The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey 457 pages 9780399162411

Hold on to your seats for this rockin’ sci-fi adventure tale. The aliens are systematically attacking the earth with the intent of destroying its human inhabitants. Many are murdered in the first two waves. Cassie’s mom bites the dust in the third wave and her father doesn’t survive the fourth wave. To encourage her brother to climb the bus with the other young survivors, Cassie promises that she will meet up with him at the survival military base. Once the bus hits the road, their military “rescuers” begin killing all the teens and adults left at the camp. That Cassie escapes speaks to the training her father gave her. She is armed and tells herself to trust no one. Ben, Cassie’s former classmate is at the survival military base and it is rather grim. The adults are ripping away each child’s identity. Their training is more rigorous and inhumane than any boot camp I have seen on film or read about in books. Ben Is tagged as a leader although he has no grand expectations. So, this tale is told from several points of view. The pace is frenetic and Yancey does a splendid job of introducing a bunch of characters. Subtitled:  Book One, the reader is warned not to expect all of the plot strings to be neatly tied in bows. The pacing is quick, once you turn the last page you will be dying for the next installment.

The challenge? Surviving the genocide of the human race when aliens attack Earth in the not-too-distant future. Sixteen-year-old Cassie, her brother Sam and her dad survived the first four gruesome waves of the attack. Together, the three wait out the titular fifth in a military base for survivors until school buses arrive to take all children to safety, including her brother Sam. Cassie, her dad and the rest of the adults are then divested of their weapons and marched into a bunker by their protectors. Cassie escapes, only to see her dad (and everyone else) brutally executed by their so-called protectors. She then embarks on a mission to rescue her brother. As in his previous efforts (The Monstrumologist, 2009, etc.), Yancey excels in creating an alternative world informed by just enough logic and sociology to make it feel close enough to our own. The suspension-of-disbelief Kool-Aid he serves goes down so easy that every piece of the story--no matter how outlandish--makes perfect sense. The 500-plus-page novel surges forward full throttle with an intense, alarming tone full of danger, deceit and a touch of romance.