Lost: Signs of Life – Frank Thompson

Rating: 4/5

Lost References:

Again, this book took place during the first season of Lost, though it didn’t include the crash like the others did. This one includes the motifs of art, dreams/visions, and ghosts.

Thoughts:

I liked that it actually added to the Island mysteries, as opposed to Endangered Species, which was basically about a jungle adventure. I liked that, unlike the other two books, it actually incorporated the show characters into the actual plot instead of using them as props to frame the scene and convince us we were in Lost. However, it does miss out on the use of original secondary characters on the Island, which Hapka’s works at least tried to do. Besides that, it annoyed me that Jeff spent half his flashback time sleeping around, which I consider especially wasted space because he’s otherwise the most developed and realistic of the three books’ main characters. The most obvious flaw in the book, though, is its serious need for editing. There were many technical errors, like referring Jeff as Jack within the book and Nick on the back cover blurb, of all places. There were times when the author did things like suddenly jump between character perspectives or break from the Island-flashback-Island chapter structure. Then there was the ending. Just like the Return of the King movie, this book suffered from several false endings after the climax. All in all, this book had more promise than the other two character-wise and plot-wise, but it comes across as a very unfinished product.

Lost: Secret Identity – Cathy Hapka

Rating: 3/5

Lost References:

Like the first novella in the series, it’s set in the Lost-universe just after the crash.

Thoughts:

This one is pretty on par with Endangered Species, and again, the author tackles a common Lost theme: secret identities, obviously. Out of curiosity, I did some research on the author and found that she’s written a bunch of books – some of them tie-ins for companies like Disney and Lego, essentially professional fan-fiction. That really is what you get when reading Secret Identity and Endangered Species: good fan-fiction, no more and no less. You can tell the author is in love with all the existing characters, but it does mean that in both books, original characters apart from the main one don’t get much development. But no one reads these things for the literary value, right? Just enjoy them for what they are.

Lost: Endangered Species – Cathy Hapka

Rating: 3/5

Lost References:

This semi-canonical novella is set on the Island immediately following the Oceanic crash (except for the flashbacks, of course).

Thoughts:

The writing seemed amateurish, especially in the unnatural dialogue. However, it did move along at a good pace, and it handled some of the themes that readers would expect in Lost, if in a heavy-handed way. (The main character’s name is Faith, she struggles with self-confidence, she has a secretly violent past, etc. It is also formatted so that the 23 chapters alternate between Faith’s present and her flashbacks.) The big upshot for this book was that it did, in fact, focus on someone other than a member of the show’s main cast. It makes sense, considering how many people were on that flight, and I’m glad those responsible for these tie-in books decided to take that route. So, don’t expect anything deep, but your average Lost fan would probably get some enjoyment out of the experience.

Bad Twin – Gary Troup/Laurence Shames

Rating: 2/5

Lost References:

Hurley finds the manuscript for this fictional book. Sawyer is seen reading it before Jack throws it into the fire. An actual Bad Twin book was then created as a Lost tie-in, supposedly by a man named Gary Troup who was on the Oceanic flight and sucked into the plane’s jet engine in the pilot episode, the first person seen to die on the show. (The real life ghostwriter is a man named Laurence Shames.) The book is absolutely stuffed with Lost references. You can find a full list on this Lostpedia page of the various shared characters, places, and other concepts. The name Gary Troup itself is an anagram for “purgatory,” an important Lost theme. He dedicates the book to Oceanic flight attendant Cindy Chandler, and his publishing company is Walkabout Publishing. And so on.

Thoughts:

The book was horribly and predictably written. The only people who need to read it are Lost fans.