“Maximum Ride: The Angel Experience” by James Patterson

While this was good, I guess I expected it to be better. With the huge popularity the series has, I was a tad underwhelmed. Part of it was that the tale is hugely derivative. I guess it proves the old adage that there are no new stories, just new ways of telling them. The voice of Max is engaging, sardonic, and surprisingly real. Which is what saves the book, in my opinion. My problem with the book has to do with the similarity it has to the “Dark Angel” TV series, which pre-dated it by almost seven years. Take this description for instance: Named Max, she was a tough teenage girl with long brown hair. She was a mutant, created for unknown reasons by a secret organization that raised children in antiseptic, clinical settings. She knows how to kick butt, and works hard to keep her “family” of mutant kids together after they escape the facility. Secretly, they dream of a place called home, where parents love them and no one chases them down to put them in cages. This could be the description for this book but it is almost the verbatim description of the TV show. There are differences – Max from Dark Angel has feline DNA, in this story, Max has avian DNA. The parallels, however, are striking – right down the father-figure who may or may not be evil and a mysterious prediction that “Max” (in both series) will save the world. With imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, the “borrowing” continues with scenes that reminded me of X-Men and the 1980s TV show, “Beauty and the Beast.” The book itself moves quickly, with short chapters careening through a never-ending chase. The violence is frequent and detailed. I would not recommend this for sensitive readers. One final complaint – most of the chapters are told in first-person narrative from the point-of-view of Max. When she cannot be present, the story switches to third-party narrative, except in two small chapters with a character named “Angel.” The inconsistency is a little jarring. Other than “all that”, the characters are interesting and the cliff-hanger ending does make me want to continue reading. That is a good thing. As the crew goes after the mysterious compound in book two (a major plot-line at the end of season one of Dark Angel) I hope I can see something original emerging.