A Million Suns

I’m so disgusted by this book right now that I can’t think, see, or hear straight. I also have this massive headache caused by my stubbornness in finish reading something I was hating so freaking much, but alas, I did it.

In a nutshell, the reason why I hated this book while having enjoyed the first one a lot can be explained by this quote:

Haven’t you figured out that half my problems are because of you? If I didn’t have to watch out for the freak, maybe I could get something done! ~Elder to Amy

Wasn’t that just lovely?

The best part comes afterwards when Amy pretty much stays mad for like 2 minutes, dismisses the subject entirely, and actually starts falling in love with Elder. Excuse me while I barf. Beth Revis, are you a dude show more in disguise? Because I cannot believe a woman would handle the situation like this. I mean, AMY JUST FORGETS/IGNORES THE FACT THAT ELDER CALLED HER A FREAK THAT'S IN HIS WAY.

ARE.
YOU.
F******.
KIDDING.
ME.

I'm sorry but this^ is not okay. The stress he was under isn't an excuse, his sixteen years aren't an excuse---nothing is an excuse for his words and behavior, and I am APPALLED, HORRIFIED, SICKENED by Amy's lack of response. Girls not standing up for themselves after being insulted is not okay. Girls falling for the guys who did it is even worse.

After that I just stopped caring about the characters. My hatred for Elder kept growing with each new chapter, and Amy, well, if she doesn’t respect herself, how can I respect her?

The rest of the story didn't help my case, it was painful to watch it unfold actually, I mean, all those nonsensical plotlines... like, why did Orion left those puzzles for Amy? Why couldn't he just TELL her what was going on? Why would Doc go to all that trouble JUST TO DEFREEZE THE GUY? Couldn't he just have clicked the defreeze button WHENEVER? Good God. >__>

So, yeah, this is it for me and this series. My only regret is that I didn’t write the Across the Universe review before I started reading the second book, because when I eventually do write it, my opinion will be completely tainted by all this newfound hatred I have for the characters. show less

The First Cause of Discord is Difference.

The Second Cause of Discord is Lack of a Strong Leader.

The Last Cause of Discord is Individual Thought.

A Million Suns still splits its perspective from Elder and Amy. But now, Godspeed is a change ship. The population is no longer phydus addicted and free will is running rampant. Resentment, bitterness, fear are running deep and one of Elder's childhood friends is stirring the pot, causing the sparks of a mutiny and revolution.

Phydus made people pliable. It made them want to do work because the former Eldest ordered it so. Now with that pesky free will in the way, people aren't doing their work. Elder is being questioned for his leadership. It doesn't help that he still wants to be called Elder show more and not Eldest and that he keeps the wires from the now-defunct phydus machine in his pocket.

Amy is still dealing with being the freak on the ship. She still wants to unfreeze her parents. She still doesn't know if she wants to love Elder. Does she really love him or does she love him because he's her only viable option? Amy thinks it's maybe the former, I disagree.

Throughout the potential revolution, Amy is thrust into a mystery regarding Orion (the First Elder and the true Eldest) who has left her clues regarding the biggest secret of them all. A secret worth killing for:

Godspeed had been in orbit of Centauri-Earth the whole time!

Beth Revis pulled a pseudo-Planet of the Apes!

To add insult to injury, someone is killing off various members of the population with amped up phydus patches, with the message: Follow The Leader.

I liked A Million Suns better than Across the Universe even though I believe the "love story" between Amy and Elder kills it. Amy is very selfish and immature. I still can't believe she's 17! Elder showed some growth. At least, he didn't want to punch people all day long. He actually did punch someone! Then got his butt kicked. The story, itself, is the most interesting part.

The whole Causes of Discord have a very Hitler/Eugenics feel to it. The Phydus-addicted population? What happens when Free Will is introduced? On Godspeed, the entire network broke down. Are human beings better left to their own devices? Or do they need to be controlled on some level?

Finding Centuari-Earth could be any migration to America for the "American Dream." Do you leave the place you always loved for the Great Unknown? Would it work out? Would you be better for it?

What is the definition of "Freedom" or "Home?" show less

MY THOUGHTS

ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT



*** probable spoilers - don't read the last two paragraphs if you haven't read the first book***

Never in a million years would I ever think a book about a spaceship, revolution and love would keep me up at night still thinking about a story that probably shouldn't work. I mean a sixteen year old girl is is frozen for 300 hundred years on a spaceship with her parents to go to a new planet and is brought back to life because some kid thinks she has pretty hair and is lonely? Elder, the guy who wakes her up early , is the soon to be leader of the spaceship, but this romance really shouldn't work out and it pretty much doesn't because the girl, Amy, thinks for herself. I think I read this in about 6 hours show more while staying up too late because I just couldn't put it down. There are some serious page turning moments that come one after another.

I read a LOT of science fiction as a teen but NEVER anything like this, probably because back in the early 70's no one thought girls should be reading science fiction. There were similar plot lines about space travel, utopian societies but they mostly had adult males as the main characters. so what a treat this story is for me in that I get to read a young adult novel about all of my favorite things with some romance thrown in! You are drawn so quickly into this new world, it really should exist and that is the best part of how wonderfully Revis writes.



This follow up to Across the Universe picks right up where it ends with Amy and Elder alternating chapters and viewpoints about the spaceship Godspeed and how each generation has been told that they are 50 years away from landing on the new planet that will be their home. After living in this closed environment, the inhabitants have been drugged to keep them obedient and complacent in order to avoid a revolution that occurred on the ship ages ago called the Plague. History of the ship has been rewritten into one that follows a party line to keep the peace on board. Orion, himself a proposed leader and now the Recorder (librarian) knows the truth about the ship but is frozen himself. when the revolution on the ship begins once the people stop receiving the drugs.

The story is almost like a puzzle, with Amy finding clues left by Orion where she uses her intelligence and wit to find answers while Elder tries to lead the people to the truth. The truth is pretty shocking once Amy finds the details and puts everything together. I thought the relationship between Elder and Amy would just naturally blossom into a romance but there are lots of twists and turns that may surprise you along the way. The secondary characters like Orion, Doc, Victria and Bartie each add something to the plot which add a bit of sinister malevolence. Now, I can't wait until the next one! show less

Rather like Leviathan, I read these two books, back to back and thus I'm going to talk about them all in one (which means you get one of your reviews from this coming weekend early).


I'm still not quite over wrinkling my nose at a number of situations set up in this book, BUT I have to give the woman some grand credit. Every single novel in this trilogy will be an entirely different living/political system with completely different pitfals and triumphs. And it's so rare to see that handled anywhere, that I'm very much hanging on to see where this story goes.





(Even if I'm really not over how Amy's characterization seemed to go Frankenstein in the last third of this one. I will cross my fingers for book three, and if not, I read fast show more enough, i will go through it like cotton candy either way.) show less

Note: There are necessarily spoilers for book one of this series, but not for book two.

A Million Suns continues the story started in book one of this trilogy, Across the Universe. Godspeed, a spaceship on its way to colonize a new planet, carries a mix of inhabitants some of whom were cryogenically frozen for their anticipated expertise when the new planet is reached. Amy is one of the frozen who was accidentally defrosted during the journey, and now struggles along with fellow teen and leader of the ship Elder to keep the population in line and reach the planet before the ship deteriorates. Previously, the inhabitants were docile and productive, thanks to a drug, Phydus, that was added to the water supply. Elder, egged on by Amy, took show more everyone off the drug, but now anarchy and mutiny threaten.

Meanwhile, Orion, Elder’s predecessor who was frozen by Elder at the end of book one, left a series of coded messages hidden throughout the ship for Amy. The messages reveal some big secrets about the ship and the mission that could mean the life or death of everyone on board. With Elder’s help, Amy tries to figure out what the messages really mean before either the inhabitants of the ship kill them, or the catastrophe hinted at by Orion takes place.

Discussion: Amy continues to debate whether she actually “loves” Elder since they are the only two teens on the ship:

"Just that if I was back on Earth instead of on this damn ship, if I had met Elder at school or at a club or on a blind date, if I had my choice between Elder and every other boy in the world . . . Would I love him then? Would he love me? Love without choice isn’t love at all.”

Or is it? She can’t decide, but instead, vacillates back and forth repeatedly, needing to intellectualize her feelings. But none of the “intellectualizing” [sic] takes into account the fact that there is no reason whatsoever for her to be attracted to Elder besides his body, which apparently is one of his positive traits. Elder isn’t very bright or mature, although he has been getting a bit better as a leader, but not much. He’s impulsive, impractical, unfocused and easily frazzled. On the other hand, he’s only sixteen, and never had a real apprenticeship for running the ship. The author is good at letting him grow very incrementally, as might be the case in real life. But why should Amy be in love with him? The only other possibility besides his looks is the fact that his face was the first she saw when she got unfrozen. Like a baby duck, maybe she “imprinted” on him….

Another problem for me: The person who turns out to be “the bad guy” in this book was obvious to me way back in book one. I don’t mind – the question of who was sabotaging things wasn’t as important as why, which was much better concealed by the author. But the biggest mystery to me is why the saboteur feels the need to explain everything to Amy. In fact, in keeping with the character of this person, it is extremely unbelievable that Amy wouldn’t have just been killed. Undoubtedly the dilemma the author faces is first, that Amy is one of the main characters (who therefore can’t be killed off), and second, there is no omniscient voice; we only have Amy and Elder alternating as narrators. Therefore the bad person has to explain everything to one of them or we won’t know about it. But Elder would be a much more obvious choice than Amy.

A third quibble: Elder calls Amy a name that should have been unforgivable, and that was, moreover, totally out of character for a guy who is smitten with someone. Amy is mad for about five minutes, then immediately goes running for him, AND says Elder is her “safe place.” Pretty low standards there, Amy!

Finally: Obviously these kids need help. Why the heck don’t they just defrost some of the frozen experts?

Evaluation: In spite of my not being thrilled by either book one or book two, I still am curious enough about what happens to continue on with book three when it appears. (Let me reiterate, also, that most other reviews of these two books are uniformly positive.) show less

Summary: Now that Eldest is dead, and the sixteen-year-old Elder has assumed the responsibility for everyone aboard the ship Godspeed, things are going to change. No more drugs keeping the ship's population mindless and easy to control, no more restricted information, and no more lies. But even though Elder's been training for leadership his entire life, he finds out that a ship full of people who can think for themselves are not always easy to lead... and a growing fraction of them are starting to foment rebellion. Meanwhile, Amy - who has only slowly started to adjust to life aboard Godspeed after being wakened from cryosleep - starts uncovering clues: clues that only she can decode, clues left for her by someone she's not sure she show more can trust, clues that will reveal the mysteries surrounding Godspeed... and clues that will eventually force Amy to determine the fate of the entire ship.

Review: Holy cow, Beth Revis can pace a book like nobody's business. "Compulsively readable" doesn't even cover the half of it; this book was about as unputdownable as if it had been covered in superglue. Like Across the Universe, short chapters that alternate between Amy's and Elder's points of view kept things moving, and the action is practically non-stop. Even though I figured out a lot of the mysteries (who was leaving the clues, who was behind the sabotage, what's going on with the ship, etc.) long before the characters did, I could not. Stop. Reading. It's not the kind of fast reading that comes with action/thriller novels, either - there's plenty of action, for sure, but there's also a fair bit of reflection, and murky moral waters, etc., yet somehow they don't slow the pace of the book down at all.

So, yeah, I enjoyed the heck out of this book, even though thinking about it critically, it's certainly got its flaws. As I mentioned, Revis is not particularly subtle when it comes to dropping hints in the book, and there are a few plot holes or inconsistencies or things that weren't explained very well. The world inside the Godspeed is cool, and well-built, but while I like Elder and Amy just fine, I don't love them they way I do protagonists in some other novels. But in the final analysis, none of that mattered at all; I was too busy devouring this book (and dying for the next one to come out) to mind. Whatever Revis's secret formula for readability is, it's pretty darn potent. 4 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: A Million Suns does not spent much time recapping the events of Across the Universe, so they really need to be read in order. But they're both hugely enjoyable, especially if fast-paced, dystopian-esque YA sci-fi is your thing. show less

So Close, Yet So Far Away -4.5 stars...

A Million Suns is the follow up to Revis' first book, Across the Universe. Godspeed has a new leader, Elder. With the help of clues left behind by Orion, Amy and Elder are working to unravel all the secrets and lies the previous leader, Eldest, has tried hiding for so long. The ship is in chaos though because the residents have lived so long being mind-controlled that, that's all they really know. A lot of the residents want to keep the old ways and live on the ship forever, others however, including Amy, who has seen what real stars, grass and the sun is like and knows that there's more to life outside the walls of Godspeed, want off the ship. Someone else though, has different plans and is show more working against Elder and Amy, using any means necessary, to try and stop them from reaching Centauri-Earth. 
 
I really liked the way this story was laid out like a scavenger hunt, with Amy and Elder having to solve one clue to the next to learn the big secrets behind Godspeed. It was like one big adventure and a lot of fun trying to solve the puzzles. I actually enjoyed this book more then the first because it just wasn't as frexing weird. Their word not mine. : )   show less