Darkness Falls

The fifth book in the Gone series by Michael Grant is Fear. Fear picks up about four months after the previous book so now the kids have been stuck in the FAYZ (a giant opaque bubble) for a year, surviving the best that they can with limited resources, all kinds of weird mutated animals, oh and an evil entity that needs a body in the hopes that it can be “born” and wreck havoc on the world outside of the FAYZ.  So yeah, the kids have a lot of shit to deal with here that’s well beyond pretty much anyone’s skill set (even Liam Nieson).

Brothers Sam and Caine have decided to work together but apart. One group follows Caine but remains at Perdido Beach (which now has no fresh water but is located near where the food is harvested as well as the beach where crews can go out and fish).  The other group follows Sam to the lake where there are resources such as Nutella and Cup o’ Noodle soups courtesy of an overturned freight train (this is exciting news for starving kids).  Things seems for the first time in a long time to be working…sure, Caine is calling himself King Caine but he’s created some order at Perdido Beach but this cannot last…because now the once opaque dome that allowed sunshine in, is quickly turning black.  Soon, the kids will be plunged into continuous darkness and no amount of leadership is going to be able to quell that fear.

At the same time, the evil that is known as the gaiaphage is looking for a host body.  Conveniently, in the last book I mentioned that one character (Diana) found out she was pregnant.  You can probably guess where this is going.  The pieces of the puzzle are all falling into place, tension builds and lots of horrible stuff happens that allows us to prepare for what is definitely going to be an ending worthy of Tarantino…lots of blood, lots of death, some ok dialogue and maybe (?) no survivors?  The one difference in this book compared to the others is that we get a glimpse into what’s going on outside the bubble with the rest of their world as they try and understand what’s going on within the sphere.

Again, I enjoyed this book but now I’m wondering if this series needed to be six books.  I feel like five and six could’ve been combined (I’ll get to the 6th book review posthaste).  In once sense, there are a HUGE cast of characters across a twenty mile but their growth and change is limited. It’s almost as if (no, it is like this), all the characters become aware of their gifts and or flaws and roll with them. For example, Sam knows that he’s a natural leader and that people will follow him but that he’s not a good leader.  He doesn’t really make an effort to change anything about himself, he just utilizes other characters who realize that they are good leaders but who know that they don’t have Sam’s natural charisma.  I guess that’s ok, but it’s not really the growth I was going for. When I finished book five, I immediately downloaded and began book six so whatever problems I say that I had with these books, it clearly didn’t thwart my desire to complete the series.