Thrive (The Overthrow, Book 3)

(If you haven't, I encourage you to read Bloom and Hatch, Books 1 and 2 in The Overthrow series, first. You'll want to know the whole story. Really.)

 

Written by Kenneth Oppel

HarperCollins

978-1-4434-5691-3

404 pp.

Ages 10-14

May 2021

 

First there were the black grasses, strangling vines and pit plants (Bloom, 2020). Then came the eggs that developed into mosquito birds, giant water striders and horrific mega-worms (Hatch, 2020). Now, in the conclusion to Kenneth Oppel's The Overthrow trilogy, the cryptogens themselves are coming to invade. But will they succeed in overthrowing humans for the planet?

Being a teen is hard enough but, for Anaya, Petra and Seth who have dealt with strange allergies and physical ailments all their lives, things have gotten a lot stranger since learning that they have cryptogenic DNA that has given them extraordinary powers but also unconventional bodies. Anaya is a runner, with unusual body hair and claws. Petra has an affinity for swimming and has scaly skin and a tail. Seth is a flyer with razor-sharp wings and a powerful sound weapon. During the horrific experimentation on the kids and others like them at the hands of the nasty Dr. Ritter, they learned that they are able to telepathically communicate with each other and Anaya was able to connect with the cryptogen she calls Terra. 

 

This connection has lead to the arrival of a ship, at the conclusion of Hatch and the beginning of Thrive, from which a trio of rebel cryptogens have emerged. Terra, who is a runner and scientist as well as pilot, is accompanied by another scientist, a swimmer for whom Petra uses the pronouns ze and zir, and a flyer who was a military leader, hence their moniker of him as the general. Together the three cryptogens had formed an alliance, and a rebel movement of several hundred was established to overthrow the flyers who have used their sound power to keep runners and swimmers enslaved to them. 

The rebels admit that Anaya, Petra and Seth, as well as the other hybrid children, had been implanted with DNA to help produce a virus to destroy the flyers' ability to use sound as a weapon and thus to help them defeat their oppressors. Now the rebels have come to earth to retrieve that hidden DNA.

 

While Petra helps the swimmer to get materials needed to repair their ship and Anaya works with Terra to develop the virus, Seth worries for Esta, a hybrid flyer such as himself, with whom he'd bonded at Dr. Ritter's bunker facility. Learning that Esta, like most hybrid cryptogens, is being detained at an internment camp, Seth sneaks out to rescue her and ends up captured along with Esta and others by the primary ship of invaders. Now Seth has to decide whether he agrees with Esta who believes the cryptogen commander, a flyer, really has their best interests at heart, or whether a rebellion against the flyers is necessary to stop the oppression of the runners and swimmers and an invasion of earth.

Kenneth Oppel pounds out his story of an alien invasion and rebellion with little respite for the reader, just as there was none for the trio of teens who are thrown from one alarming situation to the next. Even before the initial arrival of terrifying plants and menacing creatures, Anaya, Petra and Seth have had to manage their physical stresses. Now with the menace of extraterrestrials, they have to balance being seen as both threats and saviours, and doing what they can, what they want to and what they'd rather not. There's always some new threat with which they must deal and, as they are punched with pressure after pressure, as each new creature and knowledge is revealed, Kenneth Oppel takes the reader with them. As such, Thrive is an intense read, throwing the reader along with the story's characters, from one dangerous situation to the next, manoeuvring on a flying platform, being swallowed by a wall, fighting off a wolverine squid or plunging through the atmosphere in a pod with limited oxygen. The action is relentless and it's not until the very end that Kenneth Oppel lets us know how The Overthrow, the series and the operation, actually turns out. I won't give away the ending but I will reassure that the wild ride that is Thrive leaves room for a sigh and a promise for resolution.

He was half human, half cryptogen, but for the first time in his life, he was starting to feel whole. (pg. 404)

• • • • • • •

The Overthrow (a.k.a. Bloom Trilogy) 

Bloom (2020)

Hatch (2020)

Thrive (2021)

Hatch

Written by Kenneth Oppel

HarperCollins Canada

978-1-44345-688-3

416 pp.

Ages 10-14

September 2020

 

When readers first met Anaya, Petra and Seth in Bloom, Book 1 in Kenneth Oppel's The Overthrow trilogy, the three teens were helping to battle an alien invasion of plants–black grass, vines and pit plants–that threatened their community on Salt Spring Island and around the world. They had also discovered that they all dreamed of special powers–running, swimming and flying, respectively–that corresponded with the unusual growths that had plagued their bodies, namely claws and excessive hair for Anaya, a tail and scaly skin on Petra, and bony growths akin to wings for Seth.  Now a new threat has arrived.

From a weird rain that deposits eggs, strange new creatures develop that Dr. Weber and the others look to study. But then the military, as led by Colonel Pearson alongside the new Dr. Ritter, having learned of the kids' cryptogenic DNA, announce that brain scans reveal transmitters in their brains, and fear that they have been communicating with the cryptogens who intend to invade. The kids are "detained as a threat to national security under the War Measures Act" (pg. 33) at a secret underground bunker with other young hybrids who are numbered and classified as runners, swimmers and flyers. 

This did not seem like a good sign. If you gave someone a number, it was because you were taking away their home. And once you took away someone's home, it was a lot easier to take away whatever you wanted. (pg. 41)

Under the direction of Dr. Ritter, the young people are measured and tested and drilled to develop their skills. Meanwhile, Anaya, Petra and Seth make new friends within their groupings, with Petra meeting the muscular Darren who is convinced they are being trained to be soldiers and Anaya making the acquaintance of the brilliant Charles. But it's Seth fraternization with the quiet Esta that becomes the most intense, as he makes a real connection with her though she evokes dissension between the friends with claims of the flyers' superiority.

But everything changes when Anaya is taken to the surface and allowed to connect with the cryptogens to pinpoint their location. Instead she learns that they can communicate telepathically and she is able to do so with a cryptogen, learning why they are targeting Earth and involving the hybrids.

Kenneth Oppel got our attention with Bloom but he keeps us breathless with the unrelenting action in Hatch. From dealing with dangerous and toxic plants to evolving insects of massive destruction force (the worm has a mouth with "spiraling blades that looked like the turbine of a drilling machine"; pg. 10) and the protagonists learning more about their capabilities, and sadly also their shocking predilections, Hatch reveals a precarious world where aliens i.e., cryptogens look to communicate with humans through hybrid beings like Anaya, Petra and Seth. But who is friend and who is foe both on earth and from other worlds is ever-changing and poses problems for all as the kids try to do the right thing for their families, communities, planet and themselves.

Hatch, as did Bloom, brings one story to an end but introduces a new one with its last words. When the third book in the trilogy, Thrive, finally drops in May 2021, we hope Kenneth Oppel will finally share with young readers the true nature of the aliens and whether they, or even some of them, offer hope or harm. Eight months seems almost too long to wait when the world is in the balance because of an alien invasion.

 

The Overthrow series from Kenneth Oppel:

Bloom (February 2020)

Hatch (September 2020)

Thrive (May 2021)

Bloom

Written by Kenneth Oppel

HarperCollins Canada

978-1-4434-5031-7

312 pp.

Ages 10-14

February 2020

Many Canadians would recognize Salt Spring Island as a popular tourist destination off the coast of British Columbia. But what's happening on this Gulf Island in Kenneth Oppel's latest middle grade novel, Bloom, would have most running away. Unfortunately, there will be nowhere safe to run.

All teens have their angst but Anaya, Petra and Seth have challenges that are unique. Anaya Riggs may have to deal with acne and asthma but she also lives with severe allergies to just about everything: gluten, dairy, eggs, smoke, dust, pollen, etc. Her former friend and all-around popular girl Petra is allergic to water and cannot allow it to contact her skin without developing a burning rash or hives. New kid Seth Robertson, who has been moved from foster home to foster home, is now living with an elderly couple Mr. and Mrs. Antos on their farm and always wears long sleeves to hide the scars that track up and down both arms. 

Then a hard rain comes down for several days and changes everything. Anaya's allergies improve and her acne clears up. Petra can wash with this rainwater–she collects as much as she can–without any reaction. And a strange black grass begins to grow just about everywhere around the world and at an alarming rate.

Pretty much all anyone talked about now was the black grass. How it was crowding out crops, how nothing killed it. You couldn't go on your phone or turn on the TV without people talking about how it was showing up everywhere, and what was this stuff, anyway? (pg. 50)

Attempts to eradicate the grass by mowing or chainsawing it or applying herbicides or fire are futile or dangerous. Anaya's father, a botanist at the Ministry of Agriculture's experimental farm, is working hard to identify the plant, including those germinated in the water Petra has collected, and even Anaya gets involved collecting soil from the school yard, one of the few sites without the black grass. Soon enough, though, the schoolyard becomes a minefield of pit-plants that swallow prey, whether it be a deer or humans. Oddly, Petra, Anaya and Seth are not affected by the pit-plants' acidic walls or tranquilizing gas emissions.

As Mr. Riggs and a research associate head out to the eco-reserve on Cordova Island where the black grass appears to be dying, the three teens are taken by Dr. Stephanie Weber, a scientist with CSIS, to a military base in Vancouver in the hopes of learning what makes them special and possibly developing a vaccine. But what is discovered about the teens is much scarier than anyone ever anticipated.

The word "bloom" suggests something unhurried and beautiful and captivating. The plants in Bloom are nothing like that. They are aggressively growing, violent in their attacks and devastating in their effects. Worse yet, the last line in the book is a harbinger that more, perhaps even worse, is still to come in the next books in The Overthrow series. (Book 2 in the series, Hatch, is set for a fall 2020 release while we'll have to wait until the summer of 2021 for the final book, Thrive.) Bloom is thrilling and scary, a story with all the hallmarks of an edge-of-your-seat cliff-hanger–although you'd more likely be hanging by vines above a lake rife with machine-gun water lilies–blending a survival tale with an action-adventure involving clashes with dangerous life-forms. 

Though Anaya, Petra and Seth, as well as the parents, social workers, and military, carry the story forward, Kenneth Oppel's plot steals the story. It's bizarre, it's compelling and you can't read fast enough to learn what is happening. Kenneth Oppel may resolve Bloom to readers' satisfaction–we do learn what the plants are and how the teens are different–but there's obviously so much more to their story. I'm looking forward to an even more twisted plot when we revisit the kids and the source of Bloom's plants in Hatch and Thrive.