First things first. Anything you've seen on the television series of The 100, forget it and start again here. Usually I like it when series go a different way from the original book. But I'm four series into The 100 on tv and reading this felt like reading fan fiction. Until I had to get my head around this as the original and everything else is dramatically emphasised.
Because of a Cataclysm that happened 300 years past, the human race live onboard a spaceship. It's separated into three sections Phoenix, Walden and Arcadia. Phoenix is where the more well off people live. The chancellor and his son live there as do Clarke and her doctor parents.
Rules on the ship are strict. You lie, you steal - you die. You have a child without former consent of the council - your child is taken away and you die. You do wrong to anyone you die. If you're under eighteen you get thrown into confinement and on your eighteenth birthday you're given a retrial. But most people are found guilty and so they die.
Why so many deaths? That's what Bellamy, Clarke, Wells and Glass discover as the book carries on.
The under eighteens that are in confinement or solitary prison are extracted and put onto a dropship. The ship will head to earth to see if living conditions have stablised after the Cataclysm. Nobody knows whether the earth is fit for habitation, so they send the young convicts with tracking bracelets so they can monitor their health.
The 100 learn to live on earth without the normal rules. But with a hundred criminals roaming at large around an uncharted planet what is the worst that could happen?
This book has four different POV's. Bellamy, Clarke, Wells and Glass. Bellamy tells us about his life as a two sibling family with his younger sister having to hide and the desperation they feel when the guards come to do inspection on their room. Clarke tells us about how her parents were both killed and she was put into solitary because they were doing radiation experiments on orphaned children without the chancellors knowledge. From Wells we learn about how he is the son of the chancellor but reluctantly does his job as a guard officer, and his love for Clarke. Lastly, Glass shows us more of life on board the three spaceships, Phoenix, Arcadia and Walden.
This book basically takes place in about twenty days. There are lots of back and forths in the text to show us life before the captives were put into the dropship. And until the very ending of the book, we know the 100 do believe they're alone on earth. Bellamy spends all his time running after and looking for Octavia. Clarke spends most of her time being doctor and taking care of the injured from the drop. Wells takes a more leadership role and with a reluctant crowd gets them to build a proper barricade around the dropsite. And Glass tells us her story of falling in love with a guard from a different part of the ship and how she escaped from the dropship and earned her release.
All in all, compared to the series, there is a lot of prose to read through but only a little action. Nothing like the non stop energy from the series.
It is good to see a comparison, and I'm ready to read the next book as we've only just found out that others are living on the planet. Kass Morgan's writing is exceptional for creating atmosphere and hyping up the drama.