Genre
post-apocalyptic fiction
Setting and Context
"Planet Blue" for the most part takes place on a dying planet called Orbus, "Easter Island" takes place on the titled island in the 18th century, "Post-3 War" and "Wreck City" take place on Planet Blue or Earth in a fictional post-apocalyptic present
Narrator and Point of View
Narrator: Billie Crusoe;
Point of View: first person
Tone and Mood
Tone: speculative;
Mood: nightmarish, pessimistic
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonist: Billie Crusoe; Antagonist: the greedy and manipulative humanity
Major Conflict
Billie and Spike end up stranded on the Planet Blue after the planet was hit by an asteroid and die holding each other in a cave.
Climax
Billie and Spike find the messages they left for each other millions of years ago when they died on Earth, or Planet Blue as it was called at that time, when the planet was hit by an asteroid that made dinosaurs extinct. The novel plays with the idea that life on Earth is a result of an escape from another dying planet.
Foreshadowing
"My theory is that life on Orbus began as escaping life from the white planet-and the white planet began as escaping life from...who knows where?"p. 56
Understatement
After talking about their home planet Orbus while on the way to the Planet Blue and how they are destroying it and how life on Orbus probably began as an escape from the White planet Pink, the cynical wife of a pedophile, has this to say about it:
"Y'know, it would make a great movie. It has a human feel." p. 56
Allusions
"Emerson said that the rarest thing on the planet is a truly individual action-but I'd set the bar at a story told." p. 125
Imagery
Imagery of the color white as a representation of death and nothingness of the White Planet.
Paradox
"Stories are always true", said Handsome. "It's the facts that mislead." p. 53
Parallelism
"And in the air a body falling. And in the air a body falling like a star. And in the air a body falling like a star out of its orbit. And in the air a body falling like a star out of its orbit and coming to earth and seen no more." p. 115
Metonymy and Synecdoche
N/A
Personification
"I'm sorry", I say, to the planet that can't hear me. And I wish she could sail through space, unfurling her white clouds to solar winds, and find a new orbit, empty of direction, where we cannot go, and where we will never find her, and where the sea, clean as a beginning, will wash away any trace of humankind." p. 22
