The Gone series doesn’t feel like a derivative series. When summarising this book, I distilled it down to the single tagline – Lord of the Flies crossed with X-Men – but that doesn’t really do it justice. The characters were diverse and interesting, and the perspectives skipped around from Perdido Beach to the islands in the sea, to the desert, to Coates Academy, the school up in the mountains, taking with it a cast of characters spanning both sides of good and evil, brave and cowardly, male and female, young and old (well, old for the FAYZ) and kept things interesting and refreshing throughout. Throughout the next five books, which take place over the course of about a year, we see the various issues which will face the kids – how do they organise their society, make sure they don’t starve, keep things civilised? Who’s in charge? Who does what job? Who looks after the babies, who helps the sick? And how do they deal with everything the FAYZ (Fallout Alley Youth Zone) can throw at them – from lies to hunger to plague to the crushing fear of darkness? What the hell is hiding in the mine? How does anyone keep order when there are kids running around with incredible powers? And what will they do when – or if? – the dome disappears? And nobody knows what’s on the other side of the poof. Combined with a sinister sort of presence in the darkness of a mine, things get out of hand very fast – kids form allegiances and a battle goes down in the very first book – all combined with the fact that time is running out – plenty of kids are heading towards their fifteenth birthdays – fast. Some kids seem to have developed incredible powers – mutant powers that are just not physically possible, like telekinesis, healing, laser beams from the hands, super speed – we’re talking X-Men style powers.

Animals are mutating and gaining strange powers – surely snakes aren’t meant to be able to fly? – and kids are just the same. Just poof.Īnd then we take it from there – we’re immediately plunged into a Lord of the Flies-style situation where the kids of Perdido Beach are suddenly left without adult supervision, and when they investigate further, they’re trapped in a massive dome – twenty miles in diameter, with the nuclear power plant at the dead centre of the dome. Everyone over the age of fifteen vanishes without a trace. It’s a normal, sleepy, California town, about ten miles away from a nuclear power plant, close to the sea, ideal for surfers. So! This series centres on the little town of Perdido Beach, California. Now, to attempt to review without too many spoilers… Here we go then.

I really thoroughly enjoyed this series, and would heartily recommend. I’ve been meaning to review the Gone series pretty much since the day I finished it (and, in fact, since I started reading Gone, the first book) but I kept putting it off because I was afraid I wouldn’t do it justice.

Gone hunger lies plague fear light