Aliens invade the Earth! Humans mount heroic-but-hopeless resistance! The White House… vaporized! It’s a time-honored SF scenario, stretching back to the genre’s puppyhood, with badness-from-the-skies like H.G. Wells’ venerable War of the Worlds. And, frankly, I’ve always been a sucker for it. In fact, when I was in grade school, my most vivid dreams had me alone, at night, somewhere on the shadowed streets of my little Minnesota hometown. Glimpsed through the trees some distance away, floating silently, moving slowly between the houses, just above the ground: huge, usually saucer-shaped craft, dark, except for a window glowing with dim, orange light. Silhouetted in the window: something alive, unknowable…other. These weren’t scary dreams. They were THRILLING. I wasn’t afraid of these guys. I wanted them to take me with them.
What prompted this little childhood reverie is news of what sounds like a great new alien invasion YA sci fi trilogy from a truly interesting author I discovered just last year. Rick Yancey’s The Fifth Wave series recently sold for big bucks to Putnam Books for Young Readers. Movie rights to GK Films and Tobey Maguire’s Material Pictures. The story follows a teenage girl’s struggle to track down her brother after a particularly insidious sort of planet-wide alien occupation. Yancey is clearly an author to watch – his previous books include the brilliantly spooky, darkly witty Monstrumologist novels (a Printz honor-winner) and the popular Alfred Kropp adventures. I for one will be monitoring the ether for further publication news about The Fifth Wave, and will absolutely snap up the first installment in the trilogy soon as it lands.
I checked Yancey’s website and blog, but didn’t find mention of the new series. The book deal basics are at Publishers Weekly with the foreign rights angle at SFScope. (As you’ll notice at the PW site, it was apparently a very good week for science fictional book sales in general, with both Disney and Harper Collins also picking up SF books and paying in the six-figure range for the privilege….)
So, how about you? Fond of seeing the Earth fend off planet-scarfing no-goodniks? Do you dream of spaceships hovering over your local town square? Do you wish they’d take you with them when they leave?? Maybe it’s just me….