The Host (novel)

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The Host
Front cover of The Host
Author	Stephenie Meyer
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science Fiction, Romance
Publisher	Little, Brown & Company (Adult)
Publication date	May 6, 2008
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	619
ISBN	ISBN 0-316-16017-2

The Host is a science fiction/romance novel by Stephenie Meyer, the author of the Twilight series. The Host introduces an alien race called "souls" who take over Earth and its inhabitants, and describes one soul's predicament when her host body refuses to cooperate with her takeover.

The Host was released on May 6, 2008.^[1] However, an international version of the novel was released on April 2, 2008 in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, and Hong Kong by the UK publishing division.^[2] The prologue and the fourth chapter of the book can be found on Meyer's official website.^[3]

Contents 1 Background 2 Plot summary 3 References to other works 4 Sequels 5 Reception 6 References

[edit] Background

Before writing The Host, Stephenie Meyer had published three books: Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse, the first three books in the Twilight series.

The idea for this book originated on a trip from Phoenix to Salt Lake City. Bored, Meyer made up stories to entertain herself, and was halfway through outlining the story of The Host in her head before realizing what she had created. She notes that the story grabbed her attention, and that she "could tell there was something compelling in the idea of such a complicated triangle." Originally meant to be a side project, The Host became a priority. ^[4]

[edit] Plot summary

Melanie Stryder is one of few "wild" humans - rebels who avoid the alien souls that have taken over the Earth. With her younger brother Jamie and the man she loves, Jared Howe, Mel is on the run from Seekers - souls whose Calling is to hunt down host bodies for use. When she is finally captured, Mel is certain that it is the end.

Souls are creatures that rely upon host bodies to survive. Inserted into the back of the neck of their host bodies, the soul extends antennae throughout the body, erasing the mental presence of the being there before and establishing a claim over the body and mind.

Earth is Wanderer's ninth planet, and Mel is her ninth host body. Woken from her cryogenic sleep and given a new body, she is warned that the human body would be like no other creature she had inhabited before, for humans experienced much more passionate and vivid emotion than other beings. Shocked not only by the vividity of the emotions, the memories, and her new senses, Wanderer quickly learns that Melanie Stryder is not willing to give up her mind.

Wanderer is told to gain control of her body, and to tell her Seeker the moment she discovers where the remaining resistors are hiding. Probing Melanie's mind, she finds only pictures, memories, and emotions directed towards Jared and eventually Jamie, Mel's younger brother. Bombarded with memories and her host body's yearning for them, Wanderer finds herself in love with the human beings, and finds herself desperate to see if they've still survived. On a road trip to Tuscon, Melanie remembers her Uncle Jeb telling her about a secret hideaway he made, just in case, triggered by the sight of Picacho Peak.

Wanderer sets out to find the hideaway, and is found half-dead with exhaustion by Jeb. She is taken back to the caves in which the rebel cell lives, and deemed to belong to Jared. However, she is treated spitefully, as it is believed that Mel is no longer present, and that Wanderer is merely a "parasite" in her body. Kyle and Ian O'Shea, two brothers, attempt to kill Wanderer, but are stopped by Jeb. Given time, Jared and some of the men go on a raid, during which time Wanderer becomes a part of the routine by working, eating, and becoming an unofficial history teacher after evening meals; some even grow to believe that Mel is truly present. During this time, Ian befriends Wanda, as she is now known.

When the men return they are enraged at Wanda's almost-acceptance and Jared demands that, because she belongs to him, he has the right to demand her death. However, it is decided that Jamie has as much claim to Wanda and Mel's body as Jared does, and her death is avoided. Jared slowly becomes more accepting of Wanda, and kisses her to test if Mel is still present. Wanda, overwhelmed, succumbs control of the body for a moment to an enraged Melanie, who punches Jared. Meanwhile, Ian begins to fall in love with Wanda, who is confused. She feels love for Jared, and Mel hates Ian for trying to touch or kiss her body. Insisting that he is only in love with her body, not Wanda the soul, Wanda rejects him.

When Jamie returns from a raid with an infected cut to the leg, Wanda and Jared sneak out to a hospital and inflict wounds to her face and arms and sending her to the hospital to be fixed. While the doctor is out, she steals supplies to bring back to Jamie and the rest. This is where it is discovered that Wanda can be of use to them as a raider because she can raid in plain sight, trusted by other souls as a recognizable soul.

Back from a raid with Jared, Ian, and Kyle, Wanda discovers that one of the rebels has been killed and a soul taken prisoner: her Seeker. Upon talking to her, and talking to Doc, Wanda decides to reveal her biggest secret: how to take out a soul without killing either the human of the soul, a procedure the Doc has been attempting unsuccesfully to learn on his own but stopped when Wanda discovered it. She promises to teach Doc under two conditions. First, he promises to send the souls to new planets by bringing them to the loading docks behind hospitals. Second, he promises to remove Wanda's soul from Melanie's body, and kill Wanda, who does not want to be a parasite any longer. She and Jared go to a nearby town's hospital and steal cryogenic tanks for the souls, as well as more healing supplies, and return to the hideout and remove the Seeker's soul. This done, they practice removing several other souls, learning that in order for the human host to be saved mentally, the body must have spent more time as a wild human than as as a host-body. They discover this when Kyle, Ian's brother, leaves the caves and goes to find his alien-inhabited girlfriend, Jodi. Sunny is the soul that has been inhabiting Jodi's body. They eventually extract Sunny.

Wanda sneaks away from Ian in the night so that he doesn't try to stop her, and has Doc remove her from Melanie's body. Later, however, she awakens in a new one, when it is revealed that none of them wished for her to leave. Some of the men, Jamie and Jared included, but not Ian, left to find her a new body, choosing a girl whose body could not be woken after the soul was taken out, and implanting Wanda into it. Ian stayed behind with Wanda's cryogenically frozen soul-body, marvelling in her beauty and refusing to have a part in choosing a new body for her because he didn't care what she would look like. Upon awakening, Wanda learns that Jodi's mind has not returned to her body. When it looked like Jodi's body was going to die, Kyle had them put Sunny back.

The book ends with the rebels, when on a raid with Wanda, discovering another rebel group who also have a soul amongst them. This discovery shows that Humanity may still have some hope.

[edit] References to other works

True to her other books, Meyer's book The Host includes a poem at the beginning of the novel. Her most recent selection is titled Question, by May Swenson, and ties into the idea of the mind's reliance on the existence of the body, just as Melanie experiences when inhabited by Wanderer.

[edit] Sequels

Stephenie Meyer does plan to release a sequel to The Host, and notes that it is "almost done".^[5] She stated in an interview that the first sequel would be entitled The Soul and the second The Seeker.^[6]

[edit] Reception

The Host was named one of the 'Best Books of May' by Amazon.com, and also received praise about its ending saying, "Readers... will gleefully note that the story's end leaves the door open for a sequel--or another series."^[7]

The Host was also named a #1 New York Times Bestseller. ^[8]

[edit] References