There are unmarked spoilers in this review. You have been warned!!!The ship holding the last remnants of the human race has finally reached a destination... Jobs wakes up from his long slumber weak. He falls asleep a couple of times before he could finally look around the place. He finds out that his parents are dead and only his little brother is left. He falls asleep again and is forced awake by 2Face from the first book. They go to the cockpit and reunite with Mo'Steel. They see the new planet through the windows and what they see aren't very encouraging. They also learn that they had been in space for centuries! They freak out, except for Mo'Steel. They then decide to see how many people made it to the new world and once everyone is up and ready, head out to the new world.I raised the rating from three stars in the first book to four stars since this was very interesting and enjoyable and I could not put this down. When I finally did finish it, I craved for the next book and that's a good sign, right?The new world was as mysterious as it was baffling. I can't help but compare it to a kid playing with Leggos; it's as if the world is still under construction and can change anytime. That's probably the reason why it's so dangerous. You're never sure what to expect and, just when you're used to one setting, it shifts to another.The characters were very diverse and I loved that. If the world was not taking my attention, the characters were. The main characters in the first book have returned: Jobs, the smart computer guy, Mo'Steel, the adrenaline junkie good at Math, and 2Face, the tough Asian. Even some of the minor characters with the potential of becoming major characters in the upcoming books managed to survive, like Tamara, the pregnant Marine (amazingly she managed to give birth to the baby while she was inside her berth!), Yago, the arrogant son of the President, and Billy Weir. I am especially looking forward to more Yago and Billy Weir. I don't like Yago, he is a prick after all, but he is fun to read and one must always keep an eye on the manipulative ones!The aliens... how do I describe them? I think there are more races that are coming so I doubt the violent race they encountered, nicknamed the Riders due to the hover glides they're riding, is the one that brought that ship there, as the ship was in a position that suggested it was brought to the planet by... something. The Riders are nothing special so far but I'm expecting a lot from them and the upcoming races.All in all, Destination Unknown escaped the second book syndrome and promises more awesomeness to come!!!
"It took less than a year for Billy Weir to lose his mind."So begins the second book in the Remnants series. 500 years after the events of the first book, the Eighty have arrived. The ones that are still alive are waking up. But everything is even weirder than expected: the shuttle has landed vertically (and that shouldn't be possible), the world they ended up on is partially black and white and partially full of colors and there’s a very strange baby among the survivors.This book is a lot scarier than the first one. The survivors have arrived somewhere, and now they’re trying to figure out what to do and how to survive in this strange place. Not easy when there are aliens challenging you to battle and worms that really like the way you taste. Humans being humans, of course there’s also the fight for power. Even when there are so few of them left, someone has to be in charge. It’s actually really sad. In my review of the first book, I complained about kids being sent to space, but now it turns out that it would be better if there were more kids, because they had a bigger chance of surviving the trip. (But why did Yago have to survive? He’s the worst character and he needs to disappear.)The strangest characters were Billy Weir and the baby. The biggest difference between them is that Billy is strange but still seems good and the baby seems quite evil. I don’t think I ever read a book with an evil baby before. It’s interesting but insanely creepy. Violet Blake turned out to be a great character, much smarter and a lot more useful than I expected. Her little speech about saving humanity was surprising but awesome.I suppose the series will just keep getting weirder and scarier. I can’t wait :)
What do You think about Destination Unknown (2001)?
Most of my memories of the Remnants series are that it was completely weird, but I'm giving it another chance. So far, it's turning out all right, though this one upped the bizarre factor significantly from the first book. It still all makes sense, though. The humans are experiencing a completely alien world, so it makes sense that the reader wouldn't understand what's going on, either. KA still demonstrates that she has a way with showing what makes characters tick, and she's brought together a good bunch of people to have interesting interactions.And then there's the baby. That baby is freaking creepy.
—Odette
In this second book of the Remnant series the survivors of the destruction of Earth wake up from what they discover is a 500 year hibernation only to discover that while the new hibernation technology worked for some, others were not so lucky. Out of the 80 survivors less than 1/3 of them wake up from their long journey to discover that the world they have landed on, while able to support human life, is not very friendly towards it. Jobs and his younger brother wake up to find that both of their parents have failed to survive the journey. Mo-Steel and his mother wake up but his father does not. As the survivors come to grips with the fact that there are very few of the remaining humans left alive they begin to explore the world they have landed on. Thanks to one survivor, Violet, they discover that the environment that they find themselves in is a mishmash of artwork that was added to the memory banks of the shuttle when it left Earth. It seems that someone has attempted to make the survivors feel at home, while not understanding the data that they have discovered. On top of the strange environment the survivors encounter Riders, a strange alien life form who attack and kill one of the survivors without provocation. As the survivors struggle for their survival they explore this strange new world that they now have to call home.
—Wendy
Someone gets eaten alive from the inside by parasitic worms within the first few chapters of this book. I still do not understand how this can be a middle-grade series.Body horror aside, this is a strong continuation of the Remnants series. The characters and premise are further developed here and I would strongly recommend to anyone interested that they read not just the first book, but this one as well, before deciding if they want to finish the series. The mystery set up here left me utterly fascinated and desperate to read more.
—Ellie
