Science Fiction: I Am Number Four

John Smith is number four. You may not believe it, but he's one of the last six survivors from the planet Lorien. He's been living in hiding on Earth, along with his Cepan guardian, for the past twelve years: any day now, he's expecting to die.

Twelve years ago, the Mogadorians destroyed the planet Lorien when they raided it for resources that their own planet had run out of. The inhabitants of Lorien - the Cepan guardians and the warrior Garde - were slaughtered in the surprise attack. Only nine Garde escaped with their keepers, and three of those have already been hunted down and murdered by Mogadorian soldiers.

John Smith was created yesterday, when news of number three's death reached him. When John and his Keeper Henri burned their house and all identification to the ground as they fled, they also erased all traces of John's previous identity, Daniel Jones. Now they live in remote Paradise, Ohio: population 5,243.

John's job is to stay alive and stay hidden until his Garde legacies appear. The legacies are the warrior powers that will tranform John from an althletic and intelligent teen into a superwarrior capable of returning to Lorien, and scouring the planet of its alien invaders. But until he masters his legacies, John is horribly vulnerable to attack by the Mogadorian soldiers who are hunting him day and night, tirelessly seeking to destroy him.

Despite a lifetime of training, John finds staying undercover in Paradise harder than anything he's ever done. A lot of this is to do with Sarah, the gorgeous classmate who's falling hard for John. Unfortunately, her bully ex-boyfriend makes it very difficult to keep out of high school politics and squabbles, and when John accidentally befriends an expert in alien identification and legends, his entire identity is compromised.

With his cover blown wide open, John and Henri are at risk, along with everyone they care for in their new town. This fast paced Science Fiction thriller tears along at breakneck speed, ending in a thrilling climax that just begs for a sequel or two.

Science Fiction
Grades 9-11
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