Monsters of Men

Monsters of Men: Chaos Walking: Book Three Hardcover – September 28, 2010
Author: Visit ‘s Patrick Ness Page ID: 0763647519

From School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up–The first word of this conclusion to the trilogy is “war,” and war between various factions takes up much of this book. The action begins immediately and is told from two and then three viewpoints with no backstory that might bring readers new to the series up to speed. Todd and Viola attempt to persuade Mayor Prentiss and Mistress Coyle, respectively, that peace is the better path to the future, peace with one another and with the vast army of Spackles that looms above the valley. Unfortunately, the Mayor and Mistress only want peace that comes with victory for their faction. A scout ship arrives from the approaching convoy of colonists, changing the balance of power. The Mayor uses his “Noise,” the ability that male humans and all of the Spackle have to communicate mentally, to control his army and to influence Todd. Mistress Coyle and the other mistresses shelter under the protection of the scout ship and work to cure the infection of the bands that threaten the lives of many of the women, including Viola. Ness distinguishes his various narrators by the use of different fonts, further distinguishing Todd with a select few words misspelled. This is a complex and engrossing work that series fans will devour but which may be impenetrable to those who haven’t read the earlier volumes.Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, WI
© Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Ness, a forceful writer who chews through ideas at a blistering clip, takes on war, the heftiest of human follies, in the conclusion to his Chaos Walking trilogy. The genocidal tyrant Mayor Prentiss leads an army on one side, the terrorist healer Mistress Coyle heads a band of revolutionaries on another, and a massive legion of native Spackle threatens from a third. All three sides see only the complete annihilation of the others as the sole option for victory and survival, and they might be right, no matter how Todd and Viola use their formidable wills to advance peace as an influx of new colonists nears. Its a thick book, approaching Russian-novel territory, but it rarely feels bloated; and readers invested in the story will likely concede that Ness has earned the space. His rapid-fire litany of impossible choices makes for captivating thought fodder, and what has already been a potent display of the power of voice to drive, amplify, and transform a story gets a third, unexpected soloist. And in so doing he shows just how deep and complex, as well as how versatile, a symbolic narrative device like Noise can be. For all the huge themes mauling at each other, though, its the characters that ultimately stand out in this final actthe connections that bind them and change them and ruin them and redeem them. This is science fiction at its best, and is a singular fusion of brutality and idealism that is, at last, perfectly human. Grades 9-12. –Ian Chipman

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Series: Chaos Walking (Book 3)Hardcover: 608 pagesPublisher: Candlewick Press; 1st Us Edition edition (September 28, 2010)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 0763647519ISBN-13: 978-0763647513 Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.8 x 8.8 inches Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies) Best Sellers Rank: #599,015 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #202 in Books > Teens > Literature & Fiction > Social & Family Issues > Prejudice & Racism #253 in Books > Teens > Literature & Fiction > Social & Family Issues > Violence #2956 in Books > Teens > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction
War. That is all the Mayor, with a gleam in his eye, can say. Stuck in the middle, all Todd can do is watch Mistress Coyle’s terrorist army boom into New Prentisstown, spy the native Spackle soldiers zigzagging down the hill in front, and accompany Mayor Prentiss as his men march to meet them. Somewhere, the scout ship of incoming settlers will be landing in the middle of Mistress Coyle’s army oblivious to the chaos and Viola, ankles broken, galloping away from it all on her horse Acorn. Badly outnumbered and with two sides to fight, Todd and Viola are conflicted as ever. Peace or war, forgiveness or revenge, and hope or despair; if only the decisions were that polar. How much of their moral integrity are they willing to sacrifice to save each other?

Who could wait until September for the concluding book in this trilogy? So much drama, intensity, and unpredictable unknowns? I couldn’t. There was no turning back once I calculated that for only a couple dollars more, I could have it now, and in the spiffy UK edition no less. (Which seriously, if we’re talking about cover art, it has one of the most creative and one-of-a-kind book jackets out there. ) It also has to do with a certain author named Patrick Ness, who is the king of cliffhangers. The Ask and the Answer ended, again, with everything still on the line and a new plot twist. I can’t help thinking: was he trying to kill us with suspense? But I can’t see it written differently. Ness’ signature chapter and ending cliffhangers reflect the entire tone of this series: furious pace, anything-can-happen, action-driven story arc for a futuristic people forced to settle a New World sans technology but with unknown alien natives and uttered thoughts called Noise.
It’s so hard to know what to say about this book. It’s an amazing ending to the series, and it is worthy of all those cliches… my heart was racing while I read it, it kept me guessing throughout the very last pages for what would happen to my beloved characters, there were more twists and turns then you could shake a stick at, and I was in tears at the very end. I’m going to do my best to keep this spoiler-free.

This book, like the previous two in the series, deals with weighty issues of love, loyalty, trust, communication, and information. But Ness also delves into relationships between parents and their children, leaders and followers, and the responsibilities associated with all of these roles. And then there’s the issue of redemption… can people go beyond the point of redemption?

The story focuses onto Todd and Viola, Mayor Prentiss and Mistress Coyle, and the Sky (leader of the Land – or Spackle as they are called by humans) and the Return (previously known to us as 1017). Outside of these main pairings, we have two settlers, Simone and Bradly, who are friends of Viola’s and control the scout ship we saw landing at the end of The Ask and the Answer. And we have the returning Mistresses, Wilf and Jane, Lee, and Angharrad and Acorn (yes, I included the horses, because I LOVE those horses). As in The Ask and the Answer, we can draw the comparisons between the Mayor and Mistress Coyle, seeing how they each use power and politics to try and seize control. But, while I thought they were far too similar in the last book, we see them strongly diverge here as they both realize that the war has changed from the one that they started.

The reader is constantly shifting in this book, from the perspective of Todd to Viola to 1017.
Monsters of Men is an epic novel of war told on a grand scale. The book begins immediately after the last one ends, with the beginning of a three sided conflict between the Answer, the Spackle, and Mayor Prentiss. Viola and Todd are stuck in the middle, and the action sucks the reader in straight from page one. The author does not flinch from showing the brutality of war and exploring questions of the morality surrounding it. The characters struggle with placing the good of the whole against the good of the one, and whether war can be or should be a personal thing. Mayor Prentiss says at one point that "War makes monsters of men….Well so does too much knowledge." On a planet of information, that makes for plenty of opportunity for men to behave badly and also to redeem themselves. These themes run throughout the story.

Perhaps my favorite part of this book was the portion told by Prisoner 1017. His experiences and his journey were portrayed so vividly that they added a new dimension to this story. His path to redemption told in counterpoint to the Mayor’s journey was telling and effective. Unfortunately, with all the things that this story had going for it, I walked away feeling rather disappointed. There was just nothing new here, aside from Prisoner 1017’s story. There were no character twists, and by about a third of the way into the novel, I felt like I was getting repeatedly hammered over the head by the points and themes described above. I felt frustrated that the author kept pounding the same points home time and time again, when I got it the first time. While the Mayor was quite the effective villain in the first two novels, I found him to be rather tedious in this one.
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