The Silver Sequence

"The Silver Sequence" is a young adult fantasy novel trilogy by British author Cliff McNish.

Novels

The books in this sequence are:
*"The Silver Child"
*"Silver City"
*"Silver World"

"The Silver Child"

"The Silver Child" is about a group of children in a city called Coldharbour who are given special talents to fight a force known to them only as "The Roar". The book follows a child called Milo from his beginnings as an ordinary boy to his transformation into an enormous Silver Child.

At the beginning of the book, Milo first begins to change at his house. He becomes very hungry, eats all the food at breakfast and starts losing his hair. He frightens his mother and runs away from home. Milo's skin rots away with initially no pain,however his transformation becomes unbearable as underneath it is golden and then he changes into the silver child.

The first people to arrive in Coldharbour are the two "insect girls," Freda and Emily. As the book is not written from their point of view, the reader never learns how they got to Coldharbour. Many members of the gang people -- the others who already live at the dump -- are frightened of them. Freda and Emily can run very quickly on all fours.

The next person who comes to Coldharbour is Thomas. His special power is "beauty", which is the ability to calm other people. Thomas is very suspicious as he notices that his wrist is silver, and peeling away the skin there is painful. At first he makes a small hut and is barely alive. Then he meets Emily and Freda. At first he is cautious and afraid of them, but soon after, they learn to get along. They make a house in an abandoned workshop while they wait for more special children to come. While they are in the workshop, they hear a roaring sound, which they call "The Roar". They also sense a beating noise that makes them feel hopeful.

One rainy night, a giant named Walter arrives. Freda and Emily rush off into the rain, so Thomas has no choice but to follow them. They find Walter and bring him back to the shack. Since it is so rainy, they want Walter to come inside, but since he cares so much about them he stays outside in the rain.

Once, when Thomas and the girls are practicing protection procedures, Walter buries himself underground to play a joke on Thomas. When Thomas comes, Walter jumps out of the ground to scare Thomas. Thomas decides to play a joke on Walter for revenge, so he tells Walter that Emily and Freda have gone away. Walter does not realise this is a joke and starts to cry. When Emily and Freda return, he is still very afraid.

The next child to come to Coldharbour is Helen. She has the power to read minds. When she hears Milo's cry for help with her mind, she is scared and tells her father. Her father is frightened for her and tries to protect Helen, but Helen runs away into the rainy night when she hears Milo calling for help. When Helen sees milo's transforming body, she runs off. Walter looks for her and brings her home.

Thomas is suspicious of Milo, who is taking away his powers of beauty, but he reluctantly brings Milo home. There he becomes even more silver. Then Thomas begins to grow weak, and his skin also rots to reveal gold beneath. Thomas is so weak that he blames Milo and throws him into the river. Thomas goes back to the workshop where the children get angry at him and return to the river.

Meanwhile, Helen goes back to Coldharbour with her father. She finds Milo in the river with her mind before she even gets there. When all the children arrive at the river, Milo's transformation is complete. He has become a giant Silver Child. Now all the children of the world can hear The Roar. Milo flies up into the air, creating the beating sound that gave the children hope.

"Silver City"

"Silver City", the sequel to "The Silver Child", picks up where the previous story left off. All the children of the world are fleeing to Coldharbour. Milo is up in the sky, protecting the world from The Roar. Thomas finds a group of children who call themselves the Unearthers and who have a love of rocks. He gives them his beauty and they slowly transform into machines made entirely of metal, with extraordinary muscles. They are digging to find Carnac, The Roar's son. When Thomas realises this, he tries to stop them by giving them very little of his beauty. Meanwhile, Freda and Emily have urges to dive deep into the sea to try to find a beautiful thing called the Protector, who has fought The Roar before and was imprisoned by her.

"Silver World"

The Roar is now at the forefront of her siege attack on Coldharbour and the Protector has been revived from the ocean floor, although it was terribly injured by The Roar and Carnac in their last battle. To defeat The Roar and her two newborns, Helen must discover The Roar's weaknesses while Jenny transforms into a weapon to defeat The Roar. Deep down, the Unearthers are waiting day and night for Carnac, who awaits his mother's call for him to attack. In the battle, Milo and the Protector are severely injured by The Roar but Helen manages to find out The Roar's weaknesses. Jenny banishes her to the moon. Carnac is almost immediately killed by the Protector at the start of this battle. This is the start of a new life for the children of Coldharbour.

Characters

The primary characters in this sequence are:
*Milo
*Thomas
*Emily and Freda (the twins)
*Walter
*Helen
*Dad
*Jenny
*Carnac
*The Roar
*Tanni and Parminder (the leaders of the Unearthers)
*The Protector

Milo

In the first book, Milo is a child who transforms into a Silver Child. In the second book, he has become an enormous Guardian Angel, watching over the city of Coldharbour and looking after all the children in the world. He has the ability to see children all over the world, not as children, but as silver dots of light. In the third book, Milo is a Protector who defends Coldharbour from The Roar.

Thomas

Thomas is a boy with a gift that he calls his "beauty". It finds the thing that a child most needs, and gives that thing to the child. This ability keeps Milo from entering the latter part of his transformation. It also transforms the Unearthers from humans into digging machines.

Emily and Freda

Emily and Freda are twin girls who can move extremely quickly over ground on their hands and feet. They are extremely agile, and Thomas first describes them as "insect girls". In the second book they are given the ability to swim underwater for incredible distances, and Emily almost dies. They are able to keep clean, even in Coldharbour.

Walter

Walter is a giant whose task is to protect children. When Milo gives him his task, however, he says, "Protect them all, Walter". Walter takes this to mean that he must protect all the children of the world, which occasionally confuses him! Although he has extraordinary muscles, he has a friendly nature, and hasn't let the children down yet.

Helen

Helen is a girl who can read minds. She is so used to this ability that, when she is unable to read the minds of the Unearthers (they are being shielded from her by Carnac), she is confused and upset. She has occasionally delved into the mind of The Roar, and it has taken these opportunities to read her mind and find out the defensive plans for the planet.

Helen is very lucky as she is the only child to have an adult relative in Coldharbour. In the third book, when The Roar moves the barrier while Helen's father is at a drop-off point, her father is trapped outside.

Dad

Helen's dad is very protective of his daughter, whose mother died when Helen was very young. He does everything that he can to prevent Helen being mixed up in this, but when he sees that she has to, he lets her, on the condition that he can be there too. We do not know his given name, as he is only called "Dad" in the series.

For a long time he is the only adult in Coldharbour, as there is a barrier that stops adults from getting in, which was placed after Dad arrived there.

The author [http://www.cliffmcnish.com/silverworld.html reports] that in the third book, Dad is suddenly left outside of Coldharbour. He was gathering food from one of the drop-off points when suddenly the barrier moved slightly, keeping him just outside the barrier surrounding the city.

Jenny

Jenny is Milo's sister. She seems to be able to see the future. At the end of "Silver City", she uses lots of beauty given to her by Thomas to summon all the living things in the world to Coldharbour. In "Silver World", she turns into a weapon against The Roar.

Carnac

Carnac is The Roar's son, who helped in the first fight between her and the Protector. He was left inside the world to grow, so that when he broke free he could take over the world and eat all its children. However, he was restrained by the will of the Protector, who was left lying at the bottom of the sea by The Roar. When The Roar returned to the world where Carnac was imprisoned, she was surprised to find him still there.In the Silver Child Carnac takes over the minds of the Unearthers so they can literally "unearth" him and lose all sense of their previous personality.

The Roar

The Roar is an enormous creature, an eater of planets. After failing to be able to return to her home planet she is hunting the children of Earth in a last ditch attempt to resolve her hunger. She has also shut down or eaten some of her body parts. Her newborn have also eaten parts of her, although she later ate them, so only two survive.She often refers to herself as an Assassin. She has found out some of the planet's defensive plans by reading Helen's mind when Helen tried to read hers.

The Protector

The Protector is the enemy of The Roar. After being shackled to the bottom of the sea for many centuries, a group of children, led by Emily and Freda, manage to free it. When it emerges, it seems helpful and talkative, if somewhat enigmatic, and often visits Helen in her mind, usually to offer advice.

Tanni and Parminder

Tanni and Parminder are two Unearthers, and digging partners (their drill parts on their hands slot together to become working drills). They start off as nice people, and turn into evil people who only want to free Carnac (who is controlling all of the Unearthers and Thomas's beauty). At the end of the book, when Carnac is removed from their minds, they return to being the people they were before their transformation. They then offer to wait underground for Carnac, and attack him when he escapes from his imprisonment.