Quarantine

Roswell (Simon Spotlight Entertainment) #4

by Laura J. Burns

No One Is Safe.
There's a new corporation in town -- Meta-chem -- and Liz is psyched to land a scholarship program working in the lab. But when the giant pharmaceutical company creates a disease that accidentally infects the town, Liz is among the first to fall ill -- and, despite his powers, Max is unable to heal her.

There's also a new girl in town, Sadie, who's come to Roswell searching for her half sister, who she believes is Maria. Maria doesn't know how to feel: what if she and Sadie do share a father? Maria hasn't seen him since she was seven years old, and she's not sure she wants to see him now. but when news of the quarantine breaks, Maria has no choice but to keep Sadie with her in town, all while trying to find out who is sick and whether anyone can be saved in time....

Genres: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Supernatural, Media Tie In, Aliens

176 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2003

About the author

Laura J. Burns has written more than thirty books for kids and teens, touching on topics from imaginary lake monsters to out-of-control Hollywood starlets. (Those two things have more in common than you'd think.)

With Melinda Metz, she has also written for the TV shows ROSWELL, 1-800-MISSING, and THE DEAD ZONE. Their next book is THE LOST MAP OF CHAOS, coming in 2018!

Laura lives in New York with her husband, her kids, and her exceptionally silly dogs.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the seventh tie-in novel in the series based on the characters and situations from the original Roswell television show. It's among the shortest but has a lot of interesting storylines that bring in some events from earlier episodes and foreshadow some other things from the final season. Liz has landed an internship at Meta-chem, a giant pharmaceutical company that's new to the town, and soon thereafter a disease escapes from the laboratory and begins to infect the town. (Yep, pandemics used to be among the stuff that they just put in science fiction books for kids.) In the meantime, Maria has some family questions, and we see Michael being nicely supportive, and we get a good luck at the nature of the friendship of Liz and Kyle. Max mostly sits around and feels sorry for himself, which is what at least one of the main characters always does in each adventure. All in all, it's a fast and fun story, nicely adjacent to the filmed stories.

[Rosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly, it was Maria's story line in this book that was most emotionally gratifying for me. It's left open ended, but it makes sense that it would be, and it allowed for Michael to be the caring person he was rarely granted the opportunity to be on the show.

On the Max and Liz story line, I have mixed feelings. On the plus side, the trope of one half of a pairing being deathly ill while the other has to work against the clock to save them is a favorite trope of mine. Plus, it allowed for them to have a conversation I always wanted to have happen on the show, but never did -- Max finding out about Future Max and why Liz had pretended to sleep with Kyle in s02. But it's kind of tacked on to the end of the book and doesn't really solve anything for Max and Liz's relationship in the long term.

The writer gets some extra continuity points for including references to a previous Roswell tie in book ("Little Green Men"), which has never occurred in the other novels, at least to my memory. It also sets up well for the final plot lines of s03, and we get a lot of wonderful Liz and Kyle friendship scenes. Those two sneaking around Meta-Chem in the first part of the book was comedy gold.

The negatives are that the book has a lot happen in less than 200 pages and it therefore seems rushed. There is little for Jim to do, and Max spends 95% of the book sitting around feeling sorry for himself, which isn't the most interesting thing to read about.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a good read. They brought bad guys characters from a story arc in the show and gave them a reason to make an earlier appearance in the storyline for Season 3. I so loved the last part where Liz and Max reaffirmed their love for each other.

[Clare Moseley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the Maria subplot, but the Max and Liz stuff (especially after reading several of these books in a row) was very tedious.

[Jackie Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was definitely a winner in trying to capture the essence of the Roswell characters. Perfect for anyone who is a major Max-Liz relationship fan. I wish there would have been more to do with Maria and her situation because that could have been expanded upon and made very interesting.

[Nashin Sadeer · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was an interesting story to know how Liz and Max relationship develop. I really enjoyed reading this story in French and I recommend everyone to have a go.