Remnants (novel series)

The following books are in the series:[1]

1. The Mayflower Project (July 2001)
2. Destination Unknown (September 2001)
3. Them (November 2001)
4. Nowhere Land (January 2002)
5. Mutation (March 2002)
6. Breakdown (May 2002)
7. Isolation (July 2002)
8. Mother, May I? (September 2002)
9. No Place Like Home (November 2002)
10. Lost and Found (January 2003)
11. Dream Storm (March 2003)
12. Aftermath (May 2003)
13. Survival (July 2003)
14. Begin Again (September 2003)

• The Mayflower Project: At the start of the first book, Jobs learns of a seventy-six mile long asteroid on a collision course with Earth. His parents then tell him of a project of eighty people being shipped off into a shuttle with solar sails and hibernation booths. Jobs, along with his best friend Mo'Steel, attempt to give a place to Jobs's crush Cordelia, but learn from her father that she's away in San Francisco. Cordelia later dies when a small piece of the asteroid breaks off and destroys San Francisco. Jobs, Mo'Steel and their parents all get shipped off to the Mayflower along with the rest of the eighty, who are being pursued by a mob who wants to destroy the Mayflower, as well a pair of brothers named Mark and Harlin "D-Caf" Melman, the former of which intends to kill the Mayflower's crew to give him and his brother places on the Mayflower. Shortly before boarding the Mayflower, a gunman kills one of the eighty and the Mayflower takes off with Mark and D-Caf, who have stowed away in spaces suits, and unbeknownst to anyone, a pregnant marine sergeant, Tamara Hoyle. Mark attacks Tamara, but is ultimately killed by her. Jobs hears the commotion and subdues D-Caf, but not before D-Caf accidentally shoots one of the pilots. The Mayflower commander, Colonel Willett realizes that a solar sail has been damaged. While he places Tamara and D-Caf into hibernation booths, Jobs revives Mo'Steel, and the pair of them repair the sail moments before the asteroid hits Earth. The book ends with Jobs and Mo'Steel returning to their berths, but Colonel Willett takes Mark's gun and shoots himself, and everyone falls asleep, all except for an orphan boy named Billy Weir.
• Destination Unknown: Jobs wakes up from hibernation, along with Mo'Steel and a girl named 2Face, and the three of them discover that not everyone has survived, including both Jobs's parents, Mo'Steel's dad and 2Face's mom. Slowly but surely other members of the eighty wake up, including Billy, a girl named Violet Blake and her mother Wylson, the president's son Yago, Mo'Steel's mother, 2Face's dad Shy Hwang, Jobs's brother Edward and others. They soon realize that there's no sign of reentry damage, their environment looks like two famous paintings and two of the "wakers" are killed; Connie Huerta by Tamara's baby and Errol Smith at the hands of a hover-board-riding alien later named Riders. Other members of the eighty emerge, including, D-Caf, a boy named Rodger Dodger, a boy named Anamull, a girl named Tate a man named Burroway. Two others include T.R. and Big Bill Weir, Billy's adopted father. The Remnants learn that Big Bill is infested with worms. When Violet attempts to save him, one worm gets in her finger, prompting Jobs to cut off her finger and Wylson to abandon her; Big Bill is also killed by Billy, who then blacks out. Jobs, Mo'Steel and his mother, Olga stay with Violet and witness another group of aliens entering the environment, which Jobs now realizes is a colossal ship.
• Them: While Jobs's group stays with Violet, the main group of Remnants have found a replica of the Tower of Babel and are attacked by a group of Riders. Tamara battles one of the Riders and strangely manages to kill it. When Wylson remarks on it, Tamara replies, "Everything dies, human." Meanwhile, Jobs and the others get frequently attacked by strange demons that Violet identifies as Bosch's Final Judgement. Along the way, they encounter one of the aliens they saw entering the ship; Mo'Steel had called them Blue Meanies. They attempt to communicate with the Meanie with difficulty, but with help from Billy, they manage to get out of him that his name is Four Sacred Streams and that Mother is confused, which Jobs assumes is the Ship, and that a node must be destroyed, which is creating the environments. Back with the others, 2Face attempts to leave with Edward, having been discriminated by Yago as a freak. She returns to the others and gets attacked by the other Remnants, who decided to feed 2Face to Tamara's baby in order for Tamara to protect them from the Riders, so 2Face bribes Yago so that Wylson will be sacrificed. But the baby doesn't get to eat anyone when Four Sacred Streams destroys the node at the cost of his own life, saving the lives of Jobs's group, but trapping the other Remnants in Mother's default setting, the Riders' home territory.
• Nowhere Land: Jobs and his group reunite with their fellow Remnants, who have barely escaped an attack from the Riders. They find a large creature, that they call a Blimp, swimming through the new environment, a copper colored sea with small islands dotted around it. Using a Rider boomerang provided by D-Caf, Mo'Steel manages to get a hold on the Blimp and help the other Remnants onto the Blimp. Wylson then berates Yago in his attempt to sacrifice her to Tamara's baby and attempts to replace him with Jobs as her new representative for the younger Remnants. 2Face intervenes, claiming that survival is more important. The following day, they're attacked by the Riders again. Billy tries to keep the Blimp moving and several of the Remnants are lucky enough to kill some of the Riders, but they just keep coming. The Remnants hide inside the Blimp itself and escape the Riders but shortly after they leave, the Blimp dies. They swim to one of the islands and spot another one of Mother's replicas, the U.S.S. Constitution, which they commandeer. Later on, they spot a statue infested with Blue Meanies, who are battling squid-like creatures. Having heard of Four Sacred Streams from Jobs, the Remnants attempt to make the Meanies their allies by firing the Constitution's cannons at the statue. Instead, the Blue Meanies angrily return fire on the Remnants, killing Shy Hwang. In the confusion as the Remnants go below decks, Billy is thrown overboard by Tamara and Wylson is also thrown off by a massive wave. Mo'Steel notices the commotion and attempts to save them. Billy manages to take them to safety, but Wylson has drowned. The other Remnants meanwhile are now surrounded by Blue Meanies, completely defenseless.
• Mutation: Mo'Steel and Billy encounter two of the Remnants that they accidentally left behind when they encountered the worms, Alberto Disalvo and his son Kurbick, who has had his skin and nerves surgically removed by Mother. They group together and find a chair linked to Mother, which Alberto sits in, resulting with his mind being scrambled. Meanwhile, the Blue Meanies, who had surrounded the Remnants in the previous book, retreat when Mother creates three ships to attack them and end up attacking the U.S.S. Constitution. The Remnants are saved when Mo'Steel is made a giant by Billy and destroys the ships. Billy then decides to sit the chair and the Remnants find themselves in a new environment, Billy's thoughts. Mo'Steel, Alberto and Kubrick meet up with the rest of the Remnants in a McDonald's, where they are attacked by an army of female warriors, presumably from a comic book Billy read as a kid. They barely manage to escape when they're attacked by Riders and Squids in a replica of Billy's old school. They escape again when the environment changes to Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks". Here they meet an image of Big Bill, created by Billy to communicate with the other Remnants while he interfaces with Mother, who is experiencing sadness from being abandoned by her creators, the Shipwrights; Mother had mutated Kubrick to look more like the Shipwrights.
• Breakdown: Two other Remnants, Noyze and Doctor Cohen have been captured from the Blue Meanies, who are deciding what to do about the humans. Unbeknownst to them, Noyze, who had been deaf for part of her life, understands the sign language of the Meanies. Meanwhile, Mother offers the other Remnants to help her destroy the Blue Meanies, to which Yago willingly volunteers for. He then ends up in one of the chairs and the environment changes to an alternate version of the White House, where Mother provides Yago with a computer generated army from the Civil War. While Jobs, Violet and 2Face follow Yago to the Blue Meanie base, Mo'Steel and Kubrick meet up with Billy an find Yago in one of the chairs linked to Mother. Meanwhile, Yago's strike force is decimated by the Blue Meanies and Jobs notices Tamara's baby absorb one of the Blue Meanies. Kubrick is then able to remove Yago from the chair and place his father into it, but Mother kills him and Billy sends himself, Mo'Steel and Kubrick to the battlefield. With the battle over, 2Face accuses Tamara's baby of being a Shipwright and divides the Remnants into factions to either follow her or the baby. Jobs, Mo'Steel, Violet, Kubrick, Noyze, Olga and Doctor Cohen join 2Face while the rest join the baby. The two groups depart, each with the same destination in mind, the bridge of Mother.
• Isolation: 2Face's group is heading for the bridge of Mother, but Tamara is taking a different course. Tamara meets with the Riders and participates in the Rule of Nine, where she must duel nine Riders to the death at once. Tamara kills the first eight and kills the last one with some slight intervention by Tate. Tamara gains control of the Riders to destroy the Blue Meanies in the baby's name and gain control of Mother. Tate returns to the others and reports her findings to the other Remnants; Tate had come with Yago's group only to protect Tamara, realizing that the baby was controlling her. She then decides to alert Jobs and 2Face of the danger. Along with Rodger Dodger and D-Caf, who decided he wanted a break from Yago, they steal some Rider hover-boards and alert the other Remnants, who have just avoided an attack from Squids, which Billy had indicated were automatons. Tamara arrives with the Riders and attack the Blue Meanies, who have gathered at the bridge. During the battle, the baby absorbs several dead Blue Meanies and takes on the true form of a Shipwright and ascends to the bridge with Tamara, closely followed by Billy, Jobs, Mo'Steel, and Tate. Billy duels the Shipwright while at the same time uses his mind to have Mo'Steel duel Tamara. Ultimately, Billy destroys the Shipwright when Mother intervenes in his favor, freeing Tamara in the process. He then leaves the bridge with Jobs and Mo'Steel (Tate decided to stay with Tamara) and forcefully ends the battle, angering Yago, who vows to destroy Billy.
• Mother, May I?: Billy has enforced the Big Compromise, the aliens are to not attack the Remnants and in exchange the Remnants won't alter Mother's course. Three months later, while exploring Mother's lab, Jobs finds what he believes may be what's left of Earth. Knowing it will break the Big Compromise, he consults Billy, who says he can make Mother return to Earth if the Remnants so choose, and asks Jobs to search Mother's "basement", because Billy can't sense anything in there. While Jobs takes Mo'Steel, Kubrick, Tate, Anamull, Yago, and Tamara to the basement with him, some Blue Meanies attack Violet in her Greek villa and interrogate her about Yago's whereabouts, claiming that he'd been given a custom Blue Meanie weapon and deviating their fellows into turning against them, which attracts 2Face, Edward, and T.R. A small fight commences in which one of the Blue Meanies kills T.R. in an attempt to kill Edward. Violet, infuriated by this senseless act, changes her mind on her opposition of returning to Earth. Meanwhile, Jobs's and his group are attacked by other Blue Meanies searching for Yago. Some are killed by Yago's new weapon but the last one is absorbed by Amelia, one of the missing eighty that vanished from their berths on the Mayflower. She instructs Jobs to tell Billy not to alter Mother's course. However, Billy alters Mother's course before he and the others can deliver the message.
• No Place Like Home: The Remnants are preparing for an inevitable battle with the Blue Meanies, and possibly the Riders. To protect them, Billy constructs a massive wall that only the Remnants can open from the inside. Noyze proposes attempting to negotiate with the aliens but 2Face argues against it. Yago meanwhile, is recruiting Blue Meanies who tell him that their brethren are preparing for a raid to test the Remnants' defenses. But late one night, Noyze and Doctor Cohen sneak out to attempt to negotiate with the aliens. They encounter a Blue Meanie that knocks them out and places a device onto Doctor Cohen that allows it to see into her memories and gather all the information it needs for its fellows to attack the Remnants; the device also badly damages Doctor Cohen's mind. Meanwhile, a man named Charlie is spotted and brought into the Remnants' territory. Olga and Violet restore him to health and Noyze returns with Doctor Cohen. The next day, the Remnants hold their own against a Rider attack but their defenses are decimated by the Blue Meanies. In the battle, it's revealed that Charlie is one of Amelia's two partners sent to kill Billy. He ends up attacking 2Face instead, causing an infuriated Kubrick to attack him. D-Caf is also killed in battle but Violet uses her newly revealed mutation to bring him back to life; she had the power to turn into a swarm of worms ever since waking up and had used it earlier to bring Rodger Dodger back to life after he accidentally killed himself playing with a Rider boomerang. When asked if she's still human, she replies, "Are any of us?"
• Lost and Found: Kubrick and Doctor Cohen are listed as dead at the start of this book and Charlie has returned to Amelia and his other partner, Duncan. Grieved by Kubrick's death, 2Face decides she wants Violet's mutation so she can help her fellow Remnants. When Violet refuses, 2Face deliberately kills herself so Violet will give her the mutation; Violet refused because she had failed to save Tamara after she'd been killed by the Blue Meanies. Tate discovers she has a mutation as well when she spots Yago breaking curfew and her mouth grows big and bites him; Yago is saved only by intervention from Jobs. They arrive on Earth and find that it's nothing but a wasteland with no water and pillars of flames, one of which kills Burroway. Yago meets with the Troika (the name Billy gave Amelia's group) and makes a deal with them to abandon Billy on Earth and leave on Mother with him. He then sends his last Blue Meanie to spy on Jobs. The next morning, Jobs finds his newly planted tomato seed sprouting. As all the Remnants and Billy all gather around it, Yago takes off on Mother with the Troika, and unintentionally, Tate. The Remnants are left on the barren Earth along with four Blue Meanies and a pair of Riders. And unbeknownst to anyone, a girl named Echo has observed everything from an unnoticed view deck.
• Dream Storm: Having been abandoned on Earth by Yago and the Troika, Anamull starts a fight with the Blue Meanies and Riders, killing two of the Meanies and prompting the other aliens to retreat. Billy, now disconnected from Mother, falls into a coma. Echo is now formally introduced as being an Alpha, part of a human colony who survived the Rock, who strongly believe in genetic perfection and decided to allow the Remnants to die. Another group, known as the Marauders, live out in the wild and their leader, Hawk, kills the Alpha leader, Woody, and forcefully takes more than the Marauders' fair share of food. Meanwhile, Jobs and Mo'Steel take the suits from the dead Blue Meanies to explore the area. While they're away, D-Caf accidentally eats Anamull when he loses control of the worms in his body. Jobs and Mo'Steel also get caught in a violent storm that makes them see things that can't possibly be real; Jobs sees San Francisco and Mo'Steel sees his grandmother making bread. They return to the others and Edward reports that he'd seen some people nearby, who are some of the Marauders. Edward leads the Remnants to where he spotted them, and they stumble into the Alphas' home where Hawk and some of the Marauders attack them. Mo'Steel kills Hawk with a Rider boomerang he and the other Remnants are taken to separate rooms. Mo'Steel wakes up and a Marauder woman named Aga says he is the new leader of the Marauders. When Mo'Steel asks to see the others, he finds that Billy is missing from the group.
• Aftermath: Mo'Steel must now prove himself worthy of being leader of the Marauders by killing a Beast. He, along with the Remnants and Marauders, depart from the Alpha colony. Hawk's brother, Newton, is angry that Mo'Steel become leader as he had intended to become leader himself; he then plots the best ways to usurp Mo'Steel. During the journey, Mo'Steel learns that some of the Marauders are mutated humans rejected by the Alphas. Some of them, like Badger and Cocker, are decent people, and Olga befriends Aga. The Marauders also have a shaman among them named Sanchez, to whom Violet is attracted to. If any person created by the Alphas had any sort of disability, they were rejected and sent to live with the Marauders. They soon arrive in the "Twilight Zone" of Earth and the Marauders warn the Remnants of the Slizzers, which turn out to be mutated cockroaches, one of which steals and devours the child Tackie. Newton makes several attempts to take revenge on Mo'Steel. First he has Rattler attack Olga, but is killed by Mo'Steel. 2Face also sees the Marauders passing around a bag full of pellets and warns the others not to eat them. But when Mo'Steel refuses to marry Grost, Newton has Balder attempt to poison D-Caf, but Aga helps him recover. They now arrive at the lair of the Beasts, where Mo'Steel learns are mutated rats. Mo'Steel kills the leader as instructed and Newton attempts to kill him but is foiled by Edward. No sooner does Mo'Steel berate Newton, then they're all attacked by Savagers, a group of Marauders who turned against their fellows, and have allied themselves with the two Riders.
• Survival: While the rest of the Remnants are trapped on Earth, Tate is trapped on Mother with Yago and the Troika. After gathering all the Blue Meanies and Riders for the Troika to devour, Yago attempts to feed Tate to the Troika. But Tate's new mutation, the Mouth, overcomes her and she eats Yago, whose consciousness is still alive in Tate's mind. Tate then falls asleep and sees a vision of the earth green again and even saw someone she knew to be Jobs's daughter. She then wakes up and finds one of the chairs interfaced with Mother and sits in it. She learns that Mother is feeling terrible pain because Billy is no longer with her and displays feelings to Tate by taking memories out of Tate's own mind. The Troika now emerge from cocoons and Amelia deliberately gets eaten by Tate while Duncan plants a virus into Mother, reducing her to a simple computer called Daughter. Tate also eats Charlie and has dreams of Billy merging with Mother on Earth people living on a green Earth. She along with Yago, Amelia and Charlie take control of Daughter and use her to launch Duncan into the vacuum of space. Charlie later takes over Tate's body but is killed when Tate, Yago and Amelia drive him insane and causes him to fade away. Tate, Yago and Amelia spend sixty years of peace traveling the stars trying to find new forms of life. When Yago requests to Tate that they return to Earth, Tate refuses, unwilling to return to what's left of Earth. Tate wakes up the next day and learns from Amelia that Yago has died of old age. Feeling responsible for Yago, Tate and Amelia come up with a plan to undo the damage of the Rock. Traveling through time and space Tate orders a rehabilitated Mother to crash into Asia where the Remnants originally landed, killing her and Amelia on impact.
• Begin Again: The Remnants and Marauders emerge victorious against the Savagers, killing the two Riders and sustaining no casualties of their own. After the battle, Sanchez informs them that he can hear the Source calling to them. Mo'Steel sends Cocker to the Alpha colony but they refuse to come. Echo, who had volunteered some of DNA to make a new human is found out to be blind, and so the Alphas imprison Echo and her baby intending to leave them to die. Lyric, Mattock and Echo's mentor, Westie help Echo and her baby escape but Westie chooses to stay in the colony and instructs the others to leave her. They meet Cocker who takes them to the source with the others. The source is none other than Mother. Jobs, Mo'Steel, Violet, 2Face, Mattock, Newton and Sanchez enter Mother and find Tate's skeleton and a recording she took before crashing on Earth telling the Remnants that all they need is love and to listen to Billy, who has merged with Mother. Sanchez then has a vision of a green Earth. They return from Mother and inform the others. Newton doesn't believe that this green world is possible and intends to keep it from coming to pass. Sanchez stays inside Mother and learns from Billy that three elements are needed for a ritual to make Earth green, Mother, the Five, who were the other missing five besides the Troika, and Echo's child, who Jobs had named Lumina. Newton attempts to steal Lumina, but is foiled by the Remnants, prompting him to flee. 2Face, convinced that Billy is setting them up to fail attempts to kill Billy, resulting with Billy killing her but giving her a vision of her mother to die peacefully. Echo then willingly agrees to risk her baby's life and gives her to Billy. In the epilogue, the ritual has succeeded but 2Face's attack made Billy unable to survive the regreening. Jobs has married Echo and have named their next daughter after Tate, Mo'steel has married Noyze, who have one child and another on the way, Mattock and Lyric have married and Violet marries Sanchez. They have searched for the Alphas with no luck and there's no sign of Newton. At last, the survivors have peace.

• Although there are numerous references to "The Ancient Enemy", it is never specified what The Ancient Enemy is: a being, a place, or something else. Several points of evidence (including Te identifying him as such) point to Billy as being The Ancient Enemy. However, at one point the Troika chant "We are The Ancient Enemy". Furthermore, it is not known who or what The Ancient Enemy is the enemy of.
• The sources of the various mutations are not known. Most are described as being a result of exposure to radiation; however, even some of the characters note that this is not an adequate explanation: some are subtle, while some are extreme (compare the Troika to a lesser mutation like Edward's chameleon-like power to change the color of his skin). Some only become apparent after a time: Tate's mutation "The Mouth" is only discovered over halfway through the series. Certain characters seem to have unusual traits unrelated to the others. Examples include Kubrick, whose see-through skin is caused by Mother, and Billy, whose strange abilities (also unexplained) existed before the main events of the stories.
• The bodies of all the corpses of the Mayflower passengers vanish without explanation. Eight "Missings" are unaccounted for. Three become the Troika, and the others, called "The Missing Five" are later revealed to be, somehow, alive within Billy.
• Although the Moon, or any of the three parts it breaks into never impact Earth (Jobs and Mo watch the devastation unfold from orbit after manually releasing the Mayflower's solar sails), the Earth that the Remnants return to has the Moon embedded in its side.
• The book series has a few references to The Beatles, with one book being called Nowhere Land, a reference to The Beatles' song "Nowhere Man", and the villains of The Beatles film Yellow Submarine are called Blue Meanies.
• There is an explicit reference to the Grateful Dead in the series. In the book Begin Again, after Mo'Steel hears Tate's audio log, he remarks to Jobs, "What a long strange trip it's been," which is a famous line from the Dead's song "Truckin'".
• In the summary for Nowhere Land, the Remnants are described finding a power node, a green cone buzzing with electricity, when in fact this does not happen in the book.
• Although it is hinted at in No Place Like Home, the origin of the fire that burned 2Face is never revealed.
• In Lost and Found, both Rodger Dodger and D-Caf tell of having strange nightmares while being dead, but neither of their nightmares are ever revealed.
• In The Mayflower Project, it is described that those who enter the hibernation bays must swallow the end of a long tube that goes down their throat and put a plastic mask over their faces in order for the hibernation technology to function. These apparatuses are not mentioned, however, when the survivors are waking up in Destination Unknown.

• Simulated reality

• Remnants at Scholastic
• "Twelve-Minutes Book Delivery" at Wired News
• "Kids Ask the Darnedest Things" at Wired News