It wasn’t horrible but it didn’t shine either. I did like the set up. Plenty of room for action and secrets and betrayal and vengeance. But, mostly, it reads like a high school math & sports decathlon.
So Earth is in mortal peril as an extinction-level event asteroid is heading straight for it. Luckily, the Atlanteans show up. They were once from Earth (Atlantis, of course) but calamity hit their society and they left Earth for greener pastures on another planet. Now these technologically-advanced pseudo-humans have returned to rescue some of Earth’s population. They don’t have the physical space in their ships to save all, but they are willing to take some of our brightest, fastest, and fertile teens. Still, they must pass the tests followed by the contests to earn a space on the ship.
So all of that sounds excellent – right up my alley! Oooo! There’s so many exciting questions like how truthful are these Atlanteans being? Why can’t they obliterate the asteroid or change it’s course to miss Earth? What are the politics like back home for these Atlanteans?
But then we get into the tests with all the usual high school angst and bullies and questionable food options and awkward flirtations. Yawn. This made up a good part of the book and it really slowed the plot down for me. Just get to the action! When will someone get maimed? Perhaps a near-drowning? Or even a meaningful death? Well, we get some of that in the last quarter of the book but by then I was just tired of the high school drama.
There is this one weird plot device that didn’t work for me. One of the tests involves the kids’s singing voices because some of the Atlantean tech can be accessed via the perfectly sung note. Sounds cool on the surface, and we already have some voice activated stuff ourselves, but there’s this one scene where it just goes above and beyond and I just had to snort laugh a bit. It definitely was putting the fiction in science fiction at that point.
Overall, I’m glad I gave it a try as I’ve heard a lot of people love this series. However, it’s just not for me. 3/5 stars.
The Narration: Sofia Willingham was a little monotone for the story narration. She did put some emotion in when the characters were talking, but overall, it came off pretty bland. I did like her variety of accents, especially the one she had to makeup for the Atlanteans. Her male character voices would benefit from more masculinity. I felt she did really well with George’s voice in one particular scene near the end of the book. The pacing was good and there were no tech issues with the recording. 3/5 stars.
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