistance barely reacts to a confirmed saboteur in their midst. Unsurprisingly, a new haircut and dye job aren't enough to prevent Clementine's past acquaintances from recognizing her as a fugitive. Once she's captured, Commander Charlie informs her of the fleet headed their way from nearby planet Marden as well as threatening her love interest to force her to submit to a new serum that will give him control of her (selectively) brilliant intellect. The prose is overwritten and repetitive and the ending a predictable cliffhanger. Implausibly unintelligent characters populate this tired plot. (Science fiction. 12-17)

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January 1, 2015

Gr 9 Up-This exciting sci-fi dystopian sequel begins seven days after Extraction (St. Martin's, 2014). Clementine's been reunited with Logan, the love of her life, and both have joined the Alliance, a rebel group hiding in a secret underground military base on the surface of planet Kiel. The Alliance is determined to sabotage Commander Charlie's plans to reignite a war against Marden, the nearest humanoid planet that poisoned the air around Kiel years earlier. He's forcing the population to help him by injecting them with a submission serum that makes them easy to control. She and the other rebels plan to infiltrate the various sectors of society, damage the infrastructure, distract Charlie from his plans, and capture him and his leaders. Their plans fail, and, as they are rounded up one by one, Clementine's greatest weakness-Logan-is used against her as she's forced to make an horrific sacrifice. Clementine and the others realize too late that the Commander and his group aren't their biggest problem-it's the Mardenites. The science presented in the book is not very clearly explained and the sense of place remains vague because of a lack of detail. The Mardenites remain a mystery that will hopefully be revealed more fully in the last installment in the trilogy. Despite the book's non-stop action, appealing heroine, stirring romance, and shifting alliances and loyalties, it won't fare as well as previous works in the genre (Veronica Roth's Divergent or Joelle Charbonneau's The Testing). This title will appeal to fans of the previous title.-Sharon Rawlins, New Jersey State Library, Trenton

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