ALIEN INVASION, ANYONE?

Two years, ago, the popularity of Rick Yancey's The Fifth Wave revealed that the epoch of aliens had arrived in the library. These aliens are the nasty kind, determined to annihilate the human species and enjoy this beautiful planet on their own.

THE FIFTH WAVE by Rick Yancey

After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one.

Now, it’s the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth’s last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker.

Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie’s only hope for rescuing her brother—or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up. 

The Fifth Wave movie is out in January when the last book in the trilogy will be published. Book Two, The Infinite Sea, is also available in the library.



TRIPODS by John Christopher

Long ago, the Tripods--huge, three-legged machines--descended upon Earth and took control. Now people unquestioningly accept the Tripods' power. They have no control over their thoughts or their lives.

But for a brief time in each person's life--in childhood--he is not a slave. For Will, his time of freedom is about to end--unless he can escape to the White Mountains, where the possibility of freedom still exists. 

This series is not new, but consistently gets great reviews for its action and suspense. Here's one reviewer's comments.

This book doesn't age at all -- it just as fresh and readable and compelling as it must have been in 1967 when it was first published. The narrator is young Will Parker, still a child, not yet initiated into adulthood via the

mysterious "capping" ceremony, where the child is taken briefly away by towering metal creatures called Tripods and fitted with a metal disc in the skull. This metal cap brings with it a sense of peace and deep desire to serve the Tripods. This divide between the Capped and not-yet-Capped is a deep gulf, interfering even with the closeness of the relationships between parents and children. At the beginning of the story, Will is just beginning to act on youthful urges towards mischief. Disturbed by the change he sees in his closest friend, who has just been Capped, Will takes a chance offered to him by a stranger to escape and make his way from Britain to the continent and into the Alps -- which, a century in the future when this story is set, are now called just the White Mountains. Will faces and overcomes hunger, sickness, and temptation and learns, by fits and starts, how to forge bonds of friendship and trust with two other boys making the journey with him. 


EARTHGIRL by Janet Edwards

Jarra is stuck on Earth while the rest of humanity portals around the universe. But can she prove to the norms that she’s more than just an Earth Girl?

2788. Only the handicapped live on Earth. While everyone else portals between worlds, 18-year-old Jarra is among the one in a thousand people born with an immune system that cannot survive on other planets. Sent to Earth at birth to save her life, she has been abandoned by her parents. She can’t travel to other worlds, but she can watch their vids, and she knows all the jokes they make. She’s an ‘ape’, a ‘throwback’, but this is one ape girl who won’t give in.

Jarra invents a fake background for herself – as a normal child of Military parents – and joins a class of norms that is on Earth to excavate the ruins of the old cities. When an ancient skyscraper collapses, burying another research team, Jarra’s role in their rescue puts her in the spotlight. No hiding at back of class now. To make life more complicated, she finds herself falling in love with one of her classmates – a norm from another planet. Somehow, she has to keep the deception going.

A freak solar storm strikes the atmosphere, and the class is ordered to portal off-world for safety – no problem for a real child of military parents, but fatal for Jarra. The storm is so bad that the crews of the orbiting solar arrays have to escape to planet below: the first landing from space in 600 years. And one is on collision course with their shelter.

Fans of the I am Number Four books will know that the sixth and final book, The Fate of 

Ten, will be in stores tomorrow. For those new to the series, here's an introduction.

I AM NUMBER FOUR by Pitacus Lore

Nine of us came here. We look like you. We talk like you. We live among you. But we are not you. We can do things you dream of doing. We have powers you dream of having. We are stronger and faster than anything you have ever seen. We are the superheroes you worship in movies and comic books--but we are real.

Our plan was to grow, and train, and become strong, and become one, and fight them. But they found us and started hunting us first. Now all of us are running. Spending our lives in shadows, in places where no one would look, blending in. We have lived among you without you knowing.

But they know.

They caught Number One in Malaysia.
Number Two in England.

And Number Three in Kenya.
They killed them all.

I am Number Four.

I am next. 

If you want a truly out-of-this-world reading experience, drop into the library and ask for recommendations or try one of the series here.