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Saturday, September 27, 2014

The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey summary (2nd book of the Fifth Wave series)

     This book picks up a week or so after the group initially escaped Vosch's camp, with them hiding out in an abandoned hotel while Cassie waits for Evan, although he is believed by the other group members to be dead.
     They all know they can't stay there as Vosch and his army of brainwashed kids will be looking for them, along with the fact that winter is coming and they will freeze and starve to death where they are now.
     Ringer says there is a network of caves not far from their location that they could stay in for the winter and she leaves to go scout it out to see if any other survivors are there.  Teacup takes off after her and when she sneaks up on Ringer, Ringer thinks it's a Silencer and shoots her.  She hears a helicopter coming and runs out to meet it knowing it's the enemy and they will take them back to camp just so that they will save Teacup.
     The book switches to Evan's POV, and after collapsing while trying to get to Cassie after the explosion he wakes up in a cabin with a woman named Grace, who turns out to be someone Evan had met when he was younger after he was first "awoken" in his body and he found out she was an Other too.
     Grace asks who Cassie is as he was mumbling her name but he doesn't want to talk about her since he knows Grace despises humans.  He stays with her for a while to try to act like he's on her side while recuperating from his injuries and come up with a plan to get away from her.  He knows that if he doesn't kill her she will follow him right to Cassie and the others.
    There is a space mobile hanging above the bed in the room he's in, and when Grace attempts to seduce him he takes the wood from the mobile and hits her with it over and over again.  Thinking he has killed her he takes off but she awakens and follows him.
     He makes it to the hotel but knows that if he just walks in they'll kill him as he's too weak from his fight with Grace to be able to confirm his identity before they shoot thinking he's an Other (well, he is, but you know what I mean, a bad Other).
    After he knocks Ben out, he sees Cassie's little brother and starts to head toward him so he doesn't shoot him but Cassie comes up behind him and knocks him out not knowing who he is.  After realizing it's Evan she bandages his wounds and tries to nurse him back to health like he did for her.
     A little girl shows up who turns out to be a friend that Cassie's brother made while they were at camp and Evan tells them they can't get near her as an IED is implanted in her throat that is programmed to be detonated when enough CO2 is present, and that this is what Vosch had been using all the little kids for that were too young to be made into military.  He would drop the kids off at known survivor locations, and when the adults would find them the CO2 of their breath would detonate the IED.
     Cassie performs surgery on the little girl and manages to get the pill like IED out of her and they place it in a baggie.  They plan on getting CO2 canisters from the convenience store near them and placing the canisters and the IED in the elevator shaft so that the slow leak will cause the bomb to go off after they are a safe distance away, making Vosch think his plan worked.
     Grace shows up before they have the chance to do so however, and when she attacks Cassie they all fight back and she barricades herself into one of the rooms in the house.  Evan convinces Cassie to leave with her group as he knows it's only him that Grace is interested in for the moment and that she must have orders to bring him back to Vosch since she's taken so much effort to follow him.
     When they leave, Poundcake is being carried by Ben, as during the fight with Grace he was shot.  They realize Poundcake isn't going to make it and leave him behind but he makes it back to the house and finds the baggie with the IED and sacrifices himself by breathing on it to make it go off and kill Grace while she's in the house with him and about to finish him off although she sees he's already dying.
     It switches to Ringers POV, and Vosch is keeping her hostage at one of his camps (not the same original camp of course since it's been blown to smithereens).  He tells her he's going to run an experiment on her and he injects her with an enhancement serum.

*****ok, so I'm confused on this part and I'm not sure I'm interpreting it right, but hopefully I am.  If you think differently please let me know******

     He reveals to Ringer that there were never any aliens, that the people like Evan and Grace were really just enhanced (like she is about to be) by other humans like himself and were brainwashed into believing they were Others.
      It's never explained though why humans would even do this to wipe out all the rest of humanity or what, so I'm not sure if there ARE aliens behind all this or if it really just is some human scientists who took it upon themselves to clear out the world. Big old question mark on this part of the book for me.
     Ringer escapes with the help of Razor, her caretaker while she's been recuperating from the enhancements.  She has fallen for him and they develop a kind of code through chess where he tells her he's going to help her escape.
     Turns out that was just a lie too, because after the escape he leads her right to Vosch in a barn where he says he's hiding Teacup.  She tries to kill Vosch but fails and Razor stays there with her.  This is another part I'm confused on....why does she stay with him if he turned her in to Vosch?  How could he have been forced to do it if they had already escaped? Did Vosch recapture him while he and Teacup were trying to meet up with Ringer after the escape?
     Anyway, after they do some hanky panky he tries to convince her to run but she won't do it knowing that Vosch has Teacup so she goes back to the base to get her.  Vosch meets her there with Teacup and tells her she will be his weapon now or Teacup will die.  Razor then shoots Teacup and tells Ringer that she has no excuse now and she needs to run.  Vosch shoots and kills Razor and Ringer takes off.
     The book ends by going back to Cassie's POV.  She has told Ben that they are going to the cabin that Grace was staying in under Evan's directive, as he said that there's a pod that will drop there with supplies for when Grace was staying and if she can find a way to put a bomb in the pod when it's sent back up to the mothership (another thing I'm confused on, if there's no aliens where the heck did the mothership come from?) that she'll be able to end everything.
     Cassie once again thinks Evan is dead but she sees him come limping towards them from the direction of the house and she goes to meet him.

End of book 2
   

39 comments:

  1. Hi, I just want to share my thoughts on this since I've just finished the book and I've also found the last part to be very confusing. However, I'm certain that Razor was not captured by Vosch while he was waiting for Ringer to come back from the blazing rubble of the chopper. The whole thing was planned by Vosch, after taking Ringe's support off, Razor's attempts to get Ringer to play chaseball and their exchanges in codes, breaking Teacup out of the hospital, the actual escape, and their eventual meet-up in the bloodied, empty warehouse. It was all a test to see if Ringer's enhancements are working properly. As she said in the book, there was no way to tell if it worked, unless she thought what was happening was real. But in the end, Ringer was able to see that Razor does have feelings for her and this led to him freeing her from Vosch's grip.

    What I completely don't understand is why there was a need for enhanced humans in the first place, and why hunt them down. Why hunt Evan down particularly? Ringer mentioned it had something to do with risk. The risk of what? From what I understand, there are aliens, but they haven't done done anything directly to us, so I'm thinking that Vosch and company are made by them, or working with them to bring about the destruction of humanity.

    Plus, I have some doubts about Grace being dead. And I'm also wondering how Evan survived the explosion.

    Okay, that would be all!

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    1. If you remember earlier in the book, Evan crashed his 12th System when pushing his injuries trying to make it to Cassie in time. Ringer guessed that Evan crashing his system would cause Evan to understand what was done to him, or at least lose interest in Vosch's plans, so I think Vosch wants him dead so he won't reveal the secret to any humans. As for the aliens/no aliens, I think the author purposefully left us a cliffhanger, so I don't think that was actually confirmed. And for Evan being alive, Poundcake's death only depicted Grace within the range of the bomb, and we don't know Evan's location when it went off, so he could've saw what Poundcake was gonna do and got out of range. Just my thoughts!

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    2. Could you tell me if Ben and Cassie are together or if they kiss or anything like this please?

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  2. I feel like this book offered almost nothing, all it did was just give information on the nom existence of aliens on earth, and that was all, i feel like it was a complete waste of time.

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    1. Fiction books aren't supposed to provide you with information, they are merely for the purpose of enjoyment for the reader. Nice try though.

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    2. That's what I think as well. At first I was shocked to see that it was shorter than the 5th wave and surprised about the ending. However I liked the writing style and the given information about Ringer and even Poundcake. After all the story of Razor was interesting. I admit that it didn't bring the whole story forward very much but it entertained me, and that's enough, isn't it?

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    3. No he isn't dead.

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  3. That nigga Evan got 9 lives... Invincible...

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  4. What is happenning between Ben and Cassie? Why did he kissed her? Does he have feelings for her or just pitty or does he likes Ringer? He is so frustrating!

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  5. what do you think will happen in the third and what will ringer be like around the rest now?

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  6. The enhancements gave ringer the ability to read peoples thoughts feelings souls. She fell in love with razor. Because of the situation they were in. When she touched him she knew something was up on the way to the cement factory. After razor and ringer are alone in the factory and he is mending her. His answer to why he did was that he was a soldier he was following orders. He explains the only person left to belive was vosh ringer is the sword and vosh the black smith. She is going to control an army of some sort IMO everything that happend was between humans an the enhanced yes the aliens and present but as controllers to the elites it is explained that there is a mothership visible. When even is at the fair and he meets grace for the first time they speak in there common tounge. Book 3 has to be about even and Cassie defeating vosh and since even is mellinea old I assume Cassie is now bound to this fate and the 12th system will allow her to out live her human body.

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  7. As for Ringer and Razor, it turned out to be a lie set up by Vosch. Vosh knows Ringer very well that he has predicted how she will react on the whole thing and it was planned by Vosch from the beginning to test the 12th system.

    Though the whole thing was plotted, I believe Razor never pretended and everything he said about himself were never lies. Like he said, everything he said was true except for the "big important stuff".

    What they had was real and they genuinely fell in love with each other.

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  8. I hated the 5th Wave, but I'd already read it and just wanted to know what happened. Thanks!

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  9. How was the truth about The Other revealed, if you could give me an exact position of the book I would be really happy but just the circumstances....

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  11. this book is ambiguous on purpose regarding the aliens, and a one last thing they didn't answer....why not a meteor to wipe us out? so in my interpretation, I think that there are aliens, they are in the mother ship waiting to come down to earth when it is cleansed of humans. They sent these silencers (or brainwashed humans) to take care of the remaining humans, but because they couldn't fully trust 100% that the silencer program would work they tracked them via those flying droids. Then Evan went off the grid and started helping a human, and that is exactly the type of malfunction the aliens were trying to control/avoid, so they want him back. I think Vosch is human (brainwashed too). My theory is that the aliens are allergic (for lack of a better word) to humans, and that is why they need to kill everyone. Kind of like in War of the Worlds (spoiler for that coming up) when the aliens just died on their own bc of the bacteria in the air or whatnot. I think the whole question of the big rock, like why not just meteor our butts? has to do with the dinosaurs. They explain in the book how when the dinosaurs were killed by a meteor, the little rat (aka the descendant of mammals) survived and evolved into humans. Therefore, you cant just meteor us bc chances are someone will survive and the aliens cant risk that. They talk about risk in the book, and that is (in my humble opinion) what the aliens cant risk. They cant come down themselves and risk getting killed by humans (or maybe the risk is they are allergic to us lol) but either way, they cant risk one single human surviving.

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    1. What if they used waves because our bodies contained fragments of some ultra star and they want it
      So, like, the waves resulted in a lot of carcasses right? Maybe that's why they used waves and didn't just throw a big meteor, because the meteor would incinerate us or something and our bodies would burn away
      Lol, I'm so creative when it comes to the 5th Wave

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    2. What if they used waves because our bodies contained fragments of some ultra star and they want it
      So, like, the waves resulted in a lot of carcasses right? Maybe that's why they used waves and didn't just throw a big meteor, because the meteor would incinerate us or something and our bodies would burn away
      Lol, I'm so creative when it comes to the 5th Wave

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  12. I kind of wonder if there really are aliens, and they did this 12th system thing to fight for them as their puppets. Or maybe there is more to the story and Vosch is lying, but who knows? The third book will definitely be interesting!

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  13. All questions will be answered in the 3rd and last installment: The Last Star.

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  14. I think the confusion is caused by the different pics. Vosch tells Ringer that people are enhanced, not aliens. The comment about the mothership is from Ben and Cassie. They still think the enemy is an alien.
    Also, for the humans (instead of aliens) attacking humans. I felt it was more of a superior confronting inferior. Think of Jeanine in divergent.

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  15. i'm so dissapointed that Teacup is dead...

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  16. cassie dies in the end

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    1. noooo
      shes the hero and plus its her on the cover
      not to mention evan will give up all of his nine lives for her

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  17. cassie dies in the end

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  18. So this is what I gathered, there are in fact aliens. However, there aren't actually aliens ON earth. They know that it would be stupid to risk their own lives (being that we know from the first book, if the host body dies, so does the alien inside the host body) so instead they downloaded programs into the fetuses rather than the alien consciousnesses themselves. These programs give the humans basic knowledge of what is happening with the aliens and gives them a purpose to kill being that it makes them think that they are aliens. This way the humans do all the dirty work for the aliens. However my confusion revolves around what vosch is... He is still a mystery. My theory is that he actually IS a real alien inside a human host. But I trust that the third book with expand on what he is.
    Now, I'm surprised that some people are confused about Evans survival of the bomb. When poundcake returns to the hotel and finds the bomb (after hearing that Sammy had dropped the bomb inside) he sees Evan trying to make a quiet exit out of the hotel behind grace. Poundcake continues to use the last of his strength to stand and fight grace so that Evan would have a chance to get out, and he did. Evan got out and probably took cover under the SUV that was sitting outside of the hotel.
    Hopefully this clears some confusion. (:

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    1. Thank you for your comment, and from what I gather after reading the first few chapters of "The Last Star" I think you are completely correct in your theory. I don't mean to spoil anything for anyone who hasn't read the 3rd book yet, but I knew this would help clear up confusion going into it.....it isn't confirmed yet whether the Silencers are really just enhanced humans, but given what we know about the serum Ringer was given I would say that what Vosch told Ringer was true and that you are correct also; there aren't actually any aliens on Earth at all at this point, (unless Vosch and maybe other generals around the world actually are just to make sure everything goes smoothly)but rather the aliens made certain humans think they were alien so that they would become Silencers and then enhanced them to give them superhuman-like qualities.

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    2. I just finished "The Infinite Sea" and I completely agree with your theory. I'm so curious to reas the last book now!!!

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  19. Can someone just tell me I'm which chapter does Ben kiss Cassie. I have this obsession about them and just want to read that part to feel sane again so I can go back and read the whole book without freaking out inside and not being able to focus on the other parts.???

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  20. I don't understand this entire book.
    First I thought Ringer got "enhanced"
    and she turned into an alien or something but now I'm all confused and I don't get the Ben and Cassie thing.

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  21. but the key word there is research. Creating a profitable enterprise like the one in Jurassic Park shifts the priority from understanding to economics. the prophet kahlil gibran book

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  22. Thanks so much for the summary. I just saw the movie 'The 5th Wave' (and read the book several yrs ago) where we are in the story line was fuzzy. The details you provided get me up to speed as I just started reading his last book.

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  23. Thanks so much for the summary. I just saw the movie 'The 5th Wave' (and read the book several yrs ago) where we are in the story line was fuzzy. The details you provided get me up to speed as I just started reading his last book.

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  24. Thank you so much for your summary Janie, which not even the 5th wave wiki provides.. I read "The Infinite Sea" back in 2014, and just happened across "The Last Star" in my local bookstore. I haven't started reading it yet as I'm finishing up another book and honestly I remembered how convoluted the 2nd book was and was terrified at reading the third and being as confused as I was when I started the 2nd. I love the first book, and I've read it three times since it came out, but I didn't have it in me to re-read "The Infinite Sea." It's not that I didn't find it interesting, or enjoy it, it's just that it meandered around A TON. There was little forward momentum of the overall story IMO. I did come to like Ringer MUCH more once the story focused on her then I had previously though. Here's hoping I really enjoy "The Last Star," and everything comes to a satisfying conclusion. Happy reading to all..

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