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We Are Omega
I AM. YOU ARE. WE ARE OMEGA.
Six years ago an alien spacecraft crashed into the remote Nevada desert, releasing a virus that killed one-fifth of the Earth's population.
Molly McManus, who lost her parents to the plague, can't forgive the aliens just because they give humanity a few new toys. For Wells Marsden, a computer hacker desperate to atone for his past, the aliens might just offer the fresh start he needs.
Both Molly and Wells find themselves, for very different reasons, at the Institute for the Betterment of Humanity – a prestigious facility for gifted youth to learn from the aliens. But when they discover Earth's visitors aren't as benevolent as they claim they must escape the Institute, join a mysterious resistance group known only as Omega, and save humanity from disaster – so long as humanity itself doesn't get in their way.
WE ARE OMEGA is a science fiction adventure featuring hacking, telekinetic powers, giant alien crabs out to control the planet and two troubled teens who just might be the best hope we have. It's a thundering read for fans of Illuminae, The 5th Wave, and I Am Number Four.
Six years ago an alien spacecraft crashed into the remote Nevada desert, releasing a virus that killed one-fifth of the Earth's population.
Molly McManus, who lost her parents to the plague, can't forgive the aliens just because they give humanity a few new toys. For Wells Marsden, a computer hacker desperate to atone for his past, the aliens might just offer the fresh start he needs.
Both Molly and Wells find themselves, for very different reasons, at the Institute for the Betterment of Humanity – a prestigious facility for gifted youth to learn from the aliens. But when they discover Earth's visitors aren't as benevolent as they claim they must escape the Institute, join a mysterious resistance group known only as Omega, and save humanity from disaster – so long as humanity itself doesn't get in their way.
WE ARE OMEGA is a science fiction adventure featuring hacking, telekinetic powers, giant alien crabs out to control the planet and two troubled teens who just might be the best hope we have. It's a thundering read for fans of Illuminae, The 5th Wave, and I Am Number Four.
328 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 9, 2018
43 people are currently reading
343 people want to read
About the author
Justin Woolley
20 books124 followersJustin Woolley has been writing stories since he could first scrawl with a crayon. When he was six years old he wrote his first book, a 300 word pirate epic in unreadable handwriting called 'The Ghost Ship'. He promptly declared that he was now an author and didn't need to go to school. Despite being informed that this was, in fact, not the case, he continued to make things up and write them down.
Today Justin is the author of the Australian set dystopian trilogy The Territory Series consisting of the novels A Town Called Dust, A City Called Smoke and A World of Ash, the young-adult science fiction adventure We Are Omega, the science-fiction comedy series Shakedowners consisting of the novels Shakedowners, Shakedowners 2: The Vinyl Frontier and Shakedowners 3: Slack to the Future, and is now adding to the darkness of the 41st millennium for Black Library.
Justin lives in Hobart, Australia with his wife and two sons. In his other life he's been an engineer, a teacher and at one stage even a magician. His handwriting has not improved.
Today Justin is the author of the Australian set dystopian trilogy The Territory Series consisting of the novels A Town Called Dust, A City Called Smoke and A World of Ash, the young-adult science fiction adventure We Are Omega, the science-fiction comedy series Shakedowners consisting of the novels Shakedowners, Shakedowners 2: The Vinyl Frontier and Shakedowners 3: Slack to the Future, and is now adding to the darkness of the 41st millennium for Black Library.
Justin lives in Hobart, Australia with his wife and two sons. In his other life he's been an engineer, a teacher and at one stage even a magician. His handwriting has not improved.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 25, 2021
I've always loved Justin Woolley's novels and this is such an interesting take on aliens and extraterrestrials.
The imagination behind the "Xenos" is fantastic and I absolutely love them.
However, I didn't care for Molly. Her immaturity and anger annoyed me. But in a way that I think the author intended. She's hot-headed and irrational which causes a lot of mistakes through her time in this story.
I LOVED Mackenzie and I hope we can get more of her in the next books. I'm very excited to see what "the end" entails!
The imagination behind the "Xenos" is fantastic and I absolutely love them.
However, I didn't care for Molly. Her immaturity and anger annoyed me. But in a way that I think the author intended. She's hot-headed and irrational which causes a lot of mistakes through her time in this story.
I LOVED Mackenzie and I hope we can get more of her in the next books. I'm very excited to see what "the end" entails!
December 14, 2018
Principal Bowls (f) announced Molly McManus (17), & other Little Basin HS students will take the admission test for the Institute for the Betterment of Humanity.
Jesse Hill (17, Molly’s BMF), Trinity “Trin” Lee, Chuck Jordan, Wells, & Zadie King are all done testing.
Dry Springs Road. The group is going to climb the N.E.Z. fence (exclusion zone).
Remy Dufort is in the hospital bed wired up to monitoring machines & lots of tubes.
Mackenzie had tapped into the algorithm to break the encrypted Operation Vassal files. It might tell them what was going on with the Xenocrustacean (neffing Crabs population.
Omega is a threat to all humanity.
What happened to Remy & Sally?
I did not receive any type of compensation for reading & reviewing this book. While I receive free books from publishers & authors, I am under no obligation to write a positive review, only an honest one. All thoughts & opinions are entirely my own.
A very awesome book cover, & great font/writing style. A very well written sci-fi book. It was very easy for me to read/follow from start/finish & never a dull moment. There were no grammar/typo errors, nor any repetitive or out of line sequence sentences. Lots of exciting scenarios, with several twists/turns & a great set of unique characters to keep track of. This could also make another great sci-fi movie, an animated cartoon, or better yet a mini TV series. Kind of cheesy for me but a teen would like it. I will only rate it at 3/5 stars.
Thank you for the free BookFunnel; Author; PDF book
Tony Parsons (Washburn; MSW)
Jesse Hill (17, Molly’s BMF), Trinity “Trin” Lee, Chuck Jordan, Wells, & Zadie King are all done testing.
Dry Springs Road. The group is going to climb the N.E.Z. fence (exclusion zone).
Remy Dufort is in the hospital bed wired up to monitoring machines & lots of tubes.
Mackenzie had tapped into the algorithm to break the encrypted Operation Vassal files. It might tell them what was going on with the Xenocrustacean (neffing Crabs population.
Omega is a threat to all humanity.
What happened to Remy & Sally?
I did not receive any type of compensation for reading & reviewing this book. While I receive free books from publishers & authors, I am under no obligation to write a positive review, only an honest one. All thoughts & opinions are entirely my own.
A very awesome book cover, & great font/writing style. A very well written sci-fi book. It was very easy for me to read/follow from start/finish & never a dull moment. There were no grammar/typo errors, nor any repetitive or out of line sequence sentences. Lots of exciting scenarios, with several twists/turns & a great set of unique characters to keep track of. This could also make another great sci-fi movie, an animated cartoon, or better yet a mini TV series. Kind of cheesy for me but a teen would like it. I will only rate it at 3/5 stars.
Thank you for the free BookFunnel; Author; PDF book
Tony Parsons (Washburn; MSW)
January 11, 2019
Last year I read finished reading Justin Woolley's The Territory trilogy and absolutely adored it, so when he contacted me and asked if I would be interested in reading and reviewing his new young adult sci-fi book I was very keen. It combines two things I love: #loveozya and science fiction.
I purposely went into reading it knowing as little as possible, which is my preferred way to read most books, and I'm so glad I did.
We Are Omega is set in a remote Nevada town that was the crash-landing site of an alien ship, and a disaster that led to a fifth of the world's population being killed from a virus released the aftermath. Six years later, and the world has recovered, and the aliens embraced as hope for humanity as they help cure previously incurable illnesses and share their technology from behind the walls of a compound designed to keep them safe in that same small town. They even offer training for teenagers who demonstrate the cognitive abilities of gifted students, and it's seen as a privilege to gain admittance.
Our main characters, Molly and Wells, both find themselves in this school for different reasons. Molly hates the aliens, whose virus killed both her parents, and Wells has had a rocky youth, including time spent in a juvenile detention centre. Both quickly learn that not everything is as it seems and that the so-called benevolence of the aliens may not actually be the case.
I loved the pace of We Are Omega; it's quick and easy to read. We have a dual perspective narrative, following both Molly and Wells, who have their own understanding and reactions to what is happening, and it never feels like you're reading the same character. Molly is harsh and abrasive at times, still haunted by the deaths of her parents and her inability to forgive the aliens and move on like the rest of the world seems to have done. She questions everything and doesn't just roll over and accept answers. Wells, by contrast, is a very nervous and anxious character, who appears to be a hypochondriac, and has a lot of guilt over a terrible accident that happened when he was younger. He's also Australian, which was a nice touch, and a hacker, and is very uncomfortable with everything that he has to do in the book, which made him a great contrast to Molly.
Because of the length of the story and the quickness of pace, we don't spend a lot of time delving deep into the backstory - as a learner you pick up a lot as the story moves on - but because of that pace, you don't really need a lot of extra information. The world is our world, only one where aliens have landed and it's caused a massive ripple effect that no-one's really understood.
There was some information revealed towards the end of the story which I would have liked to have been fleshed out more, but I suspect there is potential here for sequels and a look more closely at the characters involved (and even if there are no sequels, it's definitely food for thought, and now and then I like unanswered questions - it allows my mind to fill in the gaps).
Overall, this book hit all the right notes for me in young adult science-fiction: it was fast-paced, it had snappy dialogue, alien invasions and some very cool human enhancements.
I purposely went into reading it knowing as little as possible, which is my preferred way to read most books, and I'm so glad I did.
We Are Omega is set in a remote Nevada town that was the crash-landing site of an alien ship, and a disaster that led to a fifth of the world's population being killed from a virus released the aftermath. Six years later, and the world has recovered, and the aliens embraced as hope for humanity as they help cure previously incurable illnesses and share their technology from behind the walls of a compound designed to keep them safe in that same small town. They even offer training for teenagers who demonstrate the cognitive abilities of gifted students, and it's seen as a privilege to gain admittance.
Our main characters, Molly and Wells, both find themselves in this school for different reasons. Molly hates the aliens, whose virus killed both her parents, and Wells has had a rocky youth, including time spent in a juvenile detention centre. Both quickly learn that not everything is as it seems and that the so-called benevolence of the aliens may not actually be the case.
I loved the pace of We Are Omega; it's quick and easy to read. We have a dual perspective narrative, following both Molly and Wells, who have their own understanding and reactions to what is happening, and it never feels like you're reading the same character. Molly is harsh and abrasive at times, still haunted by the deaths of her parents and her inability to forgive the aliens and move on like the rest of the world seems to have done. She questions everything and doesn't just roll over and accept answers. Wells, by contrast, is a very nervous and anxious character, who appears to be a hypochondriac, and has a lot of guilt over a terrible accident that happened when he was younger. He's also Australian, which was a nice touch, and a hacker, and is very uncomfortable with everything that he has to do in the book, which made him a great contrast to Molly.
Because of the length of the story and the quickness of pace, we don't spend a lot of time delving deep into the backstory - as a learner you pick up a lot as the story moves on - but because of that pace, you don't really need a lot of extra information. The world is our world, only one where aliens have landed and it's caused a massive ripple effect that no-one's really understood.
There was some information revealed towards the end of the story which I would have liked to have been fleshed out more, but I suspect there is potential here for sequels and a look more closely at the characters involved (and even if there are no sequels, it's definitely food for thought, and now and then I like unanswered questions - it allows my mind to fill in the gaps).
Overall, this book hit all the right notes for me in young adult science-fiction: it was fast-paced, it had snappy dialogue, alien invasions and some very cool human enhancements.
November 21, 2019
We Are Omega is an alien-invasion story built on an almost-too-familiar template, in which Molly McManus and Wells Marsden, two Australian teenagers, find themselves fighting the supposedly-benevolent Xenocrustaceans. The book takes cues from Stargate SG-1, Tomorrow When The War Began and other young-adult science fiction novels.
The good: Molly and Wells are fantastic, fun characters. Molly is an angry goth kid who deliberately fails a test that would give her a chance to work at the Institute because she hates the Xenocrustaceans that much. She swears like a sailor, and doesn't put up with anybody's crap - a fun archetype that's deconstructed when a dare for her to climb a fence goes horribly wrong. Wells is her polar opposite, an anxiety-ridden hacker with a shady past who just wants to figure out what the right thing to do is - and have the courage to go through with it. Their interactions with each other and with the side characters (Mackenzie, Remy, Jesse and others) are the most fun part of this book, especially when one or both of them are panicked or stressed.
However, We Are Omega suffers from, above else, a problem of timing: while there's a time and a place for a story about alien refugees turning out to be evil and working with the 'Men in Black' elite, 2019 isn't quite it. It's hard to read about Molly's racist assumptions being proved right, almost more so when the "dominant" group of aliens that the refugees were running from are cast as the Good Guys. Additionally, the book doesn't seem to quite know its audience. Its cast is made up of teenagers and it's labelled as Young Adult, but it takes a little too much joy in enacting terrible violence on its characters as well as killing more characters than I can really feel comfortable with. (There's nothing wrong, inherently, with books that don't keep their cast alive, but again - time, place and audience.) Violence is fine in books, but especially for a Young Adult novel, it's a bit much.
Finally, We Are Omega doesn't seem to be conscious of the conversations happening in publishing. While the writing is good, it's ultimately a retread of too-familiar stories. Both Molly and Wells are white, and a character implied to be a person of colour is killed for dramatic/emotional reasons about halfway through the book. Molly's devastating migraines that show up in the first chapter vanished and aren't acknowledged as more than a plot device.
In short, this book has a lot of potential and it's a fun, tense read - but it doesn't seem to quite know who its readers are, and feels like it should have come out in 1999, not twenty years later.
The good: Molly and Wells are fantastic, fun characters. Molly is an angry goth kid who deliberately fails a test that would give her a chance to work at the Institute because she hates the Xenocrustaceans that much. She swears like a sailor, and doesn't put up with anybody's crap - a fun archetype that's deconstructed when a dare for her to climb a fence goes horribly wrong. Wells is her polar opposite, an anxiety-ridden hacker with a shady past who just wants to figure out what the right thing to do is - and have the courage to go through with it. Their interactions with each other and with the side characters (Mackenzie, Remy, Jesse and others) are the most fun part of this book, especially when one or both of them are panicked or stressed.
However, We Are Omega suffers from, above else, a problem of timing: while there's a time and a place for a story about alien refugees turning out to be evil and working with the 'Men in Black' elite, 2019 isn't quite it. It's hard to read about Molly's racist assumptions being proved right, almost more so when the "dominant" group of aliens that the refugees were running from are cast as the Good Guys. Additionally, the book doesn't seem to quite know its audience. Its cast is made up of teenagers and it's labelled as Young Adult, but it takes a little too much joy in enacting terrible violence on its characters as well as killing more characters than I can really feel comfortable with. (There's nothing wrong, inherently, with books that don't keep their cast alive, but again - time, place and audience.) Violence is fine in books, but especially for a Young Adult novel, it's a bit much.
Finally, We Are Omega doesn't seem to be conscious of the conversations happening in publishing. While the writing is good, it's ultimately a retread of too-familiar stories. Both Molly and Wells are white, and a character implied to be a person of colour is killed for dramatic/emotional reasons about halfway through the book. Molly's devastating migraines that show up in the first chapter vanished and aren't acknowledged as more than a plot device.
In short, this book has a lot of potential and it's a fun, tense read - but it doesn't seem to quite know who its readers are, and feels like it should have come out in 1999, not twenty years later.
December 9, 2018
Overall rating: 5
I just don’t know where to begin! This storyline took me by surprise! The characters jumped into action and raced down this expertly plotted tale with me a willing captive. I thoroughly appreciated the way this author kept these characters at their respective maturity levels complete with all its insecurities and emotional angst. How the hybrids came to be was only touched upon but clearly there is a possible book two in the works. A definite must read for the YA crowd, I am sure it would appeal to older readers as well.
I just don’t know where to begin! This storyline took me by surprise! The characters jumped into action and raced down this expertly plotted tale with me a willing captive. I thoroughly appreciated the way this author kept these characters at their respective maturity levels complete with all its insecurities and emotional angst. How the hybrids came to be was only touched upon but clearly there is a possible book two in the works. A definite must read for the YA crowd, I am sure it would appeal to older readers as well.
December 29, 2018
Remember the tv series 'V'? Well imagine that set today with YA protagonists, hackers, telekinetic powers and giant crabs, and you'll have a pretty decent idea what to expect with We Are Omega. Justin Woolley is an accomplished writer and his latest novel doesn't disappoint. There's plenty of action and drama amid explorations of friendship, loyalty and redemption. An enjoyable read with the possibility of a sequel. 4.5 stars!
November 11, 2018
I received an ARC for an honest review and I loved this book. If you like Sci-fi you will like this book. I am 60 years old and I thoroughly recommend this book for any age from young to older who love to read. Justin did a great job with all the characters and progression of this story. I can’t wait for the next book.
August 4, 2019
Such an awesome story and such an awesome idea. I love the characters and I found the story well-written and full of action. This intriguing story was able to hook me immediately and I am hoping for more from this author!
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
November 24, 2018
Justin, my good sir, you've done it again. You've created an immersive masterpiece and I am so glad for it.
World: 10/10
Plot: 10/10
Characters: 10/10
A book that feels so incredibly real: 1000/10
Your books bring me so much joy. Thank you.
World: 10/10
Plot: 10/10
Characters: 10/10
A book that feels so incredibly real: 1000/10
Your books bring me so much joy. Thank you.
January 9, 2019
Told from two points of view - Molly and Miles. Both are unlikable from the start. As I approached the end I didn't care who won or lost, who was killed or died, I just wanted the story to end. I disliked the protagonists equally as much as I did the antagonists. And if Molly said "netting" one more time, I was going to scream!
December 29, 2019
Rose
Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. Thats what is this book. Justin Woolley named and wrote about these things in a unique way. I have enjoyed reading his entertainment in words thoroughly. I look forward to reading more of his books.
Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. Thats what is this book. Justin Woolley named and wrote about these things in a unique way. I have enjoyed reading his entertainment in words thoroughly. I look forward to reading more of his books.
December 22, 2018
Excellent you need to read this . I love all of Justin’s books . A fantastic story teller .
June 3, 2024
Excellent book very hard to put down once reading starts highly recommended
June 18, 2019
never disappointed in Woolley's work ...nice one !
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March 4, 2019This book is an entry in the 2018 Aurealis Awards, for which I am a judge. Any review will be withheld until the results of the awards are announced.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews