The Last Star

The Last Star by American author Rick Yancey is a 2016 science fiction novel for young adults. It is the final installment in his The 5th Wave trilogy, coming after The Infinite Sea. It brings to conclusion the saga of the battle between sixteen-year-old Cassiopeia “Cassie” Sullivan and aliens who have invaded Earth.

Multiple waves of alien attacks by the Others have placed the future of mankind in doubt and left the earth in turmoil and ruin. The Others are aliens whose ultimate objectives have never been quite clear. They are disembodied, a consciousness rather than beings, who nevertheless are taking over a planet. Evan Walker, a part human and part alien Silencer, knows that on the spring equinox which is only four days from arriving the Silencers will be called to return to their mother ship at which point the next wave of alien destruction will commence. The survivors who remain at this point, Cassie, Sam, Zombie, Ringer, and Megan know that they are running out of time to stop the devastation that they have been fighting.

Yancey’s The Last Star begins with a priest who is in hiding in a group of caves in Ohio along with some of humanity’s survivors. The priest says mass for the final time as he has depleted the supplies of both the wine for mass and the bread required to use as the host. This entry in the trilogy reflects Biblical apocalypse stories and an atmosphere of pending doom is pervasive. In the first book, The 5th Wave, and the second, The Infinite Sea, images connected to death and destruction were of a more physical nature. Here, in The Last Star, faith is more the common motif along with questions that revolve around such concepts as what to trust and what to believe in as the end of the world approaches.



The saga is presented in four sections with each one representing one of the days that remain before the next wave of attacks is to begin. The author uses multiple narrative voices which shift at various significant moments to present different points of view. Cassie’s narrative voice in The Last Star is somewhat edgier than in the earlier installments. When she writes in her journal she infuses humor in an attempt to ease some of the tension. Additionally, the juxtaposition of humor with the seriousness of the situation at hand heightens the graveness of what she and the others are facing. Evan, meanwhile, hopes to use the fact that the Silencers are being called back as a way to stage a strike against the Others. Cassie is concerned about this as she thinks about all of the potential things that could go wrong and have Evan’s plan backfire. Much of what they have attempted and made assumptions about has not turned out as planned thus far in their exploits.

Ringer has an understanding of what has been going on and of the workings of the aliens’ actions. Cassie is motivated by her love and concern for her brother Sam. Thematically, this represents a major theme of the novel. Humanity is founded on love for one another. It is a concept to which the aliens are unable to relate. Evan’s main contribution to the advancement of the plot is his realization that the Silencer program that was placed in him while in utero failed and thus he did not follow through on his mission of killing Cassie when he originally found her which triggers further events. The love theme serves as a connection among the novels in the trilogy and is represented by Bear, a teddy bear owned by Sam. The bear serves as a motivation for Cassie to preserver when her brother turns up missing in the first book in the series. She holds on to the bear as a reminder to remain hopeful and as a symbol of her love for Sam. In The Last Star Sam is a soldier who no longer needs toys and gives the bear to Megan. Love, which the toy represents, has no place in the life of a soldier. Later Cassie tries to convince Sam to take the bear and keep it telling him how important it is. She is trying to convince him that love is what keeps them human and is the force that keeps the world together. She wants him to remember the love that they share with each other and once had with their parents.

As the trilogy approaches its conclusion, it is revealed that the character Vosch is the mastermind behind the cleansing of Earth. Ringer, whose name is actually Marika, is perhaps the only character who understands the entire scope of what has been occurring. The aliens were attempting to wipe out almost all of humanity and recreate it to save the planet and humankind. The humans ultimately had the upper hand as the aliens could not comprehend the human heart and the ability to love. Ultimately, The Last Star examines what makes people human and what their purpose is in the universe.