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Lost #3
Signs of Life
Nick Hadley did some terrible things. The famed artist, sculptor, and professor was once the toast of the art world, but a scandal turned his life upside down. Nick needed a place to lay low for a while. In boarding Oceanic Flight 815, he got just that.
Now one of many survivors of a plane crash, Nick has all the time in the world to reflect on his bad choices. The island life even seems to instill in him newfound artistic inspiration.
But Nick's new drawings take on a sinister quality. He begins having dreams... horribly vivid dreams. And then come the voices... and feelings of guilt and pain. Is the island trying to tell him something... or is his past finally catching up with him?
Now one of many survivors of a plane crash, Nick has all the time in the world to reflect on his bad choices. The island life even seems to instill in him newfound artistic inspiration.
But Nick's new drawings take on a sinister quality. He begins having dreams... horribly vivid dreams. And then come the voices... and feelings of guilt and pain. Is the island trying to tell him something... or is his past finally catching up with him?
192 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
6 people are currently reading
165 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
December 2, 2014
Why do I keep doing this to myself
I know these books are terrible and are jokes compared to the show
But I still make myself read them
I know these books are terrible and are jokes compared to the show
But I still make myself read them
June 25, 2025
You can tell this book isn't canon because Michael is actually nice to people and John Locke comes off like a serial killer. Hurley was still Hurley, at least. The main dude was insufferable and his flashbacks just made him look like trash lol
May 29, 2025
Structurally speaking, this feels like a proper LOST TV episode, but by god does the content just feel like the author expressing his fantasies.
Blonde, "nubile", 22-year-old college girls falling in love with a teacher in his 30s. Am I reading LOST or some kind of smut romance? "Oh professor, I'm beginning to think you don't have art on your mind at all!" Believable dialogue, for sure.
The author doesn't even seem to know what his character's name is, since the book refers to him as Jeff but the blurb calls him Nick - quite a big oversight. He even gets his own character mixed up with Jack from the TV show at one point.
Now, to be fair, despite how gross the flashback side of Jeff's story is, the on-island stuff was a decent read, even if some of the mysteries completely contradict later reveals in the show, but to be fair, not even the writers knew where the show was going back in 2005 so I don't put this on the author.
The characterisation is also a fairly mixed bag. The novel-original characters are okay, but Thompson's attempts to write the televised characters are cringeworthy. Michael and Charlie are by far the most out of place and feel nothing like their on-screen selves.
Blonde, "nubile", 22-year-old college girls falling in love with a teacher in his 30s. Am I reading LOST or some kind of smut romance? "Oh professor, I'm beginning to think you don't have art on your mind at all!" Believable dialogue, for sure.
The author doesn't even seem to know what his character's name is, since the book refers to him as Jeff but the blurb calls him Nick - quite a big oversight. He even gets his own character mixed up with Jack from the TV show at one point.
Now, to be fair, despite how gross the flashback side of Jeff's story is, the on-island stuff was a decent read, even if some of the mysteries completely contradict later reveals in the show, but to be fair, not even the writers knew where the show was going back in 2005 so I don't put this on the author.
The characterisation is also a fairly mixed bag. The novel-original characters are okay, but Thompson's attempts to write the televised characters are cringeworthy. Michael and Charlie are by far the most out of place and feel nothing like their on-screen selves.
January 16, 2023
Third and final official companion novella to the show. Though by a separate author, it still reads very much like fan fiction: a safe character has his own subplot in-universe while avoiding anything that might disrupt the main body of works. Calling this anything more than that is like calling Kraft easy-mac a nice pasta. The protagonist had a debatably larger “issue” from his flashback story (a LOST hallmark), but the author grossly overcompensates in trying to avoid his predecessor’s other pitfalls. In attempt to keep descriptions from sounding like they’re straight from a preteen girl’s secret diary, he uses unnecessarily flowery language that’s painfully obvious he’s flexing his vocabulary. Thankfully that bit seems to die off as the book progresses, likely because the plot is so weak it’s incapable of carrying even that much. He also seems to want to address the femininity of the series, head on, by embroiling this with machismo and literal sexual conquests.
Also the main character’s name is Jeff Hadley but the blurb on the back of the book calls him Nick Hadley. Four times. Hilarious.
Also the main character’s name is Jeff Hadley but the blurb on the back of the book calls him Nick Hadley. Four times. Hilarious.
Currently reading
September 5, 2022Found this translation by Valérie Janssen in the Bookchange at Utrecht Centraal, some time ago.
I am positively surprised. It's in my opinion not really pulp (only the description of the airplane crash (plays hardly a role in the story)), but studies some really interesting and difficult theme's. I especially like the combination of artistic craft, 'fear of freedom' and destroying fulfilment.
content
descriptions are mine
7 1 Jeff Hardley,
14 2 Ivy
19 3 Jin
22 4 registered, Robert Burns College
30 5 strand, Jack
37 6 Lochheath, sir Blond, Savannah
46 7 vague figures
50 8
61 9
71 10
78 11
86 12
90 13
99 14
102 15
106 16
114 17
121 18
127 19
134 20
140 21
148 22
155 23
158 pages
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.
I am positively surprised. It's in my opinion not really pulp (only the description of the airplane crash (plays hardly a role in the story)), but studies some really interesting and difficult theme's. I especially like the combination of artistic craft, 'fear of freedom' and destroying fulfilment.
content
descriptions are mine
7 1 Jeff Hardley,
14 2 Ivy
19 3 Jin
22 4 registered, Robert Burns College
30 5 strand, Jack
37 6 Lochheath, sir Blond, Savannah
46 7 vague figures
50 8
61 9
71 10
78 11
86 12
90 13
99 14
102 15
106 16
114 17
121 18
127 19
134 20
140 21
148 22
155 23
158 pages
-
.
March 2, 2019
On a flight from Sydney to the U.S., Oceanic Flight 815 breaks up over the Pacific, with the 48 or so survivors crash landing on an island. A very strange island...
Jeff Hadley is an artist, a professor, and a scoundrel, willing to hurt others in his past life just to make himself happy. None of the other castaways suspect the reprehensible details of his personal history, but it all begins to catch up with him, now that he is LOST!
(Knowledge of the tv series helpful, but not required to enjoy the story.)
3 stars for plot; deduct 1 star for inappropriate but not explicit content.
Jeff Hadley is an artist, a professor, and a scoundrel, willing to hurt others in his past life just to make himself happy. None of the other castaways suspect the reprehensible details of his personal history, but it all begins to catch up with him, now that he is LOST!
(Knowledge of the tv series helpful, but not required to enjoy the story.)
3 stars for plot; deduct 1 star for inappropriate but not explicit content.
August 14, 2018
This one was slightly different than the first 2 books, but that is probably because it has a different author. Again, Jeff seems like he would fit in the world of Lost but I don't remember his character either.
January 4, 2022
7/10
For me this was written to a far higher quality to the other two LOST Chronicles books. It also included far more dialogue and interaction with characters from the show which I feel was lacking in the previous two.
For me this was written to a far higher quality to the other two LOST Chronicles books. It also included far more dialogue and interaction with characters from the show which I feel was lacking in the previous two.
August 14, 2024
It's fine for what it is, but it does really suffer from the same thing the other Lost books suffered from - trying to create a mystery inside a world that was still developing. So we end up once again with some supernatural mystery that doesn't really fit in with the rest of the show.
February 4, 2024
Was an OK read, nothing amazing, but more fun that it's based on LOST so reading characters voices as their actors voices. Story is just OK, is good for a palate cleanser or travel book
February 2, 2012
Writers of paperback originals based on television shows would seem to have an easy job: craft dialogue that "sounds" like the characters, and plug those voices into a story that hits all the "beats" of a typical episode without violating and/or altering anything of the show's internal logic and mythology. I tend to stay away from such books -- the few Star Trek books I read were all by Peter David, a master at capturing the cadences of actors' speech patterns, and beyond that I read Eliot S! Maggin's two "Superman" novels at the time the original movies came out, and I've read one or two Smallville books given to me as a Christmas present.
I picked up LOST: Signs of Life by Frank Thompson in Wal-Mart last night on a whim. I'd noticed they had the more hyped "Bad Twin" by "Gary Troup" in hardcover; this is the book that Sawyer was reading in manuscript form over the past few episodes and it apparently has lots of hidden clues about the actual series in it, but does not take place on the island or involve any of the regulars. I didn't have the money to shell out for it, but I was able to afford the $4.44 for the Thompson paperback, so I bought it and read it today in and around doing laundry.
For the most part, Thompson gets it right. He crafts a story around one of the background survivors we see in every episode. This character, a Scottish artist named Jeff Hadley, interacts with a number of the core cast (Hurley, Locke, Michael and Charlie mostly, with a little bit of Walt, Jin, Kate and Jack thrown in) but the story is totally his own. Thompson gets the cadences of Locke and Hurley down well, but then again both characters have distinct vocal patterns compared to most of the rest of the cast. The format of the book follows that of the show as closely as possible: chapters on the island alternate with chapters about Jeff's past and of course Jeff has a painful secret that affects his actions on the island. The last third of the book loses momentum and seems like an afterthought, and it took me a few moments to figure out why. The problem authors of LOST tie-in novels face is the need to "wrap up" a character's storyline in the requisite number of pages, which makes the ending seem too "pat" in comparison with the pacing of the show. If Jeff were an actual character on the show, he certainly would not have reached the epiphany he does in the last few chapters of the book; at least, not any time soon.
Still, I'll probably track down the other two LOST paperbacks ("Endangered Species" and "Secret Identity") just for the fun of seeing the faces in the background fleshed out a little bit
I picked up LOST: Signs of Life by Frank Thompson in Wal-Mart last night on a whim. I'd noticed they had the more hyped "Bad Twin" by "Gary Troup" in hardcover; this is the book that Sawyer was reading in manuscript form over the past few episodes and it apparently has lots of hidden clues about the actual series in it, but does not take place on the island or involve any of the regulars. I didn't have the money to shell out for it, but I was able to afford the $4.44 for the Thompson paperback, so I bought it and read it today in and around doing laundry.
For the most part, Thompson gets it right. He crafts a story around one of the background survivors we see in every episode. This character, a Scottish artist named Jeff Hadley, interacts with a number of the core cast (Hurley, Locke, Michael and Charlie mostly, with a little bit of Walt, Jin, Kate and Jack thrown in) but the story is totally his own. Thompson gets the cadences of Locke and Hurley down well, but then again both characters have distinct vocal patterns compared to most of the rest of the cast. The format of the book follows that of the show as closely as possible: chapters on the island alternate with chapters about Jeff's past and of course Jeff has a painful secret that affects his actions on the island. The last third of the book loses momentum and seems like an afterthought, and it took me a few moments to figure out why. The problem authors of LOST tie-in novels face is the need to "wrap up" a character's storyline in the requisite number of pages, which makes the ending seem too "pat" in comparison with the pacing of the show. If Jeff were an actual character on the show, he certainly would not have reached the epiphany he does in the last few chapters of the book; at least, not any time soon.
Still, I'll probably track down the other two LOST paperbacks ("Endangered Species" and "Secret Identity") just for the fun of seeing the faces in the background fleshed out a little bit
November 11, 2011
I thought this was a much more interesting read than the “Endangered Species”. I decided to skip right to the third book because it was a by a different author, but I’ll go back and read the second later. The stories are entirely independent of each other anyway.
It’s somewhat amazing to me that such a mysterious and mindful show doesn’t work “in print” very well. Whereas I thought the books written for the 24 television series would be awful because it relies on so much action… yet the first novel in that series I loved. But the Lost books I don’t really care for very much. Perhaps it is the lack of insight the books give us to the actual mystery of the island. Instead they craft new characters that only somewhat interact with the main characters despite having pictures of the main characters on the covers… very misleading.
Anyway, this is a story about an artist named Nick Hadley. It really doesn’t go much beyond Nick Hadley as the artist or Nick Hadley the user of woman. The “background” sections are about him as a professor and him falling for a student. But he’s always kind of done things that way and leaves a lot of women as his life has progressed. The island “helps” him come to terms with his past, if you will, in the only way the island knows how. So it’s pretty dark and sinister and there is a bit of a mystery around the new dark paintings Nick is drawing, but it really lacks that impact the show has. The mystery just isn’t interesting enough nor is Nick interesting enough. The readers have very little vested interest in this character.
Oh well, I can understand the network wanting all kinds of restrictions on the writings and a novel series would have been better served if the authors could do whatever they wanted. Perhaps they should have planned this kind of thing for when the TV show was ended rather than after the first season or so.
Anyway, 2.5 stars.
It’s somewhat amazing to me that such a mysterious and mindful show doesn’t work “in print” very well. Whereas I thought the books written for the 24 television series would be awful because it relies on so much action… yet the first novel in that series I loved. But the Lost books I don’t really care for very much. Perhaps it is the lack of insight the books give us to the actual mystery of the island. Instead they craft new characters that only somewhat interact with the main characters despite having pictures of the main characters on the covers… very misleading.
Anyway, this is a story about an artist named Nick Hadley. It really doesn’t go much beyond Nick Hadley as the artist or Nick Hadley the user of woman. The “background” sections are about him as a professor and him falling for a student. But he’s always kind of done things that way and leaves a lot of women as his life has progressed. The island “helps” him come to terms with his past, if you will, in the only way the island knows how. So it’s pretty dark and sinister and there is a bit of a mystery around the new dark paintings Nick is drawing, but it really lacks that impact the show has. The mystery just isn’t interesting enough nor is Nick interesting enough. The readers have very little vested interest in this character.
Oh well, I can understand the network wanting all kinds of restrictions on the writings and a novel series would have been better served if the authors could do whatever they wanted. Perhaps they should have planned this kind of thing for when the TV show was ended rather than after the first season or so.
Anyway, 2.5 stars.
December 29, 2013
Yeah, all right, I'll give it three stars, I'm feeling generous. Why? Because Jeff - the author's OC Oceanic survivor - is an actual likable and not terrible human being, the writing is pretty decent, and Jeff's story on the island was pretty interesting, although it relied pretty heavily on dream sequences. Also, Frank T. Thompson did a good job writing the actual LOST characters and their relationships, especially the early antagonism between Sawyer and Jack as well as the characters of Locke, Hurley, and Charlie (complete with near obligatory Driveshaft references). Clearly the best LOST tie-in novel of the trio that tries to go in-depth about characters that the show doesn't look at.
Dear LOST folks: I wish I had been watching the show when it was airing. I would have loved to write one of these books about a non-canon survivor! Also, I'd like to think I'd do a better job at creating a character than Nikki and Paulo from the show. Razzle effin' dazzle.
(Are these novels canon? I know the LOST Experience is considered canon thanks to Word of God, and I think that includes the video games and the Missing Pieces webisodes as well, but these novels are in canoncity gray space right now for me.)
Dear LOST folks: I wish I had been watching the show when it was airing. I would have loved to write one of these books about a non-canon survivor! Also, I'd like to think I'd do a better job at creating a character than Nikki and Paulo from the show. Razzle effin' dazzle.
(Are these novels canon? I know the LOST Experience is considered canon thanks to Word of God, and I think that includes the video games and the Missing Pieces webisodes as well, but these novels are in canoncity gray space right now for me.)
February 26, 2014
It must be so good to get lost.! That's what I felt after reading this book.. You get to do things that you wouldn't have dreamed of doing otherwise. But there has to be a library there.. :)
The book was good,a nice plot with a touch of horror and much of romance. Love beyond death-this seems to be in much demand among storywriters. The author's attempt to remind you of 'Wuthering heights' isn't futile.
The book was good,a nice plot with a touch of horror and much of romance. Love beyond death-this seems to be in much demand among storywriters. The author's attempt to remind you of 'Wuthering heights' isn't futile.
August 11, 2011
This is the second novel based on the Lost TV seies that I've read. Like the first one I read (Secret Identity) this one is largely unrelated to the characters in the show and doesn't relate to the events in the show very much. But still a good, enjoyable, quick read.
November 3, 2009
it is a fairly slow book-though picks up some speed mid way and actually liked reading it
But shame about the start and it confirmed the strangeness of the island but only just ok
But shame about the start and it confirmed the strangeness of the island but only just ok
April 12, 2011
Good, quick read. I think you'll enjoy this if you don't expect to much interaction with the Lost characters you see on tv. Liked the story and would be interested in reading the other Lost books.
January 20, 2012
artist and teacher regrets leaving his one true love
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews