Happy Roswell Read-a-Thon day! I know, for those of you who
are scratching your heads, thinking, “It’s Sunday.” Well, we are moving this
along, going now at a slightly faster pace. I along with some others just can’t
seem to contain ourselves and have been read *gasp* ahead. So from now until
the end we will be doing two books a week instead of just one.
So, now that we’ve got that all squared away, that means we
are up to Book Five, The Intruder.
First off, I’m going to jump right in and say ARGH I feel a
little cheated. Now I know this book has more going on than what I’m about to
say right now, but still! I feel like I’ve missed a huge romantic milestone
when it comes to the progression of Max and Liz’s relationship!
In the last books Max had put the brakes on anything that
would escalate their friendship into romantic territory. Fine. I get that. It
makes sense. But we knew, or at least we hung onto the fact, that that might
change over the course of the books. We began to see that change in Book Five,
The Watcher. Max, though fighting for his life, told Liz, out loud, that he
loved her, they’d had contact that moved their relationship forward. They had
had words that moved their relationship forward, but by the end of the book it
still wasn’t cemented.
And then WHAM! We go from not knowing if they are going to
become an item to... Liz making a commented about the only thing good that came
out of the last week was that now she could kiss Max when every she wants (of
course I’m paraphrasing here, so don’t kill me if the quote is wrong. I’m
clearly just making a point) What we completely miss is how that all came to
be. I’d have liked to see Max recover and then have a serious moment or two and
then they come to the conclusion that they can’t live without each other. In
the TV series we get to see this. It starts off slow, the chemistry that was
always there builds, they touch, they talk, they spend time alone together
while Max fights his desire and Liz pushes forward, head strong until... that
one episode where they finally connect. But we see it unfold, we bite our
nails, we grit out teeth and then, finally we scream Halleluiah!!
Of course the relationship with Michael and Maria is still
up in the air, which is fine. We’ve learned over time, and even through how he
acts in the show, that their relationship never fully get’s off the ground as
it should have. So I’m okay with waiting, besides, in this book Michael has a
lot more to deal with than just the many potential love interests he has
walking around.
So we enter the much more pressing matter of the novel.
Michael is captured. Ouch. That stings. I fully expected it to happen to one of
the aliens. Of course I assumed that the TV show would have taken a few cues
from the book and the person that got capture would have been Max. But again we
see that so far, not much aside from the first book made it into the TV show,
so, moving on.
At first we see the fear in Michael, the worry,
apprehension, anger, all these signs that show just how traumatic it should be
to be standing in a cell encased in glass. He doesn’t know what’s going to
happen, he doesn’t know if he’ll live or die, or what kind of experiments
they’ll do on him. It makes sense. He starts off so strong willed when decides
he’s not going to give anything up. He’s not going to share his secrets, give
up the other aliens, he’s willing to take the wrath.
But what really happens? He goes from this guy who’s going
to play hard to get, he gives Valenti and the doctor a few choice lines that
have me smiling, thinking, this is Michael, he isn’t going to crack, not at
all... and then... what does he do? IF you’ve read the books, well, you know.
He makes nice. He does what’s asked of him and does it with a minimal amount of
a fight. Really, rather none what so ever. I was disappointed to say the least.
At least when Max was caught he fought against it. He was tortured. He was shown
some of his worst nightmares—the death of Liz if he didn’t cooperate, and he
still didn’t give up the goods, not really. He was rescued, in time, but I
think he would have held out, I think he would have taken everything that was
thrown at him and wouldn’t have given up. He didn’t use his powers, he didn’t
tell them anything, unlike Michael when he found himself in a similar position.
I really think things could have been a little more gritty, a little more
intense, I’d have liked him to fight.
Enter in our newest alien, Adam. I’ve already shown my
dislike for the addition and deletion of aliens that’s happened in this series
thus far. And of course, I rolled my eyes at this one. I just didn’t find the
entire exchange as believable as it should have been. I get we learned in the
last novel that there was a pod that was left behind on the ship that Ray
couldn’t move. So I assumed there’d be another alien to enter the circle—maybe
I thought it should have been a girl, maybe I thought they’d make the character
different, either way, I didn’t love him.
Most of this book is a lot of back and forth between the
characters and not quite enough with Michael for the scenario he was placed in.
We see for once the group struggle with the task at hand, they each have different
ideas on how to move forward, which causes tension between Alex and Isabel to
the point they break up.
We also see the addition of another character, Cameron.
Michael seems drawn to her, and sure, they’re trapped, but he lets his guard
down to easily after having gone so long with the idea that no one can know
their secret. We see how this becomes a problem, but we also see how this will
affect the next novel, along with Adam joining the cast.
Oh and another player in the fold doesn’t come out of this
novel alive and a few of last week’s predictions get squashed. For the sake of
spoilers, or rather the sake of more spoilers I won’t share which those
predictions came true, and which ones failed the big one.
This series, for me started off so strong, with so much
potential (funny, I thought the same thing about the TV Show and boy was I
proven wrong) and now I find we’ve just got too many things going on, too many
characters entering the mix (and their POV’s) and not enough moving forward.
I’d really like to learn more about where they come from and how they plan (if
they plan) on getting home. The entire TV show was centered around that, and we
see that resolve over the course of the three season. This is book five out of
ten, and I still have no idea how things are going to play out and what the
main goal of the novels is, yet.
I’m also finding the romantic element of the series is
getting lost in the shuffle. The first book pointed in the direction of a
romance with a sci-fi twist, right, the only reason why Max put himself and the
aliens in danger by saving Liz was because he loved her. The show was based
with that aspect too and that’s what kept teens glued to the TV. But we’re
seeing less of the romance and more of the sci-fi and maybe I’m picky, but... I
want more ROMANCE J
Anyways, that’s enough for today. Up next we have, Book Six The Stowaway.
