Hoy día 26 de Julio se pone a la venta en Estados Unidos (solo por eBook) el libro "I am Number Four: The Lost Files: Six's Legacy" centrado en Número Seis y, concretamente, en lo vivido por el personaje antes de encontrar a John (Número Cuatro) en Paradaise.
Estaremos atentos ante cualquier filtración del libro (que supongo que será en Inglés) y la secuela "The Power of Six" recordemos que se pondrá a la venta en Estados Unidos el 23 de Agosto. Mientras esperamos noticias sobre posibles publicaciones de ambos libros en nuestro país MTV nos trae el primer capítulo de "The Lost Files: Six's Legacy"
CHAPTER ONE
Katarina says there is more than one way to hide.
Before we came down here to Mexico, we lived in a suburb of Denver. My name then was Sheila, a name I hate even more than my current name, Kelly. We lived there for two years, and I wore barrettes in my hair and pink rubber bracelets on my wrists, like all the other girls at my school. I had sleepovers with some of them, the girls I called “my friends.” I went to school during the school year, and in the summer I went to a swimmers’ camp at the YMCA. I liked my friends and the life we had there okay, but I had already been moved around by my Cêpan Katarina enough to know that it wasn’t going to be permanent. I knew it wasn’t my real life.
My real life took place in our basement, where Katarina and I did combat training. By day, it was an ordinary suburban rec room, with a big comfy couch and a TV in one corner and a Ping-Pong table in the other. By night, it was a well-stocked combat training gym, with hanging bags, floor mats, weapons, and even a makeshift pommel horse.
In public, Katarina played the part of my mother, claiming that her “husband” and my “father” had been killed in a car accident when I was an infant. Our names, our lives, our stories were all fictions, identities for me and Katarina to hide behind. But those identities allowed us to live out in the open. Acting normal.
Blending in: that was one way of hiding.
But we slipped up. To this day I can remember our conversation as we drove away from Denver, headed to Mexico for no other reason than we’d never been there, both of us trying to figure out how exactly we’d blown our cover. Something I said to my friend Eliza had contradicted something Katarina had said to Eliza’s mother. Before Denver we’d lived in Nova Scotia for a cold, cold winter, but as I remembered it, our story, the lie we’d agreed to tell, was that we’d lived in Boston before Denver. Katarina remembered differently, and claimed Tallahassee as our previous home. Then Eliza told her mother and that’s when people started to get suspicious.
It was hardly a calamitous exposure. We had no immediate reason to believe our slip would raise the kind of suspicion that could attract the Mogadorians to our location. But our life had gone sour there, and Katarina figured we’d been there long enough as it was.
So we moved yet again.
---
The sun is bright and hard in Puerto Blanco, the air impossibly dry. Katarina and I make no attempt to blend in with the other residents, Mexican farmers and their children. Our only regular contact with the locals is our once-a-week trip into town to buy essentials at the small store. We are the only whites for many miles, and though we both speak good Spanish, there’s no confusing us for natives of the place. To our neighbors, we are the gringas, strange white recluses.
“Sometimes you can hide just as effectively by sticking out,” Katarina says.
She appears to be right. We have been here almost a year and we haven’t been bothered once. We lead a lonely but ordered life in a sprawling, single-level shack tucked between two big patches of farmland. We wake up with the sun, and before eating or showering Katarina has me run drills in the backyard: running up and down a small hill, doing calisthenics, and practicing tai chi. We take advantage of the two relatively cool hours of morning.
Morning drills are followed by a light breakfast, then three hours of studies: languages, world history, and whatever other subjects Katarina can dig up from the internet. She says her teaching method and subject matter are “eclectic.” I don’t know what that word means, but I’m just grateful for the variety. Katarina is a quiet, thoughtful woman, and though she’s the closest thing I have to a mother, she’s very different from me.
Studies are probably the highlight of her day. I prefer drills.
After studies it’s back out into the blazing sun, where the heat makes me dizzy enough that I can almost hallucinate my imagined enemies. I do battle with straw men: shooting them with arrows, stabbing them with knives, or simply pummeling them with my bare fists. But half-blind from the sun, I see them as Mogadorians, and I relish the chance to tear them to pieces. Katarina says even though I am only thirteen years old, I’m so agile and so strong I could easily take down even a well-trained adult.
One of the nice things about living in Puerto Blanco is that I don’t have to hide my skills. Back in Denver, whether swimming at the Y or just playing on the street, I always had to hold back, to keep myself from revealing the superior speed and strength that Katarina’s training regimen has resulted in. We keep to ourselves out here, away from the eyes of others, so I don’t have to hide.
Today is Sunday, so our afternoon drills are short, only an hour. I am shadowboxing with Katarina in the backyard, and I can feel her eagerness to quit: her moves are halfhearted, she’s squinting against the sun, and she looks tired. I love training and could go all day, but out of deference to her I suggest we call it a day.
“Oh, I suppose we could finish early,” she says. I grin privately, allowing her to think I’m the tired one. We go inside and Katarina pours us two tall glasses of agua fresca, our customary Sunday treat. The fan is blowing full force in our humble shack’s living room. Katarina boots up her various computers while I kick off my dirty, sweat-filled fighting boots and collapse to the floor. I stretch my arms to keep them from knotting up, then swing them to the bookshelf in the corner and pull out a tall stack of the board games we keep there. Risk, Stratego, Othello. Katarina has tried to interest me in games like Life and Monopoly, saying it wouldn’t hurt to be “well-rounded.” But those games never held my interest. Katarina got the hint, and now we only play combat and strategy games.
Risk is my favorite, and since we finished early today I think Katarina will agree to playing it even though it’s a longer game than the others.
“Risk?”
Katarina is at her desk chair, pivoting from one screen to the
next.
“Risk of what?” she asks absently.
I laugh, then shake the box near her head. She doesn’t look up from the screens, but the sound of all those pieces rattling around inside the box is enough for her to get it.
“Oh,” she says. “Sure.”
I set up the board. Without asking, I divvy up the armies into hers and mine, and begin placing them all across the game’s map. We’ve played this game so much I don’t need to ask her which countries she’d like to claim, or which territories she’d like to fortify. She always chooses the U.S. and Asia. I happily place her pieces on those territories, knowing that from my more easily defended territories I will quickly grow armies strong enough to crush hers.
I’m so absorbed in setting up the game I don’t even notice Katarina’s silence, her absorption. It is only when I crack my neck loudly and she neglects to scold me for it—“Please don’t,” she usually says, squeamish about the sound it makes—that I look up and see her, staring openmouthed at one of her monitors.
“Kat?” I ask.
She’s silent.
I get up from the floor, stepping across the game board to join her at her desk. It is only then that I see what has so completely captured her attention. A breaking news item about some kind of explosion on a bus in England.
I groan.
Katarina is always checking the internet and the news for mysterious deaths. Deaths that could be the work of the Mogadorians. Deaths that could mean the second member of the Garde has been defeated. She’s been doing it since we came to Earth, and I’ve grown frustrated with the doom-and-gloom of it.
Besides, it’s not like it did us any good the first time.
I was nine years old, living in Nova Scotia with Katarina. Our training room there was in the attic. Katarina had retired from training for the day, but I still had energy to burn, and was doing moores and spindles on the pommel horse alone when I suddenly felt a blast of scorching pain on my ankle. I lost my balance and came crashing down to the mat, clutching my ankle and screaming in pain.
My first scar. It meant that the Mogadorians had killed Number One, the first of the Garde. And for all of Katarina’s web scouring, it had caught us both completely unaware.
We waited on pins and needles for weeks after, expecting a second death and a second scar to follow in short order. But it didn’t come. I think Katarina is still coiled, anxious, ready to spring. But three years have passed—almost a quarter of my whole life—and it’s just not something I think about much.
I step between her and the monitor. “It’s Sunday. Game time.”
“Please, Kelly.” She says my most recent alias with a certain stiffness. I know I will always be Six to her. In my heart, too. These aliases I use are just shells, they’re not who I really am. I’m sure back on Lorien I had a name, a real name, not just a number. But that’s so far back, and I’ve had so many names since then, that I can’t remember what it was.
Six is my true name. Six is who I am.
Katarina bats me aside, eager to read more details.
We’ve lost so many game days to news alerts like this. And they never turn out to be anything. They’re just ordinary tragedies.
Earth, I’ve come to discover, has no shortage of tragedies.
“Nope. It’s just a bus crash. We’re playing a game.” I pull at her arms, eager for her to relax. She looks so tired and worried, I know she could use the break.
She holds firm. “It’s a bus explosion. And apparently,” she says, pulling away to read from the screen, “the conflict is ongoing.”
“The conflict always is,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Come on.”
She shakes her head, giving one of her frazzled laughs. “Okay,” she says. “Fine.”
Katarina pulls herself away from the monitors, sitting on the floor by the game. It takes all my strength not to lick my chops at her upcoming defeat: I always win at Risk.
I get down beside her, on my knees.
“You’re right, Kelly,” she says, allowing herself to grin. “I needn’t panic over every little thing—”
One of the monitors on Katarina’s desk lets out a sudden ding! One of her alerts. Her computers are programmed to scan for unusual news reports, blog posts, even notable shifts in global weather—all sifting for possible news of the Garde.
“Oh come on,” I say.
But Katarina is already off the floor and back at the desk, scrolling and clicking from link to link once again.
“Fine,” I say, annoyed. “But I’m showing no mercy when the game begins.”
Suddenly Katarina is silent, stopped cold by something she’s found.
I get up off the floor and step over the board, making my way to the monitor.
I look at the screen.
It is not, as I’d imagined, a news report from England. It is a simple, anonymous blog post. Just a few haunting, tantalizing words:
“Nine, now eight. Are the rest of you out there?”
La verdad es que no se si esto estaba planeado o ha tenido lugar tras ver cuanto ha gustado el personaje de Seis (tanto en el libro como en la película) pero el caso es que si el día 23 de Agosto se pondrá a la venta "The Power of Six" ahora se confirma que el día 26 de Julio se pondrá a la venta (en exclusiva por eBook) otro libro/precuela centrado en el personaje de Seis. A continuación la descripción del libro:
Número Seis_ Cuando John la conoce en Soy el Número Cuatro es fuerte, poderosa y está lista para luchar. ¿Pero quién es ella? ¿Dónde ha estado viviendo? ¿Cómo ha estado entrenando? ¿Cuándo obtuvo sus legados? ¿Y cómo sabe tanto sobre los Mogadorianos?
En I am Number Four: The Lost Files: Six's Legacy descubriremos la historia de Seis. Antes de Paradaise, Ohio, antes de John Smith, Seis estuvo viajando por Texas con su cêpan Katarina. Lo que pasó allí cambiaría a Seis para siempre...
De momento desconocemos si algún día llegará a España puesto que por ahora solo se pondrá a la venta por eBook. No creo que tarde mucho en filtrarse a internet tras el día 26 de Julio... los fans de Seis están de enhorabuena dado que vamos a saber la historia de este interesantísimo personaje.
En la página de la película en Imdb.com un usuario asegura que tiene una copia del libro. Por supuesto, es bastante improbable pero como las noticias no nos desbordan precisamente pues os pongo lo que según este usuario pasa en el libro. Siempre hay posibilidades de que sea verdad y en ese caso hay SPOILERS a montones, para parar un tren, quedais avisados:
This isn't about the movie but the book. I am not sure if a movie will come out but after reading the latest book, I would not be in the least bit surprised to see it made into a movie. It would fit perfectly as a sequel, it would require some recasting no doubt but I could see it happen.
I received a copy of the book , an ARC edition, through dumb luck. I read it in less than a day and have to say that I am still a little mixed on how I feel about it. So here is some information for those wondering what will happen.
It definatly now has a Twilight-esque vibe to it, it did before but it definatly exists now. I wish they hadn't gone this route, but I can understand why they did.
* It switches quite a bit between John, Number Seven and a little bit of Sarah Hart.
*John and co are leaving Ohio, John still struggling and coming to terms with leaving Sarah but convinced he had to for her protection. Unsure where to go, they hunt out some Mogadorians that Six was tracking. Legacacy's improve quite a bit and the more squads of Mog's they come across...the easier they can deal with. It went from struggling to fight them at the school to taking them out without a problem due to their developing powers. It is clear why the Mog's fear them, as fully developed a Garde is a lethal force. The only reason the Mog's took their planet was by using large beasts that the Loric's were unfamiliar with and were caught off guard...and by surprise attacking when the Elder's were not around.
* Marina, Number 7 is in Spain at a church with her Cepan. She wants to find the others and has been tracking what John has been doing ever since Ohio. Her Cepan however has lost his way and is a church devotee almost complelty forgetting about his Lorian heritage.
* Sarah is not dealing with things too well. She can't concentrate on school, is overly worried if John is safe, describes that the hardest part is that his next phonecall or letter might not come because he is dead, in addition to the government authorities questioning her constantly about John. She was outed as his boyfriend and was seen in a video with him using his powers. She has covered for him but it is wearing her down. Mark feels that she should come clean, because he can see the effect the stress is having on her. She is described as completly changed, her eyes open to the danger of the Mog's...while everyone around her lives their lives without a care in the world.
*More Legacy's, weapons and Lorian history is revealed, and more information about what the Loric's need to do to protect Earth. A fully developed Garde is a supreme fighting force on ones own...but together its a ridiculous force that could take down the Mog army if the fight was brought to them.
*The second ship is kind of explained. A tenth Garde was on it, with strong hints that it is the offspring of one of the elders...possibly Pitticus Lore.
*Information about Sam's dad is revealed. The movie went into more detail then the first book did which surprised me. It kind of proves that when they made the movie..they had an idea of where to go with things. His Dad turns out to be the one that helped Henri and John get situated when they first arrived. Still missing though.
*At one point, Six and Sam split from John. Six finds #7 and her Cepan. John comes across #9. 7 is female, 9 is male. 9 is older than the rest so his powers are more developed. He comes across as a pure badass. The movie over exaggerated Six's abilities compared to the book. The book describes 9 just as Six was in the movie. Its kind of cool.
*The romance part of the book is huge. It went from John and Sarah to now...a love...quadraplet? between John, Six, Sarah and Sam. Sam develops feelings for Six and feels he may have fallen for her. John still in love with Sarah but from working and being close to Six..they too become close. At one point Six kisses John but John isn't sure how to react. It seems to cause some tension between John and Sam.
*After finding 9, John sends him to meet up with Six and then heads back to Paradise, OH. He calls Sarah to ask if it is safe for him there, Sarah lies and says that nobody has questioned about him. She told him that the government had been looking for him in an earlier conversation but she covered for him. She wasn't sure if they were still around but told him they had moved on because she wanted to see him and was afraid he wouldn't come if she told him otherwise. They meet and share a passionate kiss which is led to look like it probably would of turned into...well something beyond kissing but ha...the military shows up and corners them. John feels he could of escaped but he would have to hurt innocent lives and possibly Sarah so he gives up and lets them take him. John is angry at Sarah and thinks that she turned him in, despite her pleading with him that she didn't.
*Six having met up with 7 and also with the 10th Loric child and what seems to be her watcher questions what to do now with John being caught.
So with the Romantic part, I felt it really has become almost like a Twilight clone. It is fairly obvious who the main character loves, but now there is another choice he is fond of. It almost was verbatim of the 2nd Twilight book. The girl was away from the one she loved, but from being around someone else who liked her...she grew fond of him as well. This happens in this book. John loves Sarah but is away from her. Six is around and has grown fond of John. John feels the same way and likes her but still feels loyal and in love with Sarah. I get why they did this, it adds appeal to the age group it is intended for. Plus it adds a conflict between the main characters. Also the Lorian love is explained more. Lorians only fall in love once, and it does not just apply to other Lorians. It can be to a human, an idea, a place or even a religion. This happens to Marina's Cepan, he has fallen in love with the church they are staying at.
About the other stuff, I found they did an excellent job explaining things that were left open in the first book. I wondered how the Lorians planned to fight an army of Mog's but with how well they develop how strong the Lorics...it isn't a mystery now. Throughout the book, I'd say close to 100 Mog's were taken out by John and co. Also they explained the chests each Lorian has and even opened some of them and we get to learn about what is in them. Henri's letter is read and explained, it talks about how Henri was there to hide and also as a favor to Sam's dad who asked him to find his son at some point. Henri went on to say that Paradise, OH was not by chance...everything that happened there...befriending Sam, falling in love with Sarah...was what had to happen and he was happy that they were able to stay there long enough for it to happen.
Overall it was pretty good. I wish they hadn't gone the route of a possible love quartet, I mean it is insanely predictable. There didn't seem to be much of a believable connection between Four and Six, but Sam's feelings were pretty believable. After the way they built up John and Sarah, it just seemed to lack the emotion those tow had.
Si esto es cierto... menudo follón de parejas que han formado, Sam con Seis pero Seis con Cuatro y Siete y Nueve por ahí en medio. A partir del 23 de Agosto sabremos si todo esto es verdad.
El lanzamiento de la película en DVD y Blu-Ray en Estados Unidos el pasado día 20 de Junio nos ha permitido conocer dos novedades. Por un lado la portada definitiva (para USA) del segundo libro "The Power of Six" (El Poder de Seis) y, además, el primer capítulo de dicho libro que como sabemos estará a la venta en Estados Unidos el próximo 23 de Agosto.
La traducción ha sido realizada por el blog Mas que Vampiros, EN EXCLUSIVA y como sorpresa lo han traducido por lo que miles de gracias y todos los créditos para ellas. A continuación la traducción del primer capítulo donde hay alguna sorpresa y algún rumor que se confirma:
EL PODER DEL SEIS – CAPÍTULO 1
Mi nombre es Marina, por el mar, pero no me he llamado así hasta mucho tiempo después. En un principio simplemente se me conocía como Siete, una de los nueve Guardianes supervivientes del planeta Lorien, cuyo destino estaba, y aún está, en nuestras manos.
En las de aquellos de nosotros que no hemos desaparecido. En las de aquellos de nosotros que aún seguimos con vida. Yo tenía seis años cuando aterrizamos, cuando nuestra nave vino a detenerse en la Tierra. Y a pesar de mi tierna edad ya sentía lo mucho que nos jugábamos, los nueve Cêpans y los nueve Guardias, y que nuestra única oportunidad estaba aquí. Entramos en la atmósfera del planeta en medio de una tormenta de nuestra propia creación, y recuerdo, en cuanto pusimos los pies en la Tierra por primera vez, las volutas de vapor que despedía la nave y cómo se me ponía la carne de gallina en los brazos. No me había dado el viento en un año, y allí fuera estábamos a bajo cero. Había alguien allí esperándonos. No sé quién era, sólo que entregó a cada Cêpan dos mudas de ropa y un gran sobre. Aún no sé qué era aquello.
Como grupo que éramos nos estrechamos entre nosotros, sabiendo que cabía la posibilidad de que no nos volviéramos a ver nunca más. Se pronunciaron palabras, nos dimos abrazos y luego nos separamos, como sabíamos que debíamos hacer, marchando en parejas en nueve direcciones diferentes. Seguí mirando hacia atrás por encima de mi hombro mientras los demás se alejaban en la distancia hasta que, muy lentamente, uno a uno, todos desaparecieron. Y luego sólo fuimos Adelina y yo, vagando solas por un mundo del que prácticamente no sabíamos nada. Ahora me doy cuenta de lo asustada que debió de sentirse Adelina.
Recuerdo que nos embarcamos con destino a algún lugar desconocido. Me acuerdo de dos o tres trenes diferentes después de aquello. Adelina y yo permanecimos juntas, acurrucándonos la una contra la otra en rincones oscuros, lejos de cualquiera que pudiera acercarse. Fuimos de población en población, por montañas y atravesando terreno abierto, llamando a puertas que se nos cerraban en la cara de inmediato. Teníamos hambre, estábamos cansadas y teníamos miedo. Me acuerdo de estar sentadas en una acera mendigando ayuda. Recuerdo llorar en vez de dormir. Sé con certeza que Adelina regaló algunas de nuestras piedras preciosas de Lorien por poco más que un plato caliente, tal era nuestra necesidad... Puede que ella las entregara todas. Y entonces fue cuando encontramos ese lugar en España.
Una mujer de aspecto severo, que yo llegaría a conocer como Sor Lucía, salió a abrir la pesada puerta de roble. Miró con atención a Adelina, su desesperación, la manera en la que estaba encorvada.
–¿Crees en la palabra del Señor? –le preguntó la mujer en español, frunciendo los labios y escrutándola con la mirada.
–Soy fiel a la palabra del Señor –contestó Adelina con un asentimiento de cabeza solemne. Yo no sé cómo ella conocía esa respuesta… Tal vez la aprendió cuando nos habíamos quedado en los sótanos de una iglesia unas semanas atrás, pero fue la respuesta correcta. Sor Lucía abrió la puerta.
Hemos estado aquí desde entonces, once años en este convento de piedra con sus húmedas estancias, con sus corrientes de aire y sus duros suelos como bloques de hielo. Aparte de los pocos visitantes, Internet es mi único contacto con el mundo más allá de nuestra pequeña ciudad; y estoy indagando constantemente, buscando cualquier indicio de que los demás están ahí fuera, de que ellos también están indagando, o tal vez luchando. Alguna señal de que no estoy sola, porque en este momento no puedo decir que Adelina aún lo crea, o que ella esté aún conmigo. Su actitud cambió en algún lugar de aquellas montañas. Quizá fue cuando aquella mujer hambrienta con su niña cerraron la puerta tras de sí de un portazo, alejándose del frío por una noche. Sea como fuere, Adelina parece haber perdido la urgencia por seguir con nuestro éxodo, y su fe en el resurgimiento de Lorien parece haber sido reemplazada por la fe que comparte con las hermanas del convento. Recuerdo el cambio claro en los ojos de Adelina, su repentino discurso sobre la necesidad de orientación y estructura si íbamos a sobrevivir.
Mi fe en Lorien permanece intacta. En la India, hace un año y medio, cuatro personas diferentes fueron testigos de cómo un muchacho movía objetos con su mente. Aunque la repercusión del suceso fuera pequeña en un principio, la abrupta desaparición del chico tardó poco en extender un gran rumor sobre la región y comenzó su búsqueda. Por lo que yo sé, no ha sido encontrado.
Hace unos cuantos meses hubo la noticia de una chica en Argentina, que al desatarse un terremoto levantó un bloque de hormigón de cinco toneladas para salvar a un hombre atrapado bajo él; y cuando se extendió la noticia de este hecho heroico, desapareció. Como el chico de la India, ella seguía desaparecida.
Y luego está la pareja de padre e hijo que son noticia en Estados Unidos, en Ohio, perseguida por la policía después de supuestamente demoler ellos solos un colegio entero, matando a cinco personas en el proceso. No dejaron más rastro tras ellos que un montón de cenizas.
“Parece que aquí hubiera tenido lugar una batalla. No sé de qué otra forma explicarlo” se citaba que afirmó el responsable de la investigación. “Pero no cabe error, llegaremos al fondo de esto, y encontraremos a Henri Smith y a su hijo John.” Quizás John Smith, si es que ese era su verdadero nombre, sea simplemente un chico con alguna rencilla que lo llevó demasiado lejos. Pero no creo que ese sea el caso. Cada vez que su imagen aparece en mi pantalla se me desboca el corazón. Caigo presa de una profunda desesperación que no puedo siquiera explicar. Puedo sentirlo desde el tuétano de los huesos, él es uno de los nuestros. Y sé que, de algún modo, debo encontrarlo.
Disney ha confirmado el lanzamiento en España del DVD y Blu-Ray de "Soy el Número Cuatro" el día 14 de Septiembre. Estaremos atentos a novedades y a cualquier actualización sobre los posibles contenidos extra de los mismos.
Hace unos meses (en Abril para ser más concretos) hablábamos de que la película ya había superado el doble de su presupuesto a nivel mundial con una recaudación de 128 millones de dólares. A día de hoy esa cifra ha aumentado y la cinta ya tiene más de 144 millones de dólares recaudados en todo el mundo con un presupuesto de 60 y aún queda el estreno en Japón el día 8 de Julio que le dará otro empujoncito a la taquilla aunque tampoco esperamos grandes cifras puesto que "Transformers 3" llegará el día 1 de Julio arrasando con todo en su estreno y semanas posteriores. El lastre sigue siendo haberse quedado "solo" con 55 millones en USA pero la cifra mundial está realmente bien. Veremos como queda todo con el estreno en Japón y las ventas en DVD y Blu-Ray.
