Cover art for The 5th Wave, a much-buzzed upcoming young adult novel, was revealed today along with a few more tantalizing details about the sci-fi thriller.
Putnam Books for Young Readers has released cover art today for The 5th Wave, a tale of terror, trust and evil aliens by Printz Honor-winning author Rick Yancey.
Amazon’s listing says:
After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one.
Now, it’s the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth’s last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie’s only hope for rescuing her brother–or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up.
The 5th Wave is not scheduled for release until May 2013, but buzz has been building ever since the series sold to Putnam in a rumored seven-figure book deal. Yancey is an accomplished novelist (he is the author of five novels for adults, the memoir Confessions of a Tax Collector, and the award-winning young adult trilogies Alfred Kropp and The Monstrumologist) but acclaim on this scale is relatively new for the long-toiling author.
Though many details are still forthcoming, it seems certain that readers can anticipate masterful intrigue, percolating terror and a deeply visceral reading experience from The 5th Wave. While writing the novel, Yancey admitted that even he found his alien antagonists frightening. “They really are diabolical,” he wrote. “Not your usual extraterrestrial invaders… I’m worried about my characters. I’m not sure any human can prevail against such a ruthless species.”
Yancey is no stranger to writing horror – his Monstrumologist series is a vivid dissection both of biologically realistic monsters and of fear itself – but he seems to have outdone himself with this new extra-terrestrial venture. “I should stop writing this book at night,” he wryly admitted. “Monsters never seemed THIS plausible to me.”
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