Dream Storm

Remnants #11

by K.A. Applegate

Be careful what you wish for.

After what seemed like a lifetime of waiting, the Remnants are back on Earth---for better or worse. Yago has taken control of Mother and stranded the Remnants along with their ruthless enemies the Riders and Meanies to keep them company. Meanwhile, Jobs discovers that Earth has some ‘remnants’ of its own humans who don’t know any world other than the new Earth. Will the survivors of the Rock help the remaining Remnants? Or does a new enemy lurk on the horizon?

Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult, Middle Grade, Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Aliens, Childrens

146 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2003

About the author

also published under the name Katherine Applegate

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

And now this series enters its third phase, in which the premise & setting & conflict is entirely, utterly overturned and it basically morphs into a different series. I can't really decide if this is a good thing (keeping things fresh and unexpected and exciting!) or if it's just jarring, giving the literary equivalent of whiplash as you're suddenly fed a premise that is so vastly different from what you originally signed up for. N.b.: There are general spoilers in this review for the premise change and what brought us to this point, because I'm lazy and don't wanna do spoiler tags everywhere.

They're back on Earth now, and we see something a bit more like the familiar post-apocalyptic dystopias of YA fiction. Applegate's worldbuilding caps are on in full force. It's very exciting! A lot changes! The dream storm is a cool concept! (Although I wished it had revealed more of people's backstory, because dream/nightmare sequences are some of my favourite concepts for revealing personal history and inner psychology?) We're introduced to post-apocalyptic societies! But I... don't really like them or this worldbuilding?

For one, if we're in the ruins of Tokyo, why in the world are they speaking completely intelligible English, with the only differences being "j'ou" for "you" and their system of timekeeping? I hate it when stories are Anglo-centric like this and don't even try to acknowledge a communication gap. Also, the "kill our leader and you become our leader" system of hierarchy is stupid. I know the societies are being portrayed as ~savages~, but I just don't buy it; letting what is essentially an alien rule your incredibly specialised and delicate society (where survival is on a knife's edge) is ridiculous.

Is Mother -- and thus by extension Yago, Tate, and the Troika -- gone forever? Surely not? And yet I can't see what in the world could make them turn around and come back? I'll put a pin in this and evaluate later. I need them to come back into the narrative in future, and I'll be pissed if they don't, because then it's just a completely aborted storyline that is literally jettisoned off into space. (Lingering questions: Seriously, what is the Troika's deal? Who are the rest of the Missing Eight? What is going on?)

This book itself is not that bad, but I'm going to write a long rambly essay rn about Remnants and where it's at. Eleven books in, I'm finally starting to realise one of my core problems with this series: I don't like any of the characters anymore, if I ever did to begin with.

Let's itemise:

• Jobs & Mo were the first two characters introduced, so we're predisposed to like them, right? And I did genuinely really love Mo! But he's not really displayed any depth since... what, book 3? Jobs expresses relief that his friend never changes despite everything they've been through; and it was nice at first, but it's a resilience of personality that's now unreal to me, and is actually hindering his characterisation/development. Because I could buy Mo the Adrenaline Hound shutting all his other concerns down and focusing on the thrills of survival on Mother, especially during those helter-skelter days at the start, but his sheer lack of concern at anything, even their probable death in a total wasteland, is now unrealistic.

• And Jobs is just getting on my nerves in general. Why is he the go-to, de facto leader for the Remnants when there are adults around? In the void left behind Lefkowitz-Blake, why didn't Olga or Angelique or Burroway step up? What set of adults would ever hand leadership over to the kids so easily? In stories like this, I like the tensions between adult/adolescent leadership -- c.f. The 100 television show, cough cough -- but here, they've all meekly and gamely accepted it. Sam in Gone became leader because all of the adults were gone; he was the best thing they had. Here...? Jobs also irritates me with his territorial jealousy over Violet/D-Caf, without actually stopping and reading Violet well enough to realise that she's exasperated by D-Caf.

• They are so fucking uncooperative. In the initial, frantic, panicky days of survival, I get it. I accept the tensions, the conflict, the reluctance to bind together. But by now, it has been nine months. (The initial 3-month jump, then the 6 months to get to Earth.) They're seriously still pulling shit like this? Anamull downing all of his water and stealing Billy's was unbelievably stupid and short-sighted, and basically just made him briefly inherit Yago's position in the narrative. 2Face still trying to find a way to scapegoat others and her ridiculous assertion that Billy is in league with the Earthlings is nuts. At first I was fascinated by her survivor's mentality -- me above all costs -- but now it's just stupid.

• Yago was interesting, buuuut that went away when his brain got scrambled by Mother.

• I loved Noyze as their alien interpreter, the one who could speak to Blue Meanies and understood parts of their society & culture and respected them for it, and championed peace and cooperation and ... but then she was in the "KILL BLUE MEANIES!!!" camp after #9, and now I can't tell you what's going on with her except for "being Mo's sorta-girlfriend". Sigh.

• My favourite characters lately were probably Tate and Kubrick, and, well...

• So my only remaining fave is Billy, because imo he's the most fully-realised, fleshed-out character of the lot. But now he's basically comatose again...

• So anyone who was even mildly interesting or had depth has been lobotomised, jettisoned from the narrative, or otherwise made indisposed. Not enough time is being spent on fleshing out their motivations and psyche, because the narrative just keeps barreling on to the next conflict.

• In general they just seem to have less depth than they used to. There were hints of it early on -- Violet's relationship with technology and with her mother, Mo and Catholicism, Yago and his mixed-race anxieties -- but they're all gone now. Violet's entire trajectory just seems to boil down to "I'M A MONSTERRR" now.

Long story short, I'm exasperated by them. I'm not fond of these people the same way I was in Applegrant's other series.

Cobbling together a nascent society and collaborating is hard. It really, really is! Especially with a bunch of people involuntarily thrown together in a small pot and who don't like each other. Everworld showed that.

But there are only ten people left. It's time to grow the hell up.

The Everworld kids, over the course of thirteen books, evolved from a squabbling, fractious group into a tight-knit unit of friends and allies. It's that progression that's satisfying, leading to that reaction of look how far we've come. In that series, an alcoholic racist mess managed to pull himself together, becoming best friends with the black guy on the team. Whereas here it's been eleven books and I'm still not seeing any of that development or true bonding. It's so, so scarce, even backtracking in some cases.

I got SO EXCITED with the developments offered in #9, but have been sorta let down by the plot trajectory it ended up taking. So while this particular installment is fine-ish, I'm realising my issues with the series as a whole, and kinda resigning myself to not ever having the emotional connection & attachment to this cast that I wanted. /grumps

(Sidebar: It's definitely Billy on the cover, which means I have to revise my guess and say that that's Yago & Billy facing off on #6.)

[Caitlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars because this book is decent, though not great. Dream Storm interested me the most on a structural level, because it's a complete departure from what the series has led us to expect: Mother has flown off and Yago, Tate and the Troika have disappeared from the story; meanwhile, the Remnants stranded on Earth have to find a way to survive in more classic post-apocalyptic style. And who's that watching them from the shadows?

Things I liked: -The Dream Storm is an interesting concept--the idea that the destruction of Earth and billions of deaths have left some kind of psychic residue that affects people's perceptions. It's not very science fiction-y, but it's original.

-Alpha Colony and the Marauders: it's nice to know someone besides the Remnants survived the Rock, and to learn about their culture, even if I think the differences weren't taken far enough (would a pronoun change from you to j'ou really be the only linguistic drift after 500 years?) Plus it's kind of a relief to spend time around different characters for a while.

Things I didn't like: The characters- I know that's a broad brush, but really, none of them are compelling here except for maybe Billy, and then only briefly since he's disabled by the storm. Julie already wrote an analysis of the characterization issues in her review, and cribbing from that I have to agree: none of the characters here reached anything like their full potential in the series. Further, the story seems to go out of its way to remove those that did show promise.

Alpha colony and the Marauders: yes, said I liked them above, but I'm ambivalent about the world building here. They're reminiscent of Wells' Eloi and Morlocks, respectively, but rely on each other for survival (which made Hawk's attempted takeover kind of nonsensical, imo). In one passage the Marauders are also compared to Plains First Nations and described as "savage, wild-looking, noble, and completely foreign". Really? That "noble savage" racist bs can f*ck right off.

Summary: Better than #10--at least things are happening--but disappointing when you consider where this series could have gone.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

  Clearly Billy on the cover, and I guess that is a mix of the weird storm that picks up towards the second half of the book, the mix of real storm and dream/nightmare storm?

  An improvement over the last book, as now not only do we have a new game board available, but it has a dungeon level, complete with its own survivors to add more spice (and characters) back into play. Though it is still just providing more set up, it did have a bit of a climax-esque scene in the appropriate place which really shook up the power balance. Finally, Tate’s words about the three major power players is starting to show some fruit!

Some more specific thoughts on events in this book:

  Given it has been about five hundred years, I was wondering what sort of differences the survivors on this planet would be like. There are some “expected” elements to how they survive in that they live in underground bunkers and rely on small plant yields and water supplies to survive. Being a language enthusiast, I wondered what sort of changes the English language might have gone through during that time. So far as I could tell, it was only a matter of changing a starting “y” to a “j” – and so far, only for the derivatives of “you” – “j’ou” “j’our.” I admit I was slightly disappointed by that, but there is really only so much that can be packed into these short books. It was interesting to discover that these descendants, who are not only living in an area which was once Japan, speak English. It does make communication easier with the Remnants (not to mention extremely convenient), but at least they do have a heavy accent along with their weird mix of Asian and probably Russian features (if Echo’s hair color/eye shape are anything to go by). The other noticeable cultural-type difference is their division of time – though it takes some deduction, they still follow the standard time divisions (60 minutes to an hour, 24 hours in a day, 365 days in a year), just with a different way of referring to it, e.g. 10/60.

  I am seriously wondering when we will get to see what is going on onboard Mother again, as Tate and Yago and the Troika are still there. Since Tate has her own cover coming up, they’ve got to go back there sooner or later! Plus, what was so important about not diverging from Mother’s intended path, other than avoiding Earth for the sake of avoiding it?

  That was some serious nightmare-fuel with D-Caf going worm on Anamull… I can’t say I am sorry to see Anamull go, but to go that way… *shivers*. I’m also curious to see just how this will affect D-Caf more long-term -- he’s on the sensitive side as it is. Roger Dodger most likely has this same ability, yet Olga does not hesitate to suggest that he stay with her and Edward with the Alphas later in the story.

  The Alphas/Marauders dynamic is interesting as well, and I wonder if we will get to discover Lyric’s secret, the one only her and Echo know and which seems like it must be some sort of deformity – since those who are born with a deformity are given to the Marauders. (I don’t hold out too much hope for it, as we still don’t know what 2Face’s thing with the fire was – and as Julie pointed out in her review for #10, at this point, it has almost become irrelevant with all that 2Face has done and seen at this point.)

  Then there is still this evolution thing for the Remnants – we know what Violet’s, Edward’s, and Billy’s are, and possibly Tate’s too, but it is unclear if any of the others are “evolving”. I also wonder if Violet giving D-Caf and Roger Dodger the worm mutation will supersede any mutation they might have had on their own? Or will they still develop their own unique mutations?

  Overall it does not seem like nearly as much happens in each installment even when there is a whole lot of “new” events and everything. It has quantity, but it lacks something in the substance department. Part of this lack of substance, for me at least, is because there is so much flux and shifting between characters that I once again feel like we are not getting their “full story” nor do we often get a solid idea of what they think of a given development. Not unlike how there are so many developments that we do not manage to get terribly in-depth about one before the next one comes up and shakes things up again. I think part of this is largely because of the very continuous narrative nature of the books, but also because there is just so much building going on it is hard to see where it is going -- not unlike the building of the Tower of Babel image from early in the series on Mother. Things, events, places, people just keep getting thrown at us, the character balance is constantly in flux, and the story itself is like an riding a new roller coaster blindfolded. It has a track it seems to be following, but goodness knows what that path is – you just have to hope that your stomach stays in its place when it takes you on a loop then a corkscrew followed by a double loop an forward into who-knows-what.

Quotes and commentary:

  They’d come a long way since then. Traveled many hard miles on a twisted, sad trail. Jobs wished they could somehow go back to those people they’d been – scrubbed, whole, uncompromising. – page 37 – Something about this hits me… it’s like an echo of what is trying to be accomplished in this series, or at least seems like it should be a goal in the series, but it is so rarely addressed that it might as well be added in as an afterthought. I mean, this is about the only attention this idea has been paid in quite some time, and it is a brief one-off thought of Jobs’.

  Violet forced a smile, and was relieved when D-Caf didn’t notice her lack of enthusiasm. – page 78 – Kind of strange that it seems to be only when it pertains to Violet that D-Caf’s affinity for seeing details others miss clicks off.

  “Don’t worry,” Olga said with a laugh. “I’m not saying you should stay. But – well, I think this is as close as we’re going to get to ‘happily ever after.’ I’d stay here. And I think it’d be a good place for Roger Dodger and Edward.” – page 140 – Ugh, I’m not really enjoying Olga’s characterization. She’s so out of place, being the last adult Remnant (Troika not included), and in my opinion, her unique position is being underutilized. She’s barely a foil of a mother/adult/doctor, and this statement of hers has me doubting her reasoning abilities. They have hardly seen any of the bunker, and while yes, what little they have seen probably does seem infinitely better than where they came from, she seems too ready to settle, no further questions your honor.

Typos/inconsistencies:

…favorite fem… -- page 5 – I’m pretty sure every other time Mo’Steel has used the term, it has been “femme”. Unless there is a difference between femme and fem, the former being more of a Jane-esque Violet femme and the latter being a more standard Noyze-esque fem?

Chapter Seventeen – page 136 – There’s no quote for this chapter heading.

[Ema]

This could be from a different series, but this Earth series just isn't as good. Sorry! Are we at the Tate book yet?

[Riah Wamby · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m finally saying it — there are just too many narrators in this series. They aren’t developed enough for it to work and it’s confusing and I’m SAD ABOUT IT.

In other news — this book had some fun concepts. We have the few descendants of humans that somehow managed to survive the asteroid, split into two warring but symbiotic factions. We’ve got a weird dream storm that could’ve been a great moment for character depth and reflection, but just felt boring. We got more creepy worms.

I am still interested to see where this series is going, just bummed because I KNOW it could’ve been better with Applegrant at the helm, had they had more time and freedom.

[Anna · Rating 1 out of 5]

The beginning of this part is hilarious, it's like "We've all stranded of lifeless Earth. It's much like dead men walking." 🤣🤭🤦‍♀️ Logic, are you here? 🤷‍♀️

[Thistle · Rating 1 out of 5]

*Spoilers*
I really should have stopped reading this series early on. The first book was outstanding, the next couple were pretty good, but it quickly went downhill from there and never recovered.

Talking about anything in the later books would spoil the earlier ones, so I'm going to put everything plot-ish behind a cut: ( Collapse )


In the first book, the Earth is destroyed. Literally. An asteroid hits it, the planet is broken up into pieces. Humanity sends off a ship full of a dozen or so people in hibernation (very untested tech). 500 years later, those people wake up on what turns out to be an intelligent ship.

These last seven books of the fourteen book series are about the survivors returning to Earth. Why return to it? How in the world would they find anything at all there when the planet literally was smashed to pieces? Very good questions.

Through nothing more than author handwaving, the planet is actually still there! It's just no longer rotating, so one side is always bright, the other always dark, with a shadow zone in the middle where people can (and do) live. In the early books, the survivors saw the planet literally breaking into pieces, so this was a tad head-scratching. It's never explained.

Even ignoring the lack of logic in having survivors at all, they were badly written and the whole plot with the was just unenjoyable. Some of the survivors lived and farmed underground, while others acted as [we never learned!] above ground. For some reason, those who lived underground shared their food 50/50 with the ones who lived aboveground, even though they didn't have enough food to support themselves.

I have to call out Dream Storm as being an especially bad book. Somehow, on this ruined-not-ruined Earth, there were "psychic storms" -- weather storms that would attack you psychically, make you see things, basically make you live through a waking nightmare. How does that make any sense at all? This is the Earth, our Earth, hit by an asteroid and destroyed-not-destroyed, why in the world would these storms be created? Heck, since the planet isn't rotating, how is there a storm at all of any kind?

The ending (which was so so so unsatisfying and I hated it so much) was literally a deus ex machina: The intelligent ship was basically a god, came from the sky to land on the ruined Earth, and in minutes turned the planet back how it had been -- green, full of plant and animal life, more humans). The whole story felt so pointless when that happened. Plus, like the Harry Potter books, there was an afterwards where the survivors were all paired off and had kids. Blah. /end spoiler cut



The author said she was unhappy she had taken the story in this direction (unhappy with this last half of the series), and I 100% agree with her. It makes zero sense, and it ruined whatever joy I had left for the series.

My earlier complaints about the series continued on through these books: I question if they were edited at all (typos on Every Single Page). Each book was was short! At my usual reading pace, each one took about an hour and a half to read. Insane. It felt like each book was a chapter, not a stand-alone book.

I can strongly recommend the first book of the series, but I'd just as strongly suggest stopping after it.

[Julie Decker · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Mayflower survivors are back on Earth--marooned by Yago--and some of them encounter a group of humans on the planet--descendents of those who survived the horrible asteroid 500 years ago. Jobs and co meet Echo and some other "Alphas," whose fights with the other survivors--the Marauders--threaten their survival just as much as the inhospitable landscape. And it's not just weather disasters, lack of water, and inability to grow enough food, but also the dream storm. . . .

The idea of a dream storm on Earth is particularly peculiar, because that's not any kind of natural occurrence and seems like it should only be possible in a virtual environment. Very weird. I liked seeing the alternate society and its depressing reality (especially the realism surrounding water), but the attempts to change the dialect slightly so it would be a little evolved really annoyed me.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yet another great chapter in the life of the Remnants. The Remnants have been abandoned by Yago on a hostile and sterile Earth. With no food or water and little hope of survival they explore their new world. When Edward discovers humans descending underground the Remnants decide to follow to get away from a very strange Dream Storm. They soon discover that life has indeed survived on Earth over the last 500 years. But exactly what kind of life and can they learn to survive as well?

[Dexter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some more bizarre horrific scifi along the same themes as the rest of the Remnants series. An odd mixture of preteen scifi and blatant disturbing content. Seriously, I wouldn't hand this series to a kid.

I like Jobs, and I like Mo'Steel, and I like Billy. Noyze is pretty cool too. Echo seems cool. A lot of it is cool. It also holds a special place in my heart because I read the series as a kid (and somehow am not scarred).

[Swankivy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Remnants #11 was the best of the series for a long time. (Jobs is full of guilt and wanting to protect his brother, Mo takes off in a Meanie suit and manages to enjoy himself, 2Face is still playing her stupid games, Billy's catatonic again . . . ahh yes, entertainment.)

[Fari · Rating 1 out of 5]

So, I didn't read any of the other books except the 11th one in the series... I know, it's so stupid. It was good but I didn't understand some of it. (Guess why?) I tried reading the first book but I got distracted... :P

[Z · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ooh, things are getting exciting. People alive on Earth. I expected no less of you, KA.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't believe that Yago would do that! I mean, he's bad but, not like that! It's cool how they found other people, though.