In Alone, Scott Sigler brings his powerful and gripping Generations trilogy to a close, a science fiction saga that finds humanity having advanced far beyond Earth and the confines of their own bodies. Through three novels, Sigler has told this story through the young Em, a girl struggling with who she is, who she can be, and her overwhelming drive to see her people survive an onslaught of “Parents” and hostile aliens. Her story – and the story of humanity – has been gripping and intense through the first two books of the trilogy, but this is where it all ends. There will be spoilers for previous novels, something which is impossible to avoid here in a discussion of the third book.
In the final installment of an exhilarating sci-fi adventure trilogy in the vein of The Hunger Games, Divergent, and Red Rising, Scott Sigler’s unforgettable heroine, Em Savage, must come to grips once and for all with the perilous mysteries of her own existence.
“We thought this place was our destiny—not our doom.”
Pawns in a millennia-old struggle, the young people known only as the Birthday Children were genetically engineered to survive on the planet Omeyocan—but they were never meant to live there. They were made to be “overwritten,” their minds wiped and replaced by the consciousnesses of the monsters who created them.
Em changed all of that.
She unified her people and led a revolt against their creators. Em and her friends escaped an ancient ghost ship and fled to Omeyocan. They thought they would find an uninhabited paradise. Instead, they found the ruins of a massive city long since swallowed by the jungle. And they weren’t alone. The Birthday Children fought for survival against the elements, jungle wildlife, the “Grownups” who created them . . . and, as evil corrupted their numbers, even against themselves.
With these opponents finally defeated, Em and her people realized that more threats were coming, traveling from across the universe to lay claim to their planet. The Birthday Children have prepared as best they can against this alien armada. Now, as the first ships reach orbit around Omeyocan, the final battle for the planet begins.
The planet of Omeyocan is dangerous and populated with hostile life and is a target for approaching ships filled with even more hostile life. The world has been lived in, the ruins of ancient civilizations cover large swathes of the landscape. There is strife within Em’s group of “Birthday Children,” the young humans who awoke in coffins at the beginning of Alive and a war against the “Grown-Ups” who sought to supplant the bodies of the Birthday Children with their own personalities.
Furthering complications include a growing sense of murderous rage that overtakes members of Em’s group. Something is pushing them to fight not only their enemies, but themselves. Something about the world of Omeyocan is slowly driving a cycle of violence. It is here where Sigler brings a sense of greater mythology into this story, a mythology that encompasses more than just the future of humanity. In introducing a greater sense of mythology, Sigler also provides enough of a science-based explanation for those driving forces. In short, he strikes a great balance between a far future science fictional story and a story with mythological underpinnings.
Final novels in a series can either elevate the previous novels in a series, setting the series as a whole on a level of its own, or it can drag down the series by being untrue to what came before. Sigler’s been spinning tales long enough that he knows how to deliver, and Alone is a fantastic capper to the series. He is true to everything that came before, both in the characters and the foundation he laid down in building this world/universe, while also introducing intriguing elements that help to cast what came before in a slightly different shade of light, but not in a way that questions all preceding events. In other words, Sigler strikes a nearly perfect balance here.
The Generations Trilogy is a fine piece of science fiction. Through its powerful, engaging, and empathetic protagonist Em, the theme of identity is at the forefront, coupled with the nature/nurture dichotomy that helps to define the theme of identity. It casts that identity of the individual powerfully against the backdrop of the identity of the whole of humanity. There were plot elements that could have taken predictable turns that didn’t, which shows that Sigler is a writer who is true to himself and the story he wished to tell.
Alone is a fitting finale to The Generations Trilogy and the trilogy shows that Scott Sigler is a fictional force to be reckoned with, whether he tells stories aimed at a the young adult crowd or his established adult readers.
Highly recommended
Review copy courtesy of the publisher, Del Rey Books
Published April 2017 | Hardcover, 560 pages
http://scottsigler.com/book/alone
