More Filler in the Lorien Legacies: The Guard

The Guard - Pittacus Lore

Remember when authors published a book once a year – or even less often? You’d wait patiently for the latest from your favorite scribe, add it to your Christmas list, and you might have even waited outside the doors of your local bookstore on the release date. That’s not so any more – I blame it on James Patterson, who (with a stable of co- and ghost-writers) pumps out about a book a month. Unfortunately, he’s not the only one to follow that path.

At the small intersection of YA fiction and SciFi, there’s a little series called “The Lorien Legacies.” The first book in the series was made into the (fairly) popular movie “I Am Number Four.” Since then, author Pittacus Lore – originally the writing team of James Frey and Joby Hughes, but now apparently a bunch of ghostwriters – has pumped out novellas and short (very short) novels in the series at a furious rate. The latest – or at least most recent one we’ve seen – is a novella called The Guard.

The Guard picks up at the end of The Navigator, the story of Lexa – a Lorite who came to Earth in a ship that escaped Lorien as the Mogs destroyed the planet. She’s unconnected to the original nine Garde (though her ship did bring Ella, aka Number Ten). She spends all her time trying to find a way to help the Garde, even though they don’t know she exists. To do so, she creates the persona of Guard; hacker extraordinaire and (as a result) multimillionaire recluse. As the remaining Five, no Four, no Six – whatever… coalesce around Four, Guard comes out of hiding to help. She starts with Four’s Paradise friend, Mark James (see The Fugitive); helping him – and ultimately Sarah – as they release the details of the Mogs’ unholy alliance with certain government officials. Yay, Guard! Yay, Garde!

As the final showdown with Setrakus Ra approaches, the entity that calls itself Pittacus Lore spins out ever more content, reaching farther and farther from the remaining alien teens. The most recent three releases have all been about Lexa and Mark, a diversion from anything that the Garde themselves are doing. And although the teaser that takes up the last third of this release is supposedly The Fate of Ten, the next content scheduled for release is actually more filler, a novella called Legacies Reborn.


At this rate, the Garde may never find a way to defeat the Mogs and return Lorien to her former glory. More’s the pity, since the opening salvo in the series was fun and entertaining. As for The Guard, though, it’s mere filler. It’s time for “Pittacus” to bring the series to a close…