No one has set foot on Earth in centuries -
until now.
Ever since a devastating nuclear war,
humanity has lived on spaceships far above Earth's radioactive surface. Now,
one hundred juvenile delinquents - considered expendable by society - are being
sent on a dangerous mission: to re-colonize the planet. It could be their
second chance at life...or it could be a suicide mission.
CLARKE was arrested for treason, though
she's haunted by the memory of what she really did. WELLS, the chancellor's
son, came to Earth for the girl he loves - but will she ever forgive him
Reckless BELLAMY fought his way onto the transport pod to protect his sister,
the other half of the only siblings in the universe. And GLASS managed to
escape back onto the ship, only to find that life there is just as dangerous as
she feared it would be on Earth.
Confronted with a savage land and haunted
by secrets from their pasts, the hundred must fight to survive. They were never
meant to be heroes, but they may be mankind's last hope.
[Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com / Goodreads]
The
100 on the CW is one of my
favourite television series on air right now, coming off the back of a rocky
start to essentially become the nextBattlestar Galactica. And
because it’s a teen dystopia/post-apocalyptic show then naturally it comes
adapted from a book, so when I noticed that the Kindle edition was on
Amazon.co.uk, I snapped it up and thought I’d check it out, and quickly breezed
through it over the course of a couple of days, because it moves through at a
pretty quick pace. But aside from having an interesting concept, the book
didn’t really work out especially well for me, for reasons that I’ll get to
later. First though, let’s look at what’s going on.
Clarke is the main protagonist and a teenager who has never
set foot on Earth. She was arrested for treason on board spaceships far above a
planet that has been left abandoned after Nuclear Warfare. Now, she is part of
The 100, a group of criminal teenagers who are being sent down to Earth for
various charges that range from murder to having a sibling. Their mission is to
determine whether the planet is survivable or not. Meanwhile, back on the ship,
the book follows the adventures of the new protagonist, a friend of Clarke’s,
Glass, who escaped the boarding party when Bellamy, a reckless teenager, fought
his way onto the ship to protect his sister. Also joining Bellamy is the
Chancellor’s son, Wells, who came down to protect Clarke even though she hates
him for his betrayal.
The concept is intriguing and the show has given us the
potential that the book has to offer. There are also noticeably a few changes
in the show, with characters being added that didn’t feature in the series, and
there are also characters that didn’t feature in the books that are on the
show. Glass is a character that didn’t make it over to the series, along with a
secondary character named Thalia, but also, the people who didn’t make the
transition were Finn, whose role of love interest for Clarke seems to have been
replaced by Bellamy, Jasper, Monty, Kane, Raven, Clarke’s mother, Abby, and the
entirety of the population that exists on Earth, namely the Grounders. I don’t
know whether they show up in later books but so far they’re absent here and as
a result once the main characters get to the ground, there’s little conflict,
with issues of survival pushed to the side in favour of romance, which is where
the problems begin. The show recognised what its problems were and dealt with
them, improving characters like Bellamy and Octavia who weren’t the best at the
start of the show. Hell, pretty much everyone is vastly different from what
they were at the beginning, but in the book? Not so much. The characters are
more focused on romance and the love triangle between Bellamy, Clarke and Wells
is the main focus of the book. It doesn’t work and there are parts where Wells
feels creepily obsessive. Clarke herself isn’t as a well-rounded character as
she is in the show, and as a result, the book falls short of the brilliant
adaption.
The plot is basically non-existent, with the romance being
the main focus, and survival problems that were so prevalent in the show,
barely feature here. We aren’t given much reason to care about these characters
and were I not familiar with the show they would be quickly forgettable instead
of some of the most well-defined personalities on science fiction television.
(Okay, maybe not Finn, but everyone else works). Maybe I’m not the target
audience for this book? I don’t know. If you’re a fan of Clarke and Bellamy and
love the romance part of the show then read this, or if you’re curious to learn
where the show started from, but other than that, check out the series first.
It’s excellent, addictive and incredibly entertaining. This book isn’t.
VERDICT: 4/10
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