Aftermath

Remnants #12

by K.A. Applegate

Trust no one. The Remnants are outsiders on the planet they once called Home. 500 years after the Rock, Earth is an arid wasteland, inhabited only by a handful of human descendants & mutated animals. To survive, they must plant one of their own--Mo' Steel--as leader of a wild band of surface-dwelling Marauders. But first he has to prove himself by defeating the Beasts, defending the group from Slizzer attacks, and somehow safely leading the Marauders to The Source. And if that’s not enough---he has to keep an eye on those closest to him...because he no longer knows who his friends are.

Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult, Middle Grade, Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Aliens, Childrens

154 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

also published under the name Katherine Applegate

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is genuinely terrible! This is the first time in all of Remnants that I was actively Not Enjoying Myself while reading and was so desperate for the whole ordeal to come to an end. It was so terribly written, in terms of actual prose, and character decisions, and overall scene construction. It has failed on literally every single front. This is the first time that it read like stunted middle-grade fiction, despite featuring such dark content as a murder and an attempted rape (for real!). The lack of sophistication in the prose reminded me of something I might have written when I was like eight. Fie on you, ghostwriter.

Things that bother me in this book (there are many):
• This possible nascent insta!romance between Jobs/Echo and Sanchez/Violet? Violet's attraction to him is SO INSTANTANEOUS and she's instantly hearteyes at him for no apparent reason.

• The Marauders' physical strength? If their metabolisms have slowed down/adjusted enough to survive on LITERALLY TWIGS -- twigs! twigs!!!!! -- and tiny scraps of water, then they should be wispy lean emaciated skeletons, not with shoulders built like a pre-Rock linebacker. The Remnants should be able to completely kick their ass. Some post-apocalyptic environments can lead to people turning into totally ripped Mad Max-esque survivalists, but. BERRIES AND TWIGS is, um, not exactly enough sustenance for the human body. I don't care how much we've supposedly changed in 500 years. That ain't enough time to evolve.

• 2Face :| :| :| :| :| :| :| She sounds like a complete delusional nutjob now and I hate it. It's completely undermining/backtracking on what fledgling developments her relationship with Billy had, too; while she did start off using him on Mother, I could have sworn that there was some real affection developed there, which I had been so excited about and thought was so interesting.

• For that matter: Billy's absence from almost the entirety of this book! There are only two books left, you can't keep sidelining your major players like this.

• An out-of-character Jobs tripping balls with no explanation for it. Apparently it's the grey monotonousness of the surroundings that's getting to him? Uh. But then why are he and 2Face the only people going off the rails like this? There should be some sort of legitimate reason to explain their erratic behaviour (e.g. some sort of toxicity in the air?), but that explanation hasn't come yet, which just makes both characters infuriating.

• Terrible writing in general! There are endless choppy scenes -- most no longer than 2 pages -- just featuring small one-off interactions as they keep marching on across the wasteland, and there's no flow between these scenes, just isolated incidents and people bristling and being uncooperative/violent. This, above all, is what made the whole book just so unbelievably tiresome and repetitive and monotonous to read. And look at this:

"Why did he do it?" Violet cried. "We told him not to take any of the pellets!"

"Oh, jeez, he's a mess!" Roger Dodger said fretfully.

"Is he going to die?" Edward asked fearfully.

"He'll be okay," Jobs answered weakly.

I know this is technically middle-grade, but christ, the writers have been writing better than this before.

• How do the Riders already have a name coined by the Marauders? Weren't the aliens only on Earth for like one day before the Remnants got stranded?

• Mo should have killed Newton! I hate it when leaders are ~*altruistic and magnaminous*~ when they have absolutely no reason to be and the person has used up every last shred of goodwill and repeatedly proven themselves untrustworthy!

• This initiation ritual is bizarre. Why do they risk the safety of the whole tribe when the leader goes to face the Beasts? Plus, the fight itself was super anticlimactic after ALL THAT BUILDUP; it was over in like two pages. Ugh. There was no description of the Beasts either apart from "giant rats", so it was so hard to visualise the fight or... well, care about it at all. (There should've been better payoff here, and ideally something to do with Mo's titanium bones, imo: like the Beast bites into his arm or leg but breaks its teeth on his bones. Some factor about Mo to stack the odds in his favour, because right now, his winning seems so random and ludicrous, especially with his pre-existing injuries.)

• WHAT. IS. THEIR. FOOD?????? While on their march, there's mention of ration sizes, and twigs. That is it. That is all. George R. R. Martin has talked about why he writes such lavish description about feasts in A Song of Ice and Fire, and that's because taste is another sensation that readers should experience; the details of food are actually a very valuable worldbuilding tool to make a fictional universe more "real" to you, and to really imagine what life is like in their shoes. But I have absolutely zero conception of what post-apocalyptic life in Remnants is like right now, because I am so hung up on the mention that they're eating twigs. How is everyone still alive?

Plus, what do the surroundings look like???? There are absolutely zero physical description anymore, so the scenes/chapters are just endless talking with the occasional stop to make "camp" -- there's no sense of passing time or distance or location or, you know, what the ruins of the planet looks like now. More reasons this book was so damned tedious to read.

---

Ugh. Seriously, I was so bored that I was angry. I'm not even appeased by the fact that the Missing Eight Five finally got a namedrop, because that was vague and nonsensical as well. The last two books in this series better be an improvement. I wish I knew the ghostwriters' names so I know who to blame.

The only silver lining is this single quote, that I enjoyed:

"Didn't your mother ever warn you not to take candy from strangers?" Olga said.

"Frankly, no," Violet said. "My mother was too busy building a corporate empire to worry about her daughter's well-being. But I figured it out on my own."

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better than the last one, in that it is solid, though the way some of the characterizations are going are not. At least the action is solid, and marginally believable in context. Full review below:

  That looks like it should be 2Face on the cover again, considering the Asian look, the half-covered face, and the design on her shirt which looks like it could be creepy crawlies… if it is not her, my guess is it is probably Echo.

  That way lies madness, [Violet] told herself. And there’s enough of that here already. (page 28)

  I am not sure I can agree much more with Violet on that one. Madness has certainly manifested itself in this series, and not just in the character’s psyches. Between 2Face becoming more delusional, and later Jobs becoming rather well delusional himself How can he possibly believe, even for a moment, that Mo’Steel would hurt Billy and betray Jobs?! All Mo’Steel is doing is making sure they ALL survive, Jobs included!.

  Despite these and some other very … questionable… developments in this book, and the fact that I barely like any of the characters by this point for various reasons (“not changing”, becoming delusional, making exceedingly dumb decisions, the counter-intuitiveness of the Marauder’s leader system, the never-ending headache, the list goes on and on…) I at least felt there was a solid form to the story.
  Yes, characters made dumb decisions and were in general just very stupid.
  Yes, many plot elements just plain did not make any sense. I won’t even try to start listing them.
  Yes, the characters are becoming less and less likeable and well-formed. (Except Violet – she actually got a little character reinforcement with her Jane-ness. And at least now the books actively acknowledge things that have been bugging me forever like “The almost-forgotten poet in [Jobs] wanted to see the stars.” (page 56)).
  Yes, there is a remarkable lack of what I thought would be lots and lots of Remnant Evolution UP! despite ample opportunity to expand on it.
  Yes, even the adult Marauders are falling into the adult trap that has thus far killed off essentially all of the other Remnant adults except for Olga and the Troika. ([Olga] thought, […] What claim do we have on the Marauders, anyway? Why should a hardened, experienced band of nomads be responsible for the lives of us troublesome newbies? -- page 80 – the question of the hour!)
  Yes, we still do not know what is up with Mother/the Troika/Tate/Yago or if we will ever see them again.

  And yet. And yet.

  Upon finishing this book, I felt oddly….satisfied. Sure, nothing is going in any sensible direction, characters and plot included, but there was a feeling of completeness that I have not felt in several books. There was a mission, and it was achieved. The how and why is all filler and shady at best, but at least something was DONE. Progress was made.

  And after what seems like forever, we finally get inside Billy’s head again. I am so very, very curious to see what is going to come out of that entire scene near the end, and hope against hope that I will not be sorely dissatisfied/betrayed by how it works out.

Two Quotes:

  Violent silently applauded his sense of when to let go. Mo’Steel does make a good leader, she thought. He’s smart. And he’s incorruptible. -- page 90 – And Jobs is out, just like that? By the way, noting that Mo’Steel is “incorruptible” makes me just wonder when he will become corrupted. Sure we’ve not seen much if any evidence that is possible to this point, but now I half expect it just because Violet thought it.

  [Mo’Steel]’d just strap it up now and go off and try his damndest to kill him a Beast. – page 142 – Marked because this is definitely YOUNG ADULT-level language, not middle grade.

Inconsistency/Retcon on a retcon:
  We are who you called the Missing Five, Billy. -- page 98 – Ah HAH! Another retcon! This time, to adjust it back to what we thought it should be, Missing Five plus the Troika.

[Caitlin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't hand out one-stars lightly. I don't relish being critical--well, maybe a little, but only when it's deserved. And hoo boy, is it deserved here.

Author Patty Jansen lists three things to avoid at all costs: Do not annoy the reader; do not confuse the reader; do not bore the reader. Aftermath seems to set out to deliberately break all three rules. The characters are annoying (especially Jobs and2Face, of which more later); the world building is confusing due to an almost total lack of scene setting and description; and on top of everything, the book is boring. This was an incredibly dull read; my emotions during it were frustration and bemusement.

The story is simple: the stranded Remnants and Marauders are making a pilgrimage to the Dark Zone so Mo'Steel can kill one of the Beasts and become the leader. Not sure why this is the litmus test, but okay. Since there's not much plot, most of the book unfolds in brief vignettes, interactions that rarely last more than a couple pages. If the intent was to make the story fast paced, the effect is the opposite: I was never immersed long enough to feel any of the tension in the story. But it gets worse.

The world building in this book was piss poor. We've been told several times the Marauders eat twigs and berries, but not what they taste like or how they can even survive, let alone trek long distances, on this diet. As for the Marauders, they remain caricatures of a hard bitten nomadic people--I refuse to believe any society that's survived 500 years in this wasteland could be so dysfunctional. I found myself comparing them frequently to the Grounder society from the 100 TV show, which does this sort of thing much better, imo.

Speaking of nonsensical, the Slizzers deserve their own paragraph. They're described as these fast, low to the ground enemies that eat people and have acid spit. So Jobs concludes that Slizzers must be ROACHES. BECAUSE ROACHES CAN SPIT. I. Um. That's kind of a stretch, buddy, unless you can explain how they evolved acid spit in 500 years.

While I'm here, what happened to Jobs? His character is mangled so badly it begins to seem like deliberate character assassination. Both he and 2Face become super-paranoid in this book for no apparent reason. 2Face I kind of get--although her believing that Billy somehow betrayed them makes zero sense--but Jobs thinking everyone's against him (b/c he cares about Billy, incidentally), including his f*cking best friend Mo'Steel, makes less than zero sense. Had the ghostwriter even read the other books? Why is Billy such a flashpoint *now*? (I bought it when he had control of the ship, but on the surface he's as if not more powerless than the rest of them.)

Seriously, do yourself a favor and don't read this book, even if you're a diehard K.A.Applegate fan--though if K.A. gave this more than a cursory glance, I'd be amazed. I officially need a break from the series after this. I can't with these books. I need to read something competent.

[Ema]

Is no one concerned that half the human population essentially just died? Since there are so few of them why are they going off on a death march? I don't believe that Mo would have won. Take me back to the days of the Pipe, those were good ones.

[Mariah Wamby · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was certainly a book! A trek across a desert, giant mutant cockroaches, lots of paranoid people, and giant mutant rats. That’s about it folks.

[Julie Decker · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a way to appease the Marauders--enemies of the Alphas--someone must fight the Beasts and win, and that someone is Mo'Steel. Good thing he likes a challenge! (What the Marauders learn from his involvement is also a challenge at first.) And though Billy did his best to disengage, he seems to be back, with an important message about the remaining missing Mayflower survivor.

This is the other half of the culture we heard about in the previous book, so we've seen them through the eyes of their enemies first, but now we have the context to understand both even if we don't agree with their ways. It's nice to know Billy didn't disappear, too, because he was one of my favorite characters. The plot has become very jumbled and confusing at times, and it's difficult to keep all the humans straight (and to remember who died), but it's nice hard SF with many human elements.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An action packed chapter in the life of the Remnants.


After being abandoned on Earth by Yago, the Remnants discover that there are survivors. They meet the Alpha's who live underground in a biosphere under very controlled conditions. They also meet the Marauders, who are a nomadic, violent group. The Mo-steel inadvertently kills the Marauder leader and as is the custom is now the new leader. But he has to prove himself worthy by battling 'The Beasts'. The Remnants and the Marauders head out on a journey across the ash covered strip of Earth towards the Dark Zone where many horrors await the Remnants as they attempt to survive this new Earth that has become their new home.

Only 2 more books to go!!

[Swankivy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Remnants #12 was pretty suspenseful, a personal-politics-laden journey of the Remnants with the Marauders, people dealing with an assortment of wounds and illnesses, and, of course, the memorable two-year-old being eaten by a giant roach. Go Mo'Majesty! And it looks like Billy's not dead after all, even though he tried pretty hard.

[Dexter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfortunately, Remnants has lost its magical hold over me. Probably because I'm not thirteen anymore.

Nevertheless, it's still full of horror and shaky science, and definitely a fascinating series for younger readers.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't believe that he actually killed the beasts! And he even got Newton to obey him. I wonder what will happen with the riders coming back. I was wondering what had happened to them and where they had gone.

[Z · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's still really hard for me to get into these books, for a reason that I can't quite put my finger on. But I'm almost done at this point. Let's forge ahead...