The Angel Experiment Sporkings: Introduction and Prologue

I’ll admit it: The premise of the Maximum Ride books really excited me at first. This series had a lot of potential to be great, and that’s exactly why I’m sporking it. James Patterson is a Big Name Author, with almost a hundred books published. While I don’t claim to have read every single one of them, I know enough to say that Patterson can definitely do better.

The story starts off with this note from Max:

WARNING
If you dare to read this story, you become part of the Experiment.
I know that sounds a little mysterious, but it’s all I can say right now
—Max

You know, if James Patterson was writing, say, middle-grade fiction, I could see him getting away from this. It’s the thing that maybe could draw in a ten-year-old.

But this isn’t middle-grade. I went to two libraries and a major bookstore this weekend just to check this out. In all three locations, the series was classified as YA.

YA. Young Adult. As in, for teenagers.

Trust me, teenagers do not have the attention span of a squirrel. Patterson, you just wasted an entire page on a useless statement. I understand that it’s supposed to sound mysterious and create suspense to draw readers in, but it just really fell flat.

Also? It’s not all you can say right now. The rest of the book is right there.

In short: From the first page of the book, it can already be inferred that Patterson has no idea what age group he’s writing for.

Let’s move on, before I start crying and banging my head against the keyboard.

So there’s this prologue. The first few paragraphs use the same middle-grade writing tactics that might draw in a ten-year old. Do not put this book down, your life depends on it, blah blah blah.

Then things get interesting. Or at least Patterson thinks that they do.

Max, our main character introduces herself to us. She talks about her family, which she calls her “flock”, for a while, then goes on to describe how they’re not normal. You know, in a very vague sort of way

That’s how we get this gem:

Basically, we’re pretty cool, nice, smart – but not “average” in any way.

Besides the fact that Max is pretty much talking about how much of a speshul snowflake she is, this is a really awkward sentence. That “pretty” really didn’t need to be there, and my brain just keeps stumbling over it for some reason. It’s probablu a personal issue, but it’s driving me crazy.

And then we get a lot of backstory.

Max talks about how her flock was trapped in a lab called the School where evil scientists kept them in cages and studied them or something. There are also these wolf/human hybrids – called Erasers – that act as guards at the School. The flock is being hunted by these, apparently.

And that’s pretty much it for the prologue. It spanned about two pages. Now, James Patterson is notorious for his short chapters, but I really don’t feel that the prologue was necessary.

Here’s why:

A prologue is supposed to inform us of events that happened before the start of the story. Okay, check. I mean, I guess that the story starts after they’ve escaped from the School, so…

But another, unwritten, law of prologues is that they don’t really have to be there unless the reader is being told information that the narrator doesn’t have or can’t fit into the story.

Let’s think about this. This prologue was basically a giant infodump of backstory. “Hi, I’m Max, here’s my family, here’s why I’m special, and here’s my past.”

Could this have been worked into Chapter One or dispersed throughout the story? Absolutely.

My second qualm with the prologue is that it’s very vague. A few choice quotes:

We’re — well, we’re kind of amazing.

Are you going to tell us why? Oh, no, wait. We have to get through the rest of this paragraph until we get our next snippet of how special you are.

The six of us […] were made on purpose, by the sickest, most horrible “scientists” you could possibly imagine.

I guess that I’m going to have to imagine, then. There sure is a whole lot of telling here, but not much showing.

[…] we ended up only 98 percent human. The other 2 percent had a big impact, let me tell you.

And that’s the last we hear of the flock’s genetic mutations for the prologue. If the infodump must be there, then it should at least tell me what’s going on with my main characters.

What was the big impact? Why should I even care?

Is anyone going to answer my questions?

Also, on a slightly related note, Patterson seems to think that he’s being very dramatic with his vagueness and cliffhangers. He’s trying too hard, and it shows.

To sum it up, by the end of the first three pages, I:

• Have not yet learned the basic premise of the book
• Have not formed any sort of emotional connection with the protagonist
• Actually could not care less about the protagonis
• Do not feel any sort of urgency to keep reading
• Am wading knee-deep in the Sea of Vague
• Am wondering what I saw in this book
• Want to throw the book against the wall

Next up: Imminent death, kidnappings, and extremely small chapters

Comment [41]

When I last left off, we were at the end of the prologue, and I was threatening to throw the book against the wall.  That hasn’t happened yet, but don’t think it isn’t going to.

Part One of the book is called Flock Fright.  That just sounds silly.

Chapter One

Our chapter starts off with this quote:

The funny thing about facing imminent death is that it really snaps everything else into perspective.

Well.  I’ll give Patterson credit.  He’s trying to start off the book by plunging us into the middle of the action, and it sort of works. I still don’t care about my characters and I’m still not very interested, but he’s starting the book off with a bang. I’ll give him a pop.

So, from reading the prologue, it can be inferred that she’s escaping from the School, or at least that’s the impression I’m given.  Patterson really didn’t go into too much detail about how Max actually managed to escape, but she’s outside now, and being chased by Erasers.

The more Patterson says Erasers, the more ridiculous it sounds.

Run.  You’re faster than they are.  You can outrun anything.

In what part of “bird DNA” did Patterson find “runs really fast”?  I mean, sure, you’ve got roadrunners and all, but… I don’t think Max has roadrunner DNA in her.  And I’m positive that a bird can’t outrun a wolf, not without flying.

Um, out of curiosity, where’s the rest of the flock?  Just wonderin’.

So the Erasers catch up with Max and she jumps over a cliff, revealing to us that she has wings and can fly.

Thirteen feet across, pale tan with white streaks and some freckly looking brown spots[…]

Never mind that Max just took a break out of the action to give us a look at her pretty wings.  I just want you to note their length for later.

There’s a halfway decent description of flying here, and had Patterson continued to use it, the book might have had a bit more promise.  But for the rest of the series, he pretty much went “Whelp!  Already described how they fly, so I don’t have to talk about that again!”

Chapter One: One of the longest chapters, and one of the longest discussions.

Page count: 3

Chapter Two

…And it was all a dream.

Besides Patterson’s use of second-grade-level story gimmicks, this chapter is decidedly uneventful.  Max wakes up, talks about her house, and talks about her flock a little more.

She used to live with a man named Jeb Batchelder, who’d saved the flock and been a surrogate parent to them.  He’d disappeared two years ago, and they knew he was dead.

Okay then. Who is this dude?  How did he save you?  How did he disappear?  Jeb gets two tiny paragraphs to himself.  That’s it.

And then there’s the house.

Our house was shaped like a letter E turned on its side.  The bars of the E were cantilevered on stilts out over a steep canyon[…]

First off.  What teenage girl uses words like cantilever?

Second off.  I’m pretty sure that you didn’t just  find this awesome house out in the middle of the woods.  Someone probably built it for you.  Was it Jeb?  I’m assuming that this took more than one person, so who helped?  How long did it take to build?

More importantly, where did the money to build the house come from?

Actually, scratch that.  Where does all the money come from?  They need to pay electricity and water bills, and Max mentions the internet.  If they have jobs or a stash of money holed up somewhere, she sure as heck doesn’t mention it.

“Mornin’, Max.”

This is how our  chapter ends.  Max hears sleepy shuffling behind her and someone tells her good morning.  Is she startled?  What is going on?

Page count: 2

Chapter Three

“Morning, Gazzy.”

Oh, wait.  Patterson just fell asleep at his computer again and forgot that he was working on Chapter Two.

So we get to meet the flock here.  Each person is mentioned and described in about three or four sentences as they get up.

Gazzy: Short for The Gasman.  Has a funky digestive system.  Blond hair, blue eyes.  Has a biological sister. He’s going to regret that name when he gets older.

Iggy: Tall and pale.  Blind.  (We’ll get to that)

Fang: Um, shadowy?  “Dark, overlong hair”.  Saying “long” is fine, Patterson. I think that he already regrets that name.

Nudge: Talks a lot.  Brown eyes.

Angel: Blonde hair.  Innocent and cute. (Oh, I can see why you picked that name.)  Can read minds.  (We’ll get to that too.)

Look how well he described them!  I can almost picture the whole flock in my –

Oh, wait.  We forgot someone.

Max: …

Whelp.  We weren’t graced with a hair or eye color for Max.  We weren’t given anything.  Chapter three and I still don’t know what my narrator looks like. (Well, I could identify her wings, but…)

Iggy only has issues getting around when someone moves the furniture. For now, I’m not going to discuss his blindness. I feel as if it would fit better in a future chapter. I’m just putting this info here for later.

Also, this quote:

I guess if I were more of a fembot, it would bother me that a blind guy six months younger than I am could cook better than I could.

First off, we need to talk about that “six months younger” thing.  Patterson, you’re wasting words.  It happened when Max was describing Fang too, so I know that this isn’t a one-time thing.

It’s simple.  Depending on when Iggy was born, either round it down to one year or say that he’s the same age and just leave it out.

Also, I’m wondering how Iggy learned to cook.  I’m aware that blind people can cook, I’m just wondering who taught him, how much of a learning curve there was, and how much of a mess he made at first.

Angel can read minds, yet nobody is creeped out or seems to watch what they think around her.  How our mind-reader remains so sweet and innocent in a house with two teenage boys, I don’t know.

Page count: 3

Chapter Four

In Chapter Four, the flock goes picking strawberries and the Erasers find them.  That is all.

Except for this, in reference to Gazzy throwing his voice to make it sound like Iggy had insulted Max’s cooking:

“Oh, thank you!” I exclaimed.  “Okay, I’m not a fabulous cook.  But I can still kick your butt, and don’t you forget it.”

I guess if I were more of a fembot, it would bother me that a blind guy six months younger than I am could cook better than I could.

Someone’s a little bothered.

Page count: 2

Chapter Five

So, there’s a fight. It’s not the worst fight scene I’ve ever read. It’s certainly not the best, but it’s not bad, and that’s saying something.

We learn that Jeb trained Max, and not in an especially infodump-ish way. It actually kinda fit in with the chapter, and that’s good.

The writing style is kind of slow-paced whenever Patterson writes about Max punching people. It’s like, “This happened, then I did this, and then that happened.”

Let’s just do a headcount of the flock in the order they go down.

Fang is the first to be swarmed by Erasers. There’s no mention of him again in the chapter, so I assume that he’s down and out.

Gazzy is out cold.

Nudge is apprehended by two Erasers and swung into a tree. I mean, they take her by her hands and feet, swing her back and forth, and toss her. I’m surprised her little birdie bones don’t break.

Iggy is unconscious.

Angel is stuffed into a sack.

Iggy does pretty well in the fight, considering that he’s blind and all. Remember what I said about him only having trouble when the furniture is moved?

Iggy, your furniture is moving. It’s making grunting noises and whatever other sounds Erasers make in a fight, but it’s moving fast and it just gave you a black eye.

Iggy, your furniture is trying to kill you.

Seriously, someone explain how he lasted that long. There were probably two or three Erasers on him, and “really sharp senses” just ain’t cutting it anymore.

Now, before we get any farther, let’s address the obvious: Why is Angel the only one stuffed into a sack? I understand that she’s the only one with mind-reading abilities, but come on. I mean, we’ve got at least two other kids just lying there unconscious. From Max’s monologue prologue, it sounded like the Erasers (or maybe the scientists; the Erasers seem to be the guards) are majorly pissed that everyone escaped. So why only stuff one kid in a sack?

Wait, nevermind. I got it! The School is undergoing budget cuts due to their lack of bird kids and could only afford one burlap sack!

Oh, and an Eraser talks to Max. Doesn’t kill her, doesn’t kidnap her. He talks to her.

“Max,” he said, and my stomach clenched — Did I know him?

Considering the fact that the Erasers — who are at least partly human — were probably briefed about who they’re apprehending, this doesn’t make me wonder if he knows her. I understand that Max might not be thinking rationally at the moment, but, what with her infodumps about the School and all, you’d think she would know this.

“Good to see you again,” he went on conversationally. “You look like crap. You always acted so much better than everyone else, so this cheers me up.”

First. Patterson, it’s clear that the Eraser is being conversational. He’s making small talk when he could be kidnapping Max. Tell me something that I don’t know.

Second. Not that I haven’t already made that observation, but how did Max act so much better than everyone else in the School? I mean, she was stuffed into a dog cage for the majority of her life. Yeah, she’s got the whole snarky thing down — or Patterson thinks she does — but I can hardly imagine this Eraser being so butthurt about it. I mean, Max was in the cage. Max was the one who was locked up. And which one of them has his widdle feewings hurt by the terrible thing Max did?

New milestone: The first time I’ve defended Max against another character!

“Who are you?” I gasped, feeling cold at the center of my being.

At the center of her being. Wow. I’m impressed.

So the Eraser kicks Max in the head, apparently in slo-mo, as Max has time to see his foot moving and think (in complete sentences) where she recognizes this dude from before she passes out. It turns out that the Eraser is Ari, Jeb’s seven-year-old son.

Why was this not mentioned? No one said that Jeb had a son. I mean, they were all “Oh, Jeb died two years ago,” and nobody mentioned that he also had a seven-year-old kid?

And how does Max know him? She never mentioned Ari living with them, so, on another note, this means that Jeb probably just dumped his son to go live with the flock.

Nice going, Jeb.

Page count: 3

Average page count: 2.6

Next up: Good guys, punching trees, and we get to discuss Iggy’s blindness!

Comment [28]

Hurray! Chapter…What is this, three? Right? No? It’s six? Just kill me now.

Chapter Six

“Max?” The Gasman’s voice was very young and very scared.

He is young, Max. Also, I’m not sure how one would describe a “young” voice. Maybe high-pitched, but that kind of also goes with “scared”, so…

Well, it’s revealed to us that the flock is stuffed in the back of the helicopter on their way back to the —

What’s that? They’re not, you say? You mean that the Erasers just took Angel? And just left the rest of the flock just lying unconscious?

Yup, we have our plot hole, which I touched on in the last chapter. These scientists are smart enough to creat bird kids and Erasers, yet they’re too stupid to figure out that if you leave the rest of the flock just lying there, they’ll probably get pissed and start a rescue mission? I mean, the Erasers could’ve probably dragged the rest of them into the helicopter.

Max cries for a little while about why couldn’t it be me, at least I would’ve stood a chance, which is apparently standard-issue characterization when someone you love is captured.

Look! The “scientists” rubbed their brain cells together and created a thought! If you have to pick one person to kidnap, don’t take the strong one because they’ll fight back! What a concept!

So the flock’s a little beat-up, but otherwise okay. Even Nudge, who was swung into a tree. Guys, I can’t repeat this enough. They picked her up and swung her into a tree. That’s really gotta hurt.

Just then Iggy cocked his head slightly. It was a clue for me to start listening intently. Then I heard it too: A faint engine noise.

Reading ahead, it turns out that the Erasers are driving a Humvee. If Iggy can hear that, why couldn’t he hear the helicopter that the Erasers dropped out of?

“There!” Iggy said, pointing.

The blind guy is — Nevermind. I can’t wait for this chapter to be over.

(Actually, the blind guy runs through a forest without hitting a single tree. I’m not sure about his blindness, but I can assure you that hearing does not work that way. You can hear your friends running too, but only their general direction. I imagine that they’d be weaving and bobbing around trees and why am I even explaining this when it’s just so stupid?

So Max jumps off a drop-off right over the car. She’s going to get Angel back, oh my!

This chapter ends with the stupidest sentence I’ve ever read:

And I began to fly.

Which would’ve been excellent six chapters ago, when we first established that she had wings.

Chapter length: Three pages

Chapter Seven

You see, that nightmare I had is actually hard to tell apart from my real life.

I hadn’t noticed, Max. Tell us more, please.

We were bird kids, a flock of six. And the Erasers wanted to kill us. Now they had six-year-old Angel.

This…doesn’t make sense. It sounds like Patterson started to type something about there only being five of them left and forgot to finish the sentence.

Blah-de-blah-de-blah. Max tells us things that she established in the infodump prologue, and then we learn that Jeb worked at the School but kidnapped them away.

Right, so he left his job and son to go live with the bird kids. At least this explains how he got the money — I imagine that the “evil scientist” paycheck is significantly larger than the average Joe’s. But where he came up with the time to build the house, I have no idea.

I gave a strong push down and then up, feeling my shoulder muscles working to move my thirteen-foot wingspan.

And the award for best infodump interrupting a critical moment goes to…!

Really, I couldn’t think of a less awkward way to phrase this information.¹

And then the Erasers start shooting at them. Not once is any member of the flock shot. (At one point Fang’s arm starts to bleed, but I think that it’s because an Eraser swiped rather than shot at him.)

Guys, let’s LOGIC for a minute and figure this whole thing out.

So I don’t know if the Erasers have been trained to fire guns or not. I imagine that they have, assuming that they were given rifles and whatnot. If you want someone to do a job for you, better make sure that they do it well, huh?

So, anyways, the trees behind Max are being hit with bullets. Bullets are flying through the air. BULLETS EVERYWHERE.

And not a single one hits Max.

On a normal human, I’d mark this off as “plausible suspension of belief”, because maybe humans are kind of tiny and it’s a moving vehicle and all, but we need to think.

Had one of the Erasers focused on shooting Max’s wings, she would’ve been toast. That’s all it would’ve taken.

And Max has some pretty large wings, too. We just got a huge infodump on them.

But she doesn’t get hit. Because LOGIC.

So the Erasers start throwing grenades too and they still can’t hit anything because Max’s Protagonist Powers have formed a force field around the flock.

Ari throws Angel into the helicopter and…

He jumped in behind, an incredible athlete himself.

It’s a little-known fact that Max can also read minds.

In all seriousness, how would Max know this? I’m assuming that Max only knew Ari from the School. In a cage.

Right, Max grabs onto the chopper and Ari points a gun at her while still not shooting her.

“Let me tell you a secret, old pal, old chap,” Ari yelled at me. “You’ve got it all wrong. We’re the good guys.”

Where did this come from? At no point did Max say one word to Ari questioning his actions. Why does he need to tell Max this? What seven-year-old uses words like “old chap”? And why am I getting creepy “YA badboy” vibes off of this?²

The world will never know.

Chapter length: Three pages

Chapter Eight.

We all have great vision — raptor vision.

No. No you don’t, Max. Because guess who else you forgot?

It couldn’t be Iggy, could it?

So Max gets kind of overwhelmed and just leaves the flock sitting there to go punch a tree or something. She punches the tree, I mean. The rest of the flock just kind of sits there and waits because it’s not like they’re in danger or anything.

It was like I had lost my little sister.

And like I had lost my little girl.

So, if you read the monologue prologue, you’ll remember that Max talks about her family and how they’re like her siblings even though they’re not related or something like that.

So, um, [Losing my little sister] was like I had lost my little sister?

Nice try, Patterson.

Also, Max really needs to cut the snark. Sometimes, it’s just not appropriate.

So Max punches things for a while and then she cries. Maybe it would be a halfway-decent representation of grief.

But I don’t care. Really, I don’t. Or, more accurately, I can’t. Because I hardly knew Angel. She got maybe three or four lines at the most and I’m expected to get all sad when she is kidnapped?

Meh, this scene kind of reminds me of learning that a distant relative has died. You vaguely remember them from family reunions, but you were so little that you didn’t really know them. And you just kind of go “Oh,” because, sure, it’s sad, but you barely even knew the person.

That’s what this chapter is like.

Chapter length: Three pages

Chapter Nine

So they make it home, which is kind of stupid because the Erasers know where they live. But whatever.

Iggy hits a coffee mug and it almost hits Fang.

“Watch it, you idiot!” [Fang] yelled at Iggy furiously. Then he realized what he’d said, clenched his teeth, and rolled his eyes at me in frustration.

First, I can tell that Fang is furious. He’s yelling.

“You do not need to use adverbs to spell things out to us,” Azure sighed impatiently.

Second, that is the most idiotic action I’ve seen in a long time. I can’t even imagine this without snickering.

“You watch it!” Iggy shouted at Fang. “What happened? I mean, you guys can see, can’t you? Why couldn’t you get Angel?

This is from the guy who pointed out where the Erasers were going with Angel in the first place. He knows exactly what happened.

Pull up a chair. Get comfy. We need to talk.

Guys, I really don’t like the way Patterson treats Iggy. I feel like he’s only blind when it’s convenient for Patterson.

In twenty-seven pages, it’s been mentioned that Iggy’s blind exactly twice. In twenty-seven pages, Iggy has been affected by his blindness zero times. If anything, he’s an asset to the group.

I mean, Iggy’s one of the last to go down in a fight. He can run through the trees and dodge bullets, no prob. But the second Patterson needs character development, he reminds us that Iggy’s blind and then he’s allowed to feel sad and we’re supposed to feel sad with him.

Iggy’s blindness adds nothing to the plot except as a deus ex machina for situations that Patterson couldn’t back out of. If anything, he’s just a token character. Blindness is his defining characteristics for most of the book, only it never affects him.

That’s not how writing works, Patterson. If a character is disabled, it isn’t just at your convenience. Blindness is not equal to character development. No disability is.

/endrant

So then Nudge monologues about how the plot Erasers want them alive, which is something that we figured out three chapters ago.

And they’re going to go to the School to get Angel. Dramatic music plays and we fade out to a commercial.

Chapter Length: Three pages

Chapter Ten

So everyone gasps and is very surprised/scared of this information. You can just hear Patterson going “Dun dun DUNNNN…” as he types it.

When he’d been at the school, they’d tried to surgically enhance his night vision. Now he was blind forever. Oops.

What did I tell you, Max?! Cut. The. Snark. It just sounds so callous, especially if you’re talking about how someone lost his sight.

I just drove this spork through Max’s heart. Oops.

“They took Angel to the School?” the Gasman asked, confused.

Not very bright, are we?³

Obvious dialogue descriptions should be eliminated. I am aware that he is confused, Patterson.

God, there is just so much wrong here. This chapter is basically a huge infodump of things that the flock should’ve known. I just feel that it could’ve been so much smoother than it was.

On a side note, I kind of liked how Max talked about how they tried to forget their time at the school. Again, she injected too much snark into it, but it made sense, what with the trauma that they’d been through.

So they pull out a map from Jeb’s old stuff and the School’s in California. And the chapter’s over.

Chapter length: Three pages

Average chapter length: Three pages

So obviously Patterson’s settling into a sort of rhythm here with the chapter length. He could do with a lot better characterization. We’re ten chapters in, and I barely know anything about the characters.

He also needs to tone down Max’s snark a lot. There are some times when it’s obvious that he thinks he’s being so clever, but it’s really not funny, and, in some points, not even appropriate.

I’m also getting the feeling that these chapters were dashed off in about ten minutes. They read more like a first draft than a published book.

Next up: We fly around a bit, exit Part One, and realize that Patterson really has no idea what he’s writing.

Footnotes

¹ And it’s not like we already didn’t know this.

² Seriously, the kid is (technically) seven and I’m getting a creepy romantic vibe off of him? Enough YA novels for me.

³ Seriously, where did he think they were taking her?

Comment [19]

Sorry, guys. I should have told you that it was going to be a little while on my last spork. Internet problems, midterms, and a crazy schedule completly caught up with me.

But I ordered two new Patterson books! I already borrowed Nevermore, but I ordered a copy as well because the library just hates it when I throw their books at the walls. There’s also this new book about a girl who’s accused of murdering her parents, so we’ll see how that goes.

Also, I’m giving up on my page counter. It’s just depressing me.

Chapter Eleven

Let’s recap:

In Chapter Ten, we established that the Erasers were taking Angel to the school.  Everyone had their moment of stupidity in which they hadn’t realized that the Erasers would take Angel back to the School.  You know, the place where they have their lab and everything.  So Max has to explain to the flock – and, therefore, the audience — all about the School and how it wants them back.

Chapter Ten ends with Fang taking out a map.  Nudge asks what it’s for, and Max replies that it’s a map of the School.

Well, now that the flock’s all caught up on –

“Whaaat?” the Gasman squeaked.

I said before that he wasn’t too bright.  Now I can confirm that he’s an idiot.

So, um, again, we have to confirm that they took Angel to the School.  Why the flock is surprised by this, we’ll never know.

So Fang says that their house is at least six hundred miles from the School, and a seven-hour flight.  By my calculations, they’d be flying at around 85.7 mph.  I…don’t know what to think about this, since it’s been noted that ducks can fly upward of sixty miles per hour in a chase.  Since the flock is (mostly) human and duck DNA wasn’t cool enough for this book, I’d like to wonder how it’s possible for them to fly this fast, as their bodies certainly aren’t streamlined for flight.  Not to mention that I’d probably be carrying some supplies and weapons with me, maybe in a backpack.

Also, most cars (in America) don’t hit ninety, even on a highway. Next time you get on the interstate, though, stick your head out of the window, keep it there for two hours and imagine having a conversation while doing this, because we’re doing that in the next chapter.

So Max doesn’t want Iggy and Gazzy to go with them.  Kind of understandable, but I’d like to look at her argument for a while.

“Okay,” I said, trying for a placating tone.  “It’s true.  I don’t want you to come.  The fact is, you’re blind, and while you’re a great flyer around here where you know everything, I can’t be worrying about you in the middle of a firefight with the Erasers.”

Patterson, I said it once, and I’ll say it again: We need to talk. Seriously. You. Me. Coffee. Copies of your books and red pens. And maybe a lecture or two on how consistency works.

Oh, and Gazzy has to stay behind too. ‘Cause those Erasers might want him just as badly as Angel, which is why they left him lying unconscious on the ground.

So Max hides Iggy and Gazzy in a cave somewhere — Sorry, wrong book. Max leaves Iggy and Gazzy in the house. The house that the Erasers know they live in, but haven’t searched yet because nobody is that stupid, right guys?

Chapter Twelve

This is the start of Part Two, called Hotel California, sort of.  I’m not even going to comment on this.  Wait, I will comment to add that most of the intended age group will have no idea what the heck the symbolism here is.)

Right, so the chapter starts off with Max asking if everyone is clear on Plan B.  They’re flying away from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, which is actually a nice way to mention where (I assume) they live without an infodump.

Fang nodded.  God, is he ever the strong and silent type.

Where did that come from?  It sounds like Max has a bit of a crush of Fang, but her thoughts toward him so far have been fairly indifferent. I guess it’s so that the twoo wuv later on won’t seem quite so subtle.

Plan B is apparently to meet up at the northernmost point of Lake Mead if they get separated.

My first thought upon reading this is that this lake is probably fairly large, so “northernmost point” would probably be more of a general area than a specific place.  Kind of hard to find someone when you only know the general direction of where they are.

But my curiosity got the better of me.  What if Patterson had done his research and Lake Mead ended at one, very specific point?

Nope.  Apparently, Overton Arm is the northernmost sector of Lake Mead.  If Google Maps is to be believed, it turns into a river and slowly trails off.

There is no northernmost point of Lake Mead.

To add to this, the most direct route I could find from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to Lake Mead was some 600-odd miles. At a (doubtful) 90mph speed, are you trying to tell me that they’re flying six to seven hours without stopping? What if they get attacked and seperated an hour into their flight and everyone is too injured to fly? What then?

Research: It’s not hard.

Max is quizzing Nudge on where the school is, but it seems more like Patterson is trying to tell the readers where everything is again.

Did you hear that address?  Could the school be located in a more perfect place?  Death Valley.  Above the Badwater Basin.

Patterson just thinks he’s so cool.  Could he have thought of a more perfect place?

Well, actually, yes.

Um, Death Valley is a national park and the Badwater Basin is a popular tourist destination. Yet nobody notices the evil scientists and their parade of genetic freaks?

Also, remember waaay back twelve chapters ago when Max was escaping from the School and she was running through a forest?

Yeah.

A little research and a lot less finding cool names.  It’s all I ask.

The wind was whistling in my ears; we could see everything for miles. It was like being God. I imagine.

Now that is one of the most awkward sentences I’ve ever read. If you’re going to have that last sentence there, I’d have seperated it by a paragraph break. Otherwise, it looks like you forgot a comma. I imagine.

Like all of us, she [Nudge] was tall for her age, and skinny, probably weighing no more than sixty pounds thanks to her light, strong bird bones.

HOW DO GRAMMAR?

We later learn that Max’s bones are hollow so that she can fly, so how can they be strong?

So Max confirms that yes, they are flying at 90mph, and that they burn energy like crazy while doing so.

And Nudge saw some of Jeb’s files! And they had her real name and parents on them! And this totally isn’t going to become a plot point later on!

Chapter Twelve

Aaand…We’re with Angel!

Huh. Looking at the forward and the way Max’s narrative breaks the fourth wall to address the reader every so often, I was getting the impression that this was a sort of journal written by Max after everything was over. Even Max’s “warning” in the front was written in a font that made it look like it had been handwritten.

So. Why. Is. Angel. Here.

In the third person, no less. Patterson, just…go away now, okay? Please?

Angel’s at the school, and Patterson wasted a third of a page getting this information to us. But…whatever.

So there’s these…humanoid creatures in the cage by Angel. I guess that the School created them?

I guess that these kids are supposed to be kind of…stunted, or something, ‘cause they talk like this:

Mouth noise girl wings new new

There’s no punctuation and they just talk…like that. It’s also written in some weird font, which is just…weird.

Actually, everything in this book is weird.

Look, if these kids are so stunted, why do they think in words? I’d have had them think in concepts or emotions. But it’s Patterson’s book, so he can do whatever he wants. I guess.

Apparently Angel can feel emotions too. I don’t understand why Patterson didn’t just do that — have her sense the boys’ frightened, confused emotions. It would’ve been so much easier on the rest of us.

These “scientists” come out and discuss Angel by calling her an “it”, suggesting that they’re extremely emotionally removed from the situation. Now, by no means am I condoing whatever horrible deeds they’ve done, but to suggest that they don’t actually view Angel as human is to suggest that these people are not actually aware of what they’re doing.

And I don’t care how many times Max (and our third person narrator, curiously) call them “whitecoats”. They will always be “scientists” to me.

Chapter Fourteen

We’re back with Max. And she’s whining.

Dear God. Just kill me now.

Poor, poor Max. She’s hungry but doesn’t want to give Fang the satisfaction of caving first, despite the fact that there’s never been any rivalry between the two of them before. But Nudge is hungry, so Max has to make decisions! It’s so hard being in charge!

…And suddenly the implications of calling Fang Max’s brother have caught up to me.

So Max declares that yes, they do indeed need food, and then immediately asks Fang what to do. I thought that Max was supposed to be the leader? I guess she figured out that if they rubbed their brain cells together, a thought could be formed

Fang pondered. It always amazes me how he’s able to seem so calm at the absolute worst of times.

…This, kids, is why you should always read over your previous books before deciding how to hype up your next novel. I think that the change in tense was intentional; Max reflecting on the fact years later. Slip-ups like this are why I never fear for Max’s safety: I can assume that Max has already lived through the adventures that she’s writing about.

I’m only halfway through Nevermore, but that “RIP MAXIMUM RIDE” sticker on the front ain’t got nuthin’ on me, Patterson.

Oh, but this paragraph only gets better:

Sometimes he seems like a droid — or a drone. Fang of Nine. Fang2 D2.

Did I ever tell you how much Max whines about the part of her life that she spent in a cage? Given, I guess she has something to whine about. I mean, the “scientists” keep kids in dog crates, kill chimpanzees, and, um, not much else at this point. But, yeah. She reminds us that she spent a good chunk of her life in a cage, while forgetting to mention the part of her life that she spent watching Star Wars and Star Trek.

Right, so our totally innocent and likeable protagonist sees an abandoned cabin near some ski slopes. It’s summer and Max assumes that the place will be abandoned, so she slits the screens with a pocket knife. (But we’re supposed to think she’s “thoughtful” because she carefully sets them on the side of the house. Sorry, Max. The exit to “thoughtful” was thirty pages ago.)

Right, so the abadoned cabin — it’s summer, so the thing’s probably been empty for three or four months — still has food. What kind of idiot leaves food in their cabin when they leave for the summer? They’d get ants. Not to mention, Max finds ravoli inside the cabins, and it’s not spoiled.

How… convenient.

I don’t like convenience at all. Have to escape from the School? Don’t worry, a conveniently sympathetic “scientist” will take pity on you. Got beat up by the guys who want you dead? Budget cuts at the School prevented the “scientists” from buying more than one burlap sack at a time. Hungry? Find a conveniently empty house to break into!

If I was the author, they’d be picking food out of dumpsters, and if Max so much as whined about it, she would be going hungry for the rest of the book.

Right, so the rest of this chapter is everyone being so tired that they have to stop and rest, and then Max tells Angel that they’re coming soon, which is like me saying that I’m getting up in five more minutes.

Chapter Fifteen

So, after a three-page chapter, guess whose POV we get?

If you said Max, you’re wrong — Thank God. If you said Angel, you’re also wrong. We’re with Gazzy and Iggy!

…Yay.

So the chapter starts off with Gazzy and Iggy being quite pissed off. Iggy suggests throwing “their” (Nudge and Max and Fang?) stuff out of the window, and there’s a rather funny bit where he contemplates whether or not Max’s bed would fit through the window. Really, he could have been the best character here.

Also? The blind guy and the seven-year-old are smarter than Max, Fang, and Nudge combined. Why?

For them, it’s not “if” the Erasers return. It’s when.

Thank God, someone in this story has finally shown a shred of sanity.

“Max might not have thought about keeping the camp safe, but we did, and we can do it.”

Gazzy, c’mere. I’mma hug you. I’ll even forget about how you don’t even sound like a seven-year-old. Right now, you’re awesome.

…So Gazzy and Iggy like to make bombs. How does Iggy make bombs? Just askin’.

But, yeah. Last fall, Max apparently had approved the use of bombs to make a trail through the woods. Honestly, it’s a wonder no one’s found them until now.

And now they’re gonna make some more bombs! Yay, I think. Seven-year-olds blowing themselves up are always fun to read about.

…And on that happy note, I must leave you.

Next up: Max oversleeps. Gazzy and Iggy start to make a bomb. Angel is experimented on.

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…I’m still alive! I’ve got a couple of other projects going on at the moment, so sporkings will probably be farther apart, if you hadn’t already guessed. It’s my goal to get at least one up a month, but we’ll see how it goes.

Chapter Sixteen

Otherwise known as “Nothing happening over here; move along now”.

We’re with Angel again. I hate Angel. Patterson has no idea how to write a six-year-old girl, so her narrative is very clinical and detached, with occasional “cute” things that he thinks a little kid would say.

The entirety of this two-page chapter can be summed up in a single paragraph:

Angel is running on a treadmill because the “scientists” want to…find out how long she can run without stopping, I guess. If she stops, she gets electrocuted. She passes out and dreams that Max is comforting her. When she wakes, up, the scientists are discussing how incredible she is and how they want to dissect her brain. Once more, we are told — in Angel’s own words — that the scientists don’t view her as human. Then she is taken back to her cage, where she notices that one of the two creatures from earlier is missing, presumably dead.

That is a waste of two pages. Max spends a good part of her chapters — I usually skim over them — wondering what kind of horrors Angel is being subjected to. So why not just leave it at that? All the suspense is being drained out of it if we already know that Angel is alive and (relatively) unharmed.

Chapter Seventeen

This bed was horrible! What was wrong with my bed?

In case you can’t tell by the whining, we’re back with Max.

I’m still not entirely sure of what Patterson’s going for here. If he’s trying to make us see how being an annoying whiny brat is one of Max’s flaws, then good for him! If not, then I would just like to remind y’all that not one chapter ago, Angel, who’s been sleeping in a dog cage, passed out from exhaustion.

And Max is whining about her bed.

Also, there’s a fair bit of repetition in the above quote. I would have replaced the second sentence with “What was wring with it?” or, better yet, just drop the sentences altogether.

And the rest of the quotes here speak for themselves.

I was in a…cabin. A cabin! Ohhh. A cabin. Right, right.

Would now be a good time to tell you that this book has four out of five stars on both Goodreads and Amazon?

Derp aside, I think that this might be slightly relevant later.

It was oh-dark-thirty […]

Yeah, I have no clue either.

[..] Obviously Fang, Nudge, and I had wasted precious hours sleeping!

Is anyone else getting the impression that Patterson is an eleven-year-old girl?

[In response to Fang asking what time it is] “Almost morning!” I said, terribly upset.

“I’m trying not to rip up this book!” I said, terribly enraged.

So Fang steals grabs (It’s fine when you don’t know the victims in question) a few cans of food, despite Max telling him not to. They all head out.

Chapter Eighteen

Pointless chapter break. It’s like a pointless scene break, but worse.

But still! How stupid was that? What kind of a loser was I, to let us fall asleep in the middle of a freaking rescue?

Maybe the kind who doesn’t want to get killed? I mean, they’d gotten beaten up pretty bad the previous day — Max had been kicked in the head so hard that she’d been unconscious for over a minute. That’s…pretty bad.

(We are so not talking about Nudge, okay?)

So, yes, I expect them to rest. Even if they did manage to drag themselves to the school, the best they’d have been able to do is stumble through the doors.

And Fang says almost the exact same thing, only in much fewer words. You know, strong and silent an’ all.

Or a Neanderthal.

“Me Fang. Me not like big words. Me need rest.”

Fang was right, of course — sigh — …

How dare he disagree with Max! I’m starting to sense a rivalry here. I mean, he never listens to her. They’re so dysfunctional that they can’t even work together in a crisis.

So, um, there’s some pointless blabbing while the audience wonders how it’s possible to talk in midair going ninety miles per hour. And then…

But if worst came to worst, I had a secret Plan C. If it worked, everyone would escape and get free. Except me. But that was okay.

I… I can’t even start with this. I mean, I know that we like our suicidal heroes and all, but this is a bit late to get the audience’s sympathies and all.

Fifty bucks says that she never even has to use Plan C.

Chapter Nineteen

Gah, more Max.

Blah blah blah, they’re flying and it’s so amazing, Angel is being tortured, there are lots of birds, for all Max knows her sister is dead by now, and all the cars look like ants, which makes me think that they’re really not flying so high that people can’t see them. I mean, if they can make out cars, then the people can probably look up and see vaguely humanoid shapes in the sky.

It was cool how some tiny thing, like a swimming pool, a tractor, whatever, would ratchet into focus.

I see! So eyes work like binoculars! That’s really cool; I’ll have to try doing it sometime.

At least those mainiacs at the school hadn’t had time to “improve” my vision like they improved Iggy’s.

Hands down, Max beats me in the “insensitive jerk” category. This is directly after that last qutoe, if you’d like the context.

So Max focuses on more random blobs and, suprise! It’s a group of kids! She immediately starts monologuing about how much better she is than the puny humans.

Those poor saps. While we were free, free, free. Soaring through the air like rockets. Being cradeled by breezes. Doing whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted.

Pretty good, huh? I almost convinced myself.

…Oh, right! Forgot about Angel again. Sorry!

And Max looks again and the group of kids is a group of boys with a girl in the middle! This is automatically threatening, because Patterson’s only allowed one strong female character. The rest are just damsels in distress.

God, I hate to think what would happen if it was just a group of friends that happened to include a female. The universe would probably explode.

I made one of my famous snap decisions, the kind that everyone remembers later for being either that stupidest dumb-butt thing they ever saw or else the miraculous saving of the day. I seemed to hear more about the first kind. That’s graditude for you.

You mean that time Max strapped a bomb to herself to save a puppy from being killed wasn’t heroic? Ungrateful brats.

So, despite their protests, Max ditches Fang and Nudge (who’s been talking nonstop for three chapters) and goes to save this girl who she doesn’t even know. She’ll meet them at Lake Mead.

Probably.

Chapter Twenty

And back with Gazzy and Iggy! They’re making a bomb — ‘scuse me, Iggy is making a bomb. Now, there are blind people out there who can do some pretty amazing stuff, but there’s a reason why we only let trained professionals blow up things.

Iggy asks Gazzy what color a certain wire is. I don’t think that he’s even sure that any of the wires have colors, let alone different ones, but I guess that he knows, since he’s the one making explosives.

Gazzy replies that it’s yellow, and Iggy tells him that he must not confuse the yellow wire with the red one.

I get it now! They’re building one of those alarm clocks with dynamite taped to the side. In case the Erasers had their brains removed, it also has the word BOMB written on it.

And, just like I called it…

“Go get me Max’s alarm clock. The Mickey Mouse one.”

…Where did she get one of those?

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