The 5th Wave

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Introduction

Richard Yancey, a native of Florida, graduated from Chicago’s Roosevelt University with a B.A. in English. He worked for the Internal Revenue Service for twelve years before becoming a full-time author in 2004. Yancey’s experience with the IRS is documented in his memoir, Confessions of a Tax Collector: One Man’s Tour of Duty Inside the IRS (2004). In addition to his memoir, Yancey is the author of thirteen books, including the highly acclaimed Alfred Kropp series for young adults. The first in the series, The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp, was a Carnegie medal finalist for 2005 and was named Publisher Weekly’s Best Book of the Year. In 2010, Yancey was awarded the Michael L. Printz Honor for The Monstrumologist.

The 5th Wave, published in May of 2013, is the first book in Yancey’s latest trilogy. The novel takes place in a world very much like the present day, with one important exception: alien visitors have come to Earth, and they are not friendly. In the 1st Wave of their invasion, they knock out the power grid. In the 2nd Wave, they decimate the Earth’s coastal populations with tsunamis. The 3rd Wave brings a viral plague that leaves only 3% of Earth’s population alive. Cassie Sullivan, a clever, brave, and sarcastic sixteen-year-old girl, must negotiate her way through an apocalyptic landscape in order to rescue her five-year-old brother Sammy from a military compound that is, in fact, an alien training ground for a children’s army—which is to be the instrument of the aliens’ final, 5th Wave of destruction.

The 5th Wave is a science fiction adventure story as much as it is a coming-of-age tale for the modern day. As Cassie and the novel’s other young characters confront the dystopian hell-scape that the world has become, they also discover the incredible courage, humanity, and capacity for love that still exists within them. The 5th Wave is soon to be a feature film for GK Films and Sony Pictures.  

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