Book review: I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore

Up until now I've never thought about using my blog to do book reviews. Time to change that. I know the book has been out for a little while, but I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore is the most recent book I've read. I picked up the book after seeing the movie--because I'm one of those people who like to compare books to their movie counterparts. I've tried to eliminate spoilers, but there are a few things that I felt needed to be mentioned in the review, so consider this my spoiler warning.

I Am Number Four is a science fiction novel geared towards young adults and is presented as having been written by a minor character in the novel, Pittacus Lore, a Lorien elder who is mentioned a few times in the novel, but never makes an appearance. The novel was actually written by Jobie Hughes and James Frey (yes, the Million Little Pieces/Oprah scandal James Frey). This is the first book in a planned series focusing on nine alien children and their guardians who are in hiding on Earth. The children of the planet Lorien are part of the Garde, a portion of the Lorien population that have inherent super powers, called Legacies, that will manifest when they're older. Their guardians are called Cepan and are not gifted with any special powers.

The novel takes place eleven years after a race called the Mogadorians attacked the planet Lorien and ravaged it for its resources. The nine children and their guardians were placed on a ship and sent to hide on Earth until their Legacies could develop and they could be trained in how to use them. There is no explanation for why these particular children were picked or if there was any specific reason for assigning each the number that they received. And that's hopefully something that will be addressed in future books. The Mogadorians know there were survivors sent to Earth and have followed them here to hunt them down. The not really explained numbering system comes in to play here in the form of a plot device charm placed on the children--which forces the Mogadorians to only be able to kill the children in numerical order. The why they continue to hunt the Loriens is something that needs more explanation for me. The Mogadorians are presented as a race who've devastated their own world and its resources (which I'm sure some will interpret as a warning for what we're doing to our own world), this led them to plunder Lorien. It was the next closest of the few inhabited planets there are and their first choice for more resources. That part makes sense. But if they're simply interested in taking resources and moving on, why invest so much energy in to tracking the Loriens on Earth to finish them off? Earth is the next closest planet so it's a logical assumption that they would come here next to do the same thing to us. If continuing the hunt the surviving Loriens here is their way of preventing us from knowing what lies ahead, it's a wasted effort. They study the worlds before attacking to best plan their attack and they would know that humanity would be pretty skeptical of anyone claiming to be an alien and warning us that we might come under attack by other aliens. Most humans would blow them off as crazy. And even if they waited until the children were able to manifest powers that no human has, the Earth is still not technologically advanced enough to take on a foe like the Mogadorians. Especially given the evidence of how advanced the Lorien people were and that they were still defeated in short order. I'm hoping the motivation for the Mogadorians continued hunt will be better explained in a future book.  

I Am Number Four focuses on John Smith, the fourth of the nine children, and his guardian Henri. It begins with the death of  Number Three, the youngest of the children sent to Earth, and then John's reaction to the death. As each one is killed a scar burns itself into the leg of the survivors alerting them to another death. This also signals to Henri that it's time to move again. The duo have moved through the US as father and son and after Number Three's death, Henri selects Paradise, Ohio as their next destination. Their goal is to assimilate in to life there but keep a healthy bit of distance in hopes of not being discovered as aliens, with the added bonus of not making any attachments that would make it difficult to just pick up and move. Of course, it wouldn't be good conflict for a story if things stayed that easy. And the small town of Paradise, OH becomes the place where John and Henri chose to make their stand against the Mogadorians. This is the point were I can't keep from comparing the book to the movie. The John Smith of the movie comes off as a whiny, angsty, rebellious teen, who I really want to reach through the screen and smack upside the head. The John Smith of the novel makes more sense and feels more realistic to me. This is a kid who's lived his life on the run and while he longs to have a normal life (which he's able to do somewhat in Paradise), he's also very aware of the importance of his survival. The rebelliousness he shows in the book, fits with his character. This is a young man who's maturing emotionally along with the development of his powers and feels confident enough to speak up about the direction his life is taking. It's a perfect example of character development.

The novel being geared for the young adult market is a fairly quick and easy read. It's good, fun, escapist science fiction--light on the science and heavy on the fiction. This is a first person narrative from a teenager's point of view, which helps eliminate getting tied down with technical jargon, but also prevents some of the points that need to be expanded on from happening. John Smith doesn't know the real motivations of the Mogadorians, he doesn't know why he and the others were sent to Earth exactly and he can't be sure if others didn't survive as well--and therefore the reader can't know either.  It works overall, but for someone like me who always wants to know how and why exactly, it creates annoying gaps.  For example, the novel indicates that everyone who remained on Lorien was killed and that the planet is now uninhabitable due to Mogadorian attack and subsequent plundering. But then during John's training, Henri alludes to their one day returning to Lorien to reclaim it. Was this just something to help keep the kids from losing hope? Or is there something these kids can do to fix their home world? And if the planet really is uninhabitable, why not just tell the kids that--they already know that everyone they loved is gone. Why not be honest and prepare them for preventing the same thing from befalling their new home? None of this is enough to turn me off the series, I'm going to keep my own hope alive that future books will explain the gaps.

A Screenplay And A Haunted House

Last year I signed up for ScriptFrenzy, which is a sister competition of National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to spend the month of April writing a script of some type (TV, movie, play, etc) that is at least 100 pages long. Like my first attempt at NaNoWriMo, last year when I signed up, I half assed looked at screenplay formats, toyed with ideas and then promptly forgot all about it. This year I'm off to a slightly better start. In addition to updating my profile on the ScriptFenzy site I actually put a few pieces of info about what I would be working on there as well. Then I didn't do anything for a couple days. Two days ago I actually pulled a fresh notebook out of my messenger bag and started writing with complete disregard to what an actual screenplay format is supposed to be. I'm just winging it and it's a lot of fun so far. If, and that's a big if, I get this done I'll try to get it into a Word document and follow a screenplay format as I'm typing. I'm not worried if I don't "win" this year, it's just the idea that I'm writing and sticking to something again that is important.

And now for a brief bit on my "screenplay"--I'm using quotes because until it's done I don't think it really counts as an actual screenplay. The story I'm working with is about a couple who move into an older home and the wife thinks it's haunted. She has some weird dreams and after some encouragement from her friends, starts trying to communicate with the ghosts. This leads to the discovery of an old unsolved crime that involved previous occupants of the home. I'm not sure if I should classify this as a mystery, or horror or a thriller, or whatever.

The reason I went with this idea is because my husband and I are convinced that our house is haunted and I've had some weird dreams since we've moved in--like finding stains (that turned out to be old blood stains) on the hardwood floor after we've torn carpet up and finding skeletons in a sealed off coal storage area in the basement. We've heard creaking in the floorboards upstairs when we're downstairs, lights we swore we turned off are on, closet doors open. My brother house sit for us once and we'd never said anything to him about thinking the house was haunted, when we returned home he asked if the house was haunted because he experienced some of things we had. When our son was first starting to sit up on his own and we began using a high chair, he often looked over the should over whoever was feeding him and would smile and nod. Like, someone was behind us talking to him. Recently my husband and I picked up "ghost radar" apps for our cell phones and we've gotten some really interesting results in using the phones in the house. It all just add together in my head and equaled out to a story idea. It's also gotten us interested in the history of our house. Who knows maybe there's a real life mystery in my future.