Review: Interesting beginning to a series
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 20, 2013
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.Fadeout begins with a group of eight year old children watching a teen being forcefully strapped to a table, where a machine extracts something from his head in small glass balls. Most of the children are terrified and crying. They are told if they get out of line, this will happen to them as well. One boy, though, remains emotionless, and it is discovered he does not register emotions.Fast-forward a few years, and we now follow Silas, 13, a boy living in a prison-like institution with all the children of his class, the Cars. As they age, they will either be sent to farms to breed or to the Machine, where all their emotional memories will be extracted and used as fuel, leaving them an empty shell. Silas is not alone in the institution - his older sister is also there, but Silas does not let on that they are anything but acquaintances. His sister wants to escape, and though Silas does not know how they will accomplish this, he agrees to try to think up a plan.We are then introduced to the owner's son, Jamar. Jamar is a spoiled member of the Tirean class, the upper - and most important - class of their society. Jamar eagerly buys into the class system, honestly believing he is better than the rest of society based on his class. He believes the Cars are sub-humans and the Tireans are doing them a favor by relieving them of their emotional memories. He is encouraged by his father to think of them as "stock" instead of people. Jamar is being groomed to one day take over the energy business from his father.Jamar convinces his father to allow him to spend time with Silas, saying he needs someone with whom to practice swordfighting. Jamar wants to practice with Silas because it will feed into his superiority complex and allow him to totally dominate someone else. However, following an altercation with a bear, Jamar begins to see Silas a little differently, eventually coming to think of him as a friend, though denying it to his father and tutor. When Silas comes to him for help, Jamar must decide if he is willing to disobey his father to repay what he sees as a debt to Silas.Fadeout started out very interesting, but it slowed down a bit for a little while. However, it quickly turned back around and got interesting again. When the author was describing the mundane days in the institution, I could feel the despair and boredom the kids were going through. There were a few times when I was shaking my head a little and thinking "Oh no. No. No, don't do that. C'mon, please." Though it wasn't a heart-pounding thriller, it was still quite suspenseful. I liked Silas, and the lack of emotional response that the doctors of the institution claimed he had intrigued me. I would have liked to know just how he locked away his emotions. Since a good chunk of the book showed his point of view, I could see that he did in fact have emotions, but apparently, he is better able to control them than most people.Fadeout is apparently the first book in a series, and I would like to read more. There were a lot of unanswered questions that I had when the book ended. For example, how do they use the e-mems as energy? Why did this come about? At one point, Jamar finds some pages that had been torn from his ancestor's journal. He starts to read them and is interrupted. He intends to read them again later, but this doesn't happen. I'd really like to know what was in these pages. Also, Jamal does something with Silas' roommate's file, but nothing more is said about it. I'd like to know what happened as a result of this. I'm sure this will be explored in later books, though.There were a few spelling mistakes and wrong word usage, but nothing that distracted me too much or made me think, "Ugh, this is terrible; I'm having trouble reading this." It was also rather short, which resulted in a lot of things being unsaid. I'm hoping the next book in the series is longer and more detailed. I'm looking forward to reading it.