Well, here we are again. Let’s get right down to it. I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of lap-sitting and seating arrangements that need sorting out.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They stop the car half a mile from the warehouse, so nobody will hear the engine, and they all get out.<\/p>\n
I climbed out of the passenger-side door, and Cy followed, quickly leaning the seat forward for Apolonia and Tsavi to climb out. Benji struggled to help the professor.<\/p>\n
“Maybe Dr. Zorba should sit in the front next time?” Benji said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Told ya there would be seating arrangement discussion.<\/p>\n
The warehouse is all lit up, so they don’t know how to get into it without being spotted. While they’re formulating a plan, Dr. Zoidberg continues to be more useless than the real, actual Dr. Zoidberg:<\/p>\n
“Rory!” Dr. Z said, almost too loudly. He bend over and put one hand on his forehead. Silver was lying over on her side, wet and muddy. The professor sat her upright and pushed the kickstand down with his boot. “This is unacceptable!”<\/p>\n
“Shh!” Cy said, holding out his hands. “I understand you’re upset, but we can’t get caught over a moped.”<\/p>\n
“Silver is not just a moped! I saved for months for her. She is garage kept. She’s nearly fifteen and look at her! Perfect condition. That doesn’t just happen, you know.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Mopeds\u00a0are usually between three and six hundred dollars. How little is this top scientist, who goes on filed missions to the arctic and who has tenure at a university major enough to have a lab in which super rare space rocks can be studied, making annually that he has to save up for “months” to buy a moped?<\/p>\n
Also, remember when I said Dr. Z had outlived his usefulness and should have died a long time ago? This only reinforces my point. Dr. Z has done nothing useful that the others have not been able to figure out for themselves, and now his behavior puts them all at risk of getting caught. Maguire has fallen into the trap that a lot of writers fall into, and that’s assuming that something cute or funny or zany has to happen in every single scene. We’re at 85% into the book; the only things that should be happening right now are things that will advance the story toward its climax.\u00a0Writing Tip:<\/strong> Don’t keep a character around to provide comic relief once their usefulness to the plot has waned. It usually results in that character slowing the story down as the author attempts to justify the character’s presence with “wacky” behavior incongruous to the plot.<\/p>\n
They walk across the field, but before they can get too close to the warehouse, it’s time for another Rory and Cy relationship moment:<\/p>\n
He fidgeted. “I need to tell you something.”<\/p>\n
“If it’s about Benji\u2013”<\/p>\n
“It’s not,” he said, cutting me off. “It’s about you. Thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve done since the day I met you up until this moment. Despite the…circumstances…you’ve been a true friend to me, Rory.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I’m glad we’ve stopped the forward momentum of the plot yet again, this time to rehash a conversation we’ve seen three times already, at least. I was getting whiplash from the break-neck pace the story was moving at.<\/p>\n
Because Benji is with them, and because the author is trying to keep the love triangle alive for as long as possible, this happens:<\/p>\n
“If we could go back to the beginning, I’d do it all again. I just…I know you can’t stay. I just know what it feels like to miss someone, and I’m not looking forward to it.”<\/p>\n
Cy wiped a speck of mud from my cheek with his thumb and flicked it to the ground. “Part of me wishes I\u00a0could<\/span> stay.”<\/p>\n
I glanced over to Benji, who was failing at pretending not to be watching us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Underlines are italics, as per always.<\/p>\n
I know what’s happening here. Maguire is best known for pioneering the New Adult genre. It makes sense that if she wanted to try out science fiction, she would genre blend it with New Adult to pull in her existing readership. That’s not unusual for an author to do. But she’s so busy trying to cram in all the things that made her New Adult novels popular that she’s sacrificed\u00a0all the action and the urgency you’d expect a story about a space parasite and a government conspiracy to have.\u00a0If we just took the science fiction plot, here’s what we’ve got:<\/p>\n
\n
- A mysterious rock lands on Earth.<\/li>\n
- A professor manages to smuggle it back to his lab.<\/li>\n
- An alien arrives to destroy the space rock.<\/li>\n
- The government is looking for the space rock.<\/li>\n
- If the government gets the space rock, a parasite might take over the world, ending life as we know it.<\/li>\n
- The aliens might attempt to destroy the space rock by blowing up Earth, ending life as we know it.<\/li>\n
- The protagonist has to get the space rock away from the government and to the aliens before any of that happens.<\/li>\n
- In doing so, the protagonist will avenge the death of her family by the same government organization that took the rock.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
And if we took just the romance plot, here’s what we’ve got:<\/p>\n
\n
- The protagonist has a dark and tortured past and can’t trust anybody.<\/li>\n
- A guy likes her, but she’s not sure she likes him back.<\/li>\n
- She’s also attracted to this other guy, who is engaged.<\/li>\n
- The engaged guy is unavailable, but the guy who likes her might not be trustworthy.<\/li>\n
- And the engaged guy seems to like her, too.<\/li>\n
- Who does she pick?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Those are two separate books. They should have stayed separate, because they don’t all fit into one. I’m not saying there’s no room for subplots in a story, just that the biggest, most complex storyline should be treated as though it’s the biggest, most complex storyline.\u00a0This entire time, the space rock has just been a thing in the background that moves them around from point A to point B while they work out their love triangle. We’re at the college, having a conversation about our relationship. Oh no, something something space rock! We have to move to this second location, where we will have another, nearly identical conversation about our relationship. Oh no, something something else space rock! We need to go on this space ship, to introduce yet another element of this love triangle and have more conversations.<\/p>\n
With all that out of the way, Cy tells Rory the plan. The aliens are going to go into the still occupied warehouse alone and wrap up everything on their own, which basically will end up leaving our protagonist nothing else to do. Which obviously can’t happen, because then the story is over and there’s no resolution. But hark! What is that sound I hear upon the horizon? Could it be…<\/p>\n
Before he could speak, a loud rumble echoed from miles away, and after a few seconds, the ground shook. Two pillars of fire and smoke snaked up to the sky, looming over the tree line.<\/p>\n
“No<\/span>,” Cy whispered, staring at the dark columns.<\/p>\n
“What is that?” Benji asked, subdued panic in his voice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That, Benji, is deus ex machina. Hamech has shown up, and his grand entrance results in the government people leaving the warehouse, making it much easier for the aliens to sneak in:<\/p>\n
The warehouse transformed from being a glowing beacon of light to a red-and-blue strobe-covered hub of activity. An alarm sounded, and soldiers rushed out to fill every Jeep. They left the property spinning their wheels.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Okay, but surely not\u00a0every<\/em> soldier has left, right? Some people are still behind, guarding things, right?<\/p>\n
The armed guards who were walking the grounds had disappeared. They’d all probably left in the Jeeps.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This is so convenient! Because now, Tsavi, Apolonia, and Cy are able to go on ahead and leave the humans waiting.<\/p>\n
Yup. The protagonist of this novel is going to sit in a muddy field and wait while someone else does the plot stuff. What is she going to do while she waits?<\/p>\n
Have another conversation about her relationships, of course!<\/p>\n
“You’re not scared for Cy?” Benji gripped his rifle, keeping his mouth tight in an attempt to conceal how it made him feel to ask that question.<\/p>\n
I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. “I think there are more important things…”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So do I, but that’s not going to stop you two.<\/p>\n
“No. Not really. Not to me. There’s an alien parasite in front of us and an alien invasion behind us. Things are blowing up. People are dying. I’d kind of like to know.”<\/p>\n
“What? Is it you or him? You want me to choose out here in the field?”<\/p>\n
“No.”<\/p>\n
“Then, what do you want me to say?”<\/p>\n
“That you don’t want him to stay.”<\/p>\n
“You just don’t get it,” I said, shaking my head. He didn’t know what it was like to lose someone. He had no idea how it felt to say good-bye.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n