These days, it is all the rage to stretch out the last book in the series to a multiple movies. With Rogue, it feels like they really good have used more stretching out. The book starts with Will seemingly joining up with his grandfather on a quest to create super-humans. Later we learn that they have not really bought into Grandpa's story, and are planning to subvert his plans. That leads them to an adventure into the neverwas. Their powers seem to have been augmented, allowing them to always "know what to do". They eventually destroy the bad-guys machine that they would use to take over the earth. In the process, they run across one of their former friends who has teamed up with the "other side". They also rescue the "dead" angel and then return back home. It felt like a lot of details were missing from the story. There were also many enticing bits that were not explored. (I would have loved to see what happened when they finished with the bad guys and returned to face the "human baddies". How did time work? Was there any connection between the neverwas and their "mini-mes" on the computers? There were many interesting avenues to explore. However, instead of going there, most of the book was just a series of battles with various monsters. The book used the excuse of "their powers getting stronger" to explain how they always "knew" the best path. However, even with that explanation, things were still too predictable. On the other hand, their "meanness" towards their former friend Brooke seemed to be way out of hand. The relationship with the "bad creators" also left a lot of questions. Why were there powers getting stronger? Why were they able to use these power to defeat the "creators", even though these powers came from the creators? There was some potential in this book. Alas, it was ruined by sloppy writing and too much focus on the action.
Alliance is the second book in a boarding school series. The kids all have their friendships and weird new things start to happen. Will West and his friends are trying to find out more about the secret society and beings that are trying to take over the world. The difference between good and evil starts to get fairly murky. They find new things out about people they know. They also begin to find other kids with powers. And in the process, love starts to kick in. Will is torn between two close friends who both have romantic attachments. The big "adventure" is the exploration of a castle next to campus and the unearthing of more knowledge of the past. The book answers a lot of questions, and then ends with even more questions. The writing is fairly fast paced, but does tend to telegraph future intentions a little too much, while at the same time having the kids just "know" things.