The 5th Wave (series)
Cover of the first book in the series
|
|
|
|
| Author | Rick Yancey |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Post-apocalyptic, science fiction |
| Publisher | G. P. Putnam's Sons |
| Published | 2013–2016 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback), audiobook, e-book |
| No. of books | 3 |
The 5th Wave is a trilogy of young adult post-apocalyptic sci-fi novels written by American author Rick Yancey. The series started in May 2013 with the first book, The 5th Wave. A sequel titled The Infinite Sea was published in 2014. The trilogy concluded in 2016 with the final book, The Last Star.
A race of aliens known as "The Others" have invaded Earth in a series of "waves". With the first wave, an electromagnetic pulse (EMP wave) throws the world into darkness by knocking out all power, including vehicles, devices, etc. In the process, around half a million people die as all moving vehicles are shorted, including planes in the air.
For the second wave, The Others, realizing that over 40 percent of Earth's population lives within 60 miles of a coastline, drop metal rods three times as heavy and twice as tall as the Empire State Building on Earth's fault lines from their mothership. As a result, unimaginably large tsunamis and powerful earthquakes rage across the planet. This kills three billion people.
For a third wave, a deadly disease sweeps across the world, carried by birds. The disease goes by many names: the Red Death, the Red Tsunami, the Blood Plague, the Pestilence, and the Fourth Horseman, most common. The disease kills 97 percent of Earth's scattered survivors, leaving fewer than 14 million people scattered over the planet. The disease is thought to have been an already deadly virus (Ebola for example) genetically modified by The Others.
By the fourth wave, The Others, are hunting the last surviving humans. They have "downloaded" themselves (as they are able to separate their conscience from bodies) to humans and they have awakened, now picking off Earth's survivors, one-by-one.
The series follows Cassie Sullivan and several other young survivors of the first four waves as they desperately try to survive in a new world, reshaped by the Others.
Yancey stated in an interview with Lightspeed Magazine that the basis for the The 5th Wave came from a question he asked his wife about her worst fears. "It was one of those three a.m. conversations where your mind starts going, and I asked her, on the spur of the moment, 'What is your greatest fear?' She said, without hesitation, 'Alien abduction.'" Yancey continued on how he developed the plot for the series. "It was basically trying to think like an alien, and considering the fact that if they are out there, they probably wouldn’t attack without getting to know us very, very well. They would learn how we think, they would learn about what do humans do in times of crisis, and they would turn that to their own advantage. So, when I was working through how the attacks might work, I realized first that it couldn’t just be one attack—the world’s too big—you’d have to do it in stages, or waves." The first book was officially published on 8 May 2013.
...
Wikipedia