Fearless (Series)

A series made without the decent writing gene

The Fearless book series are a series of teen novels written by Francine Pascal. The first book in the series, Fearless, was published in 1999 through Simon Pulse and concluded in 2004 with the 36th entry, Gone. A spinoff series, Fearless FBI, was launched in 2005. The Super Edition prequel series had Before Gaia and Gaia Abducted published in 2002 and 2003 respectively with The Silent Hand and The Screaming Heart going unpublished.

As quoted from Wikipedia, the series takes place in the 1990s and focuses on Gaia Moore, a seventeen-year-old girl who is incapable of feeling fear. Fearless focuses predominantly on Gaia's interactions and relationships with the people around her, as well as her search for an explanation for her condition and her struggle to feel like a normal teenager. The series is told primarily in three story arcs, each of which has its own primary antagonist, and concludes with Gaia graduating from high school.

Why This Series Is Fearful

1. The main protagonist, Gaia Moore is a blatant Mary Sue:
   • She's given an overly tragic backstory, which consists of her mother dying from a failed assassination scheme and Gaia having to be raised in different foster homes with varying results. Her father, Tom Moore, is mostly out of the picture until later on in the series which leads her to be raised by her step parents, the Nivens, in the meantime.
   • Gaia has an incredibly high IQ, so high in fact that she could read The Canterbury Tales in Middle English at ten years old and at one time her brain was analyzed at the National Institutes of Health for a week when she was younger. Why Gaia wasn't placed in a gifted school instead of a public one is anyone's guess.
   • She knows at least 6 languages. Granted, in real life it is definitely possible to know that many languages at one time and more, but it is still adds to the problem of Gaia being a near flawless protagonist. To add insult to injury, rarely all the languages she knows comes into play. For example Dutch, Arabic, and Italian only get brought up once and Russian is the only language that serves a big purpose in the series.
   • Gaia has powerful strength, to the point where she has no problem throwing a grown man over her shoulders. She is also trained in three kinds of martial arts and has fast reflexes. The only drawback being that if she pushes herself too much, Gaia will get weak and blackout.
   • Gaia sometimes spends time complaining about how ugly she is because of her muscles. I mean, you're given all these cool abilities people would die for, but you're going to complain about the one setback you get from having all of them?!
   • At least one of the books' description on the back describes Gaia as beautiful and brilliant which is usually a bad sign of your series' main character being a Mary Sue, by boasting about your protagonist instead of letting their characterization and story to speak for itself.
   • Gaia has barely any flaws whatsoever, which doesn't really work for a character if you want your readers to relate to them. Even the common things teenagers go through like rebellion and self esteem issues aren't handled well when your character isn't close to being realistic.
   • A majority of the male side characters fall for Gaia at some point, even CJ, who is sent to kill her early on, does too!
2. ...And when Gaia isn't bordering on Mary Sue, she still manages to be an insufferable protagonist. Gaia is constantly arrogant and shows disregard for characters like George and frequently makes stupid decisions like trusting the obvious villains in disguise and deciding to not turn in a man she knows is a child molester to the authorities.
   • Another example of this arrogance and stupidity is that Gaia wants to be a waitress just so she can beat up customers who are mean to her and she'll work at restaurants all across the country so as to teach those people a lesson. Ignoring the obvious job choice for someone like Gaia, no employer would want to hire a waitress who will assault customers as that's against common sense and will tank their businesses' reputation and will cause them to lose profits.
3. Not even the series premise makes any sense; fear and emotions don't come from genes, they come from the limbic system of the brain.
4. The rest of the characters, for the most part, are decent, but probably not enough to save the series. There are also times where they seem out of character such as in Lust, where Ed comes across as a mouth piece for the author when he didn't give off that feeling in the previous books. Numerous characters like Gaia's park friends disappear from the narrative for no reason.
5. For a novel series based on action with lots of drama taking place between the characters, you would expect the villains to be one of the best parts to read about, right? Well not exactly:
   • Loki is —for the most part— a menacing villain. However, he spends most of his time plotting against Gaia and making his evil plans centered around her and her fearless abilities. This may look like nitpicking, but then again these are the same actions being undertaken by a widely known terrorist who runs a criminal organization and could be doing much more than fixating on a teenage girl such as assassinating a powerful figure in office or raiding historic landmarks. Also, Loki constantly walks around New York, a highly populated city, uses the internet to send out emails, and makes cell phone calls to Ella Niven without ever getting arrested or having any of his activity tracked and held against him as proof he was committing villainy acts. Only in Book #14, titled Missing, does Loki ever get jailed in a maximum security prison but still manages to easily escape and continue his career of terrorism.
   • Ella Niven was a secondary antagonist for the very beginning of the first story arc, but sadly she was killed off before her character could be more interesting.
   • In Book #30 (Freak), Yuri Petrova is introduced and built up as this powerful, menacing villain who can't easily be defeated only to be taken down in the same book in a fight that can be described as anti-climactic at best.
   • The Rodkes in arc three had potential to add intrigue and drama to the series, but end up being boring and shamelessly recycle an earlier evil plot of Loki's with Gaia's lack of fear gene being the main focus instead of taking advantage of her informed high IQ.
6. The books' titles sometimes have a hard time fitting with what the plot in said novel is about, or are misleading. For example, the book Lust centers around Gaia, Jake, and Oliver going to rescue Tom Moore in Siberia with only one small lusty moment between Jake and Gaia ever taking place. With that plot occurring, you would have expected for it to be titled Rush instead, but it isn't.
7. In Normal, Gaia plugs in a bit from one of the Super Edition Fearless novels that took place around the second story arc, but the reader is left out with any real context unless they themselves read the Super Edition the events happened in. Not knowing there's another spinoff besides Fearless FBI can cause this brief moment to be really jarring to readers.
8. Several books in the Fearless series were released as a two in one, referred to as a Double Edition which isn't a necessarily bad concept. However, the books that are put together don't make any sense chronologically and can puzzle readers who haven't picked up previous books in the series. One of these Double Editions has Kiss and Lust together but the readers will likely spend a long time wondering who Jake Montone is and why Gaia doesn't show any romantic interest in Sam anymore.
9. Over time the series deteriorated in writing quality. Try comparing the first five books in the Fearless series in contrast with ones published in later story arcs.
10. Many cases of repetitive writing such as the constant insults towards Hallmark, the mentions of Prozac, using chess as a metaphor, and the uses of phrases such as "The Fugitive", the latter of which is abused in Lost.
11. There are numerous contradictions that are throughout Fearless. One example happens in the very first book where Gaia says she doesn't know anything about her grandparents. Later on, she sees a painted Swastika in the park and recounts how her grandparents were apart of the Holocaust and she has Jewish ancestry. What!? Even her tragic backstory gets retconned in a later book as a way for Gaia to bond with one of her later love interests named Jake.
12. Unrealistic writing and dialogue litters the entire series such as:
    • Ed, a teenager, at one point saying he prefers skateboarding over video games because they make you fat: "I spent my childhood skateboarding, not getting fat from Nintendo.". Not only is his argument flawed (You can simply spend an equal time enjoying physical and stationary activity, maybe even incorporate video games that promote exercise into your gaming lifestyle), but it's unlikely you'll ever hear those words coming from a teenage boy anyway.
    • On that note, if you're going to have your main character make references to video games, actually show them gaming! Having Gaia allude to Grand Theft Auto and Sonic The Hedgehog in later books equals to zero sense if SHE IS NEVER SHOWN TOUCHING A GAME CONSOLE!
    • So is having your main character wanting to talking about their favorite episodes of The Simpsons with their love interest when neither of them are shown to be watching that particular show or much television to begin with.
    • In the third arc, Gaia gets taken into a boarding house called the Collingwood Residency Hall while her father is away and one rule made clear is that boys are never allowed inside. Fair enough, but if you're going to have Collingwood live up to the rule, then why is there a male chef residing with female occupants?! Further more, why isn't Collingwood Residency Hall named Collingwood Residency Hall for Girls instead??
    • In Run, Gaia has to show a sex tape in class (yes really) as part of a test to save Sam and the students are all okay with this and Gaia never gets in trouble for her possession and showing of pornography.
    • Despite how the park is constantly having people murdered in it, the New York law enforcement barely does anything to keep the public safe. And if the police actually act on something it's usually when a number of citizens are killed.
    • Speaking of Payback, the main antagonists wouldn't have gotten very far with their goals of the Stud Club if a staff member in charge of student clubs investigated into their activities or had students report them.
    • None of the rape victims in Payback are traumatized from what they have been through and recover fairly quickly, which aren't how real victims of rape act.
      • On the same point, Gaia finds herself almost getting raped in Missing and her only reaction to it is being sad that she won't be losing her virginity to who she wants to lose it to.
    • Blood mentions there is a Handicapped Only side entrance at the Village School and Ed is the only one who uses it. This brings up questions such as:
      • 1) The Village School is located in New York City which has an incredibly diverse population, surely there would be a number of handicapped students who attend the school and use the same entrance.
      • 2) If Ed is the ONLY person to use this entrance then why did they bother building it in the first place? It would have costed the school a lot of money to build this.
      • 3) Surely Ed isn't the only person using it, it's realistic to assume some students who aren't even handicapped occasionally use the entrance if there's a huge line at the main entrance and taking the handicapped entrance would be faster.
    • How would Gaia be sitting in a French cafe all night in Missing when she would be kicked out at some point for loitering or at the restaurant's closing time?
    • Tatiana gets to attend Gaia's school, yet in all the time she's spent there she's not shown to amass more than two friends. You'd think, with her being a foreign exchange student, that she would gain a few friends outside of Heather and Ed, alas that never happens.
    • How does Gaia go an entire year without acknowledging her birthday at any point in Fearless? Does she just not know when she was born? Does Gaia not celebrate any holidays (Aside from Christmas) at all?
13. Various examples of writing that didn't age very well:
    • In Sam, Gaia is able to get onto the computers at school to check her email. This part is confusing nowadays because of how much school internet has changed, with the restrictions of school internet filters and how certain technologies are implemented on school-owned devices such as laptops to monitor student usage. If this were taking place much later, Gaia wouldn't be able to access any email sites aside from the one used by the school's staff and students.
      • This plot point could slide if Alloymail was offered for use to the Village School student body—Albeit it's a version of the site/software only distributed to school systems and has restricted features such as only receiving mail from users of the same email domain.
    • There would be no actual way for Tatiana to sneak into the school through the front doors after hours in Chase because of how much the security for American schools have changed over the years. Also any school that leaves their doors unlocked with little to no protection are asking for bad things to happen. Keep in mind this book in the series was published after events like the Columbine Shooting occurred.
    • The way Loki, obsesses over Gaia, a high schooler who is a minor, and at one point suggests they both run away together, would not fly very well if this series was published today.
14. Writing that makes statements that are misinformed or just flat-out ridiculous to where you start to wonder why these parts were published.
    • Gaia claims in Terror that "most people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) served in Vietnam or the Gulf War or were brutally beaten as children." It is true that Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is commonly seen in war veterans, but it's also seen in a number of people who have been through traumatic events, such the female rape victims in Payback, hence the name. Not only can this sentence come across as offensive to readers who actually had/have the condition or know someone that does, but Gaia should be smart enough to be more informed about PTSD.
    • Payback makes a point of a girl named Lucy being one of the more innocent students because of, all things, she carries around a Hello Kitty pencil tin. Not only is that pointless to mention because Sanrio characters have mass demographic appeal, but you could replace that sentence with Lucy carrying merchandise of Spongebob Squarepants or Mickey Mouse and it would still make just as much sense.
    • In one of Ed's monologues in Blind, he claims that breakfast is more suited for guys as girls prefer meals that "require them to be seated and comes off nice plates". He goes as far as claiming foods like anything French and Salad were food for girls. It doesn't take much thought to explain how ridiculous his argument is.
    • It is revealed Tatiana has an email called [email protected]. Russkie is offensive slang and it would make no sense for a foreign character to have this kind of email unless it was a scam website with potentially fake users; it would be like an American having an email like [email protected] or a Jewish person having the word Shylock in theirs. Since Tatiana lived in Russia before, it be more sensical for her to use an email service popular in that country or having her email domain name include "ru" in it somewhere. It isn't ever said Alloymail is a globally successful service on par with Gmail which is a good reason why she would be using it to begin with.
    • Tatiana claims in Fear that "In Russia, there's a lot less television and a lot more talking. You learn something about this mysterious thing called people." A simple search on Wikipedia says otherwise: "Television is the most popular medium in Russia, with 74% of the population watching national television channels routinely and 59% routinely watching regional channels." Being from Russia herself, you would think she'd actually know anything about her own country.
    • Fearless can't even get the portrayal of eating disorders correct; it claims that only women suffer from them, that they are mostly weight driven, and that those suffering from anorexia are usually those setting high standards for themselves. Like this series' attempt to tackle rape, these bits can be offensive to those who have actually suffered from it.
    • In Betrayed, there's a claim that classical music is less depressing than songs with lyrics when there are genres like Happy Hardcore, Bubblegum Dance, and Eurobeat which have a majority of upbeat lyrical songs making up their genres. Classical music also have their fair share of happy and sad songs, so no matter the genre choice, songs of any mood, of any genre, will continue to be created until the end of time itself.
15. This point wouldn't be here if Fearless didn't have it's fair share of plot holes:
    • A lot of the plot could have been avoided if Loki just cloned Thomas Moore's wife being that he has the resources and genius to do so at anytime.
    • Gaia having to stay at Collingwood is a plot hole in of itself. Until then, we got to see Gaia living on her own when her father had to go away, but for the sake of the third arc, she suddenly needs to be watched over by another adult. Not to mention, she had already been in custody with the Moss family before yet the story doesn't seem to remember they existed for Gaia to so much as consider staying with them again.
    • For a big chunk of Fearless making a big deal out of showing how fluent in languages Gaia is, she doesn't seem to know that Droog, an nickname for a user of invince, means friend in Russian.
    • How would Gaia manage to be fluent in 6+ languages if she isn't using them everyday as a ways to stay in command of them? From her childhood, Gaia would have days where she and her family would speak in one language for an entire day which helps retain her fluency. In comparison, a far older Gaia Moore usually speaks in English and isn't shown to be studying up on the languages she currently knows.
16. The parenting in Fearless is some of the worst you can ever find in literature. The teen characters' parents are usually absent longer than necessary for the sake of plot and barely seem to care about their childrens' safety such as letting them freely roam the crime-filled streets New York City and when they're not being apathetic, they're either abusive or let themselves be pushed around by them. A lot of these main characters would have ended up dead because of this kind of parenting.
17. Despite Fearless having a feminist air to it, there are plenty moments of sexism. An example of this is the amount of misandry that occurs in Gone, with quotes like, "Because as far as Gaia could tell, money wasn't the root of all evil. Male pride was."
    • Gaia Moore is shown to be a strong capable heroine and often times helps save women from danger around New York. Problem is, these women are ALWAYS shown to be in the middle of a rape or mugging attempt and Gaia is never seen helping men around the city.
    • There are times where the story paints male characters as perverts even when they're doing something as innocuous as reading Spider-man comics.
    • In Normal, when Gaia visits the Rodkes, they all have dinner and the men—one of who loudly exclaims how hungry he is— are served last compared to the women. There was no real reason for the maids doing this and it's never really acknowledged in the story itself nor do any of the characters comment on it.
    • A more subtle example is how once a prominent male character has served enough purpose in the plot they are either killed off or written out of the story for good.
18. Although Fearless tries to include diversity in this series such as including Europeans and a gay character in leading roles, these stories are filled with stereotypes:
    • Whenever cops are present in the series, they are shown to be irresponsible, addicted to eating doughnuts, overweight, suspicious, untrustworthy, or a combination of the above.
    • Even the characters of European descent resort to being stereotypical. When Gaia goes to France in Missing, the only prominent French male characters in the book are a group of rapists that try to assault her. Jake Montone, an Italian transfer student, is noted to have a dad who is an incredibly good cook which borders on stereotyping.
    • Chris, a gay character, predictably falls prey to the same, tired stereotypes that LGBT characters commonly face; having a lot of friends who are the opposite gender, flamboyant behavior, preaching about his sexuality even when the situation doesn't really warrant it, and having to constantly remind the audience reading that he is, in fact, gay.
    • Two Pakistani characters who are Mr. Haq and the hotel owner from Escape are shown to be holding down low pay jobs.
      • The hotel is also found out to be a Love Hotel which implies a fair amount of sexism and implications.
    • Kai, an Asian character, is referred to as "..a Japanese anime character come to life." unironically at one point.
    • Ed is a decent representation of handicapped youth but the diversity he added to the cast gets subtracted later on once he gets surgery to make him able to walk again.
    • When Fearless isn't using stereotypes, slurs like "Trannie" pop up here and there, which aren't the best choice of words to use when you're attempting representation in your series to be relevant.
19. You can't have a terrible series without a fair amount of cliches. Abusive (step)parents, a love triangle, misunderstood protagonist, Mean girls, all of those and more make it into Fearless.
    • But the cliche this book series loves to abuse the most would have to be the "Good Guy is Actually a Villain in Disguise" cliche. My god, how Fearless loves this trope. Nearly every villain is revealed this way and is always written as if the reader isn't supposed to be expecting this twist to happen!
20. In comparison to young adult novels published nowadays, some of the content in these books like the amount of graphic sex scenes and swearing may be too strong for certain audiences to handle to the point of turning them off of the series entirely. The second book titled Sam has it's main plot revolving around Gaia wanting to lose her virginity to the side character the book is named after before she dies. Thankfully though, a lot of this is toned down as the series goes on.
21. Many ideas that were introduced in the series could have been better written or implemented, some which could have been because of this series' tight deadline of being published monthly:
    • Gaia's Jewish ancestry could have made for some interesting character deve#lopment arcs and have her spiritually grow as a person. Instead, it was only brought up in the first book and Gaia herself remains an atheist for the entire series.
    • Ivy, Gaia's previous friend before meeting Ed, is brought up several times yet never actually appears. Even if mentioning her at all was pointless, who would have liked to see what Ivy was like and the potential adventures with Gaia she could have once they reunite?
    • Sam becoming a bartender later on could have added lots of drama and story potential to the final third arc, with him discovering Invince from shady customers and investigating into it himself while providing Gaia with information that he gathered. Because he now works at a bar and lives with two new characters, there were all around opportunities to take the dying plot into a new direction.
    • The boardinghouse inhabitants were severely underused, with Alexa being the most guilty of this. Instead, the boardinghouse setting is used as an afterthought with characters like Zan seeming to only exist just to give Gaia more insight about the Invince epidemic. If used correctly, all of these characters could have came together to give a message to Gaia and the readers about sticking together and knowing that families can come in different forms; that family doesn't necessarily be the ones you are related to in blood, but the people you are close to and rely on.
    • Gaia complains about her supernatural abilities yet if she put her mind to it, she could have been a great tutor for combat, foreign languages, various school subjects, and even a translator. Not only if she's putting her skills to good use, but they can net her a lot of money and Gaia's jobs could tie into the plot in interesting ways. She could have met new characters and conflicts to drive the series to it's fullest. At the very least, there could have been a subplot where Gaia helps her friend Zolov become more fluent in English.
    • Later in the series, Ed considers getting a pet only for it to left at only a one-off comment. If this had been in the series, it would have helped to lighten the mood on a plot most would considering depressing and could explore Ed's character more by doing this.
22. Gone, the final book of the series was an incredibly awful way of ending the series:
    • The plot is a complete mess to the point where Heather is revealed to have miraculously recovered but we never got any kind of subplot related to that or any kind of spotlight shone on her up to this point, so this revelation comes with little to no development.
    • Glaring plotholes like how Gaia's phone suddenly works when it was broken in the previous book.
    • The prom was spent being hyped up for numerous books but ended up being pointless and anti-climactic.
    • The finale enters it's own brand of stupidity with Gaia not being smart enough to piece together the villains' plan when it should come as incredibly obvious to her. What was the point of making her have a high IQ again?!
    • Gaia choosing to run away from NYC at the end of the final book is complete nonsense. You need to tell me until now that Gaia was unaffected by all she's been through but when it's revealed who actually killed one of her best friends, she decides leave everything behind? How is Suko not at all affected by this happening, you know, the head of the boardinghouse that can send authorities after Gaia to track her down?
    • Tom was absent for the entire third arc with the excuse being "he was away on a mission". It's insulting how Tom never got so much as a line of dialogue or one scene to let us know what he was actually doing that had to cause him to leave his daughter behind. He might as well have died and the story would remain unchanged.
    • Many side characters received no satisfying closure. Whatever happened to Gaia's park friends like Zolov? What about the boardinghouse inhabitants? How about Jake's karate friends or that Fearless band who was implied to be important in the beginning of the series? NEVER EXPLAINED. There was much more that could have been done with these characters even if it made Gone the longest book in the series.
      • A better way to have ended the series would be to have Gaia bid farewell to Suko, Alexa, Zan, and the cook and have Gaia sit by Ivy on the bus she leaves on and reestablish a friendship with her (Perhaps Ivy could have been working with Gaia in Fearless FBI). If you wanted a character death that didn't feel cheap, you could have done that with Zolov instead. Gaia goes to play one last chess game with Zolov in the park before leaving NYC after the Rodkes get arrested but is told he is dying and Gaia goes to the hospital to see him say his last words of wisdom and encouragement to her before he dies.
    • There are several recaps for characters and events in the series are inaccurate when Francine Pascal could have looked back at previous Fearless books when writing this section or better yet the entirety of Gone.
23. With the revelation that a lot of the books in this series were ghostwritten (See Trivia below), it's a bad decision to have your series be written like this given the notoriety of ghostwriting.

Redeeming Qualities

1. When it isn't bland or hitting any of the points described above, it makes for a fairly decent read.
2. The covers are pretty neat to look at and fit the tone of the series well.
3. The one word titles can be lazy and misleading, or intriguing and fitting.
4. The premise for the series isn't actually a bad one, but it's a shame it ended up being written the way it did.
5. As mentioned before, some of the earlier books were better written and more exciting to read compared to those written in the later arcs.
6. Some moments that are actually funny, although they are rare.

Trivia

• There was a pilot episode made for a Fearless television series that would have aired on The WB in Fall 2003, but it was left unaired after the producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, pulled the show due to various concerns. It is currently available to watch on YouTube.
  • The author herself hated the pilot for getting parts of Fearless "all wrong" and even sent them countless emails about how she felt. Once the pilot was canned, Pascal wrote a letter to Jerry Bruckheimer and thanked him for pulling the pilot.
• The first book in the main series, Fearless, was named one of YALSA's "Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers" in 2001.
• According to the covers of books #33 - #35, there was a planned Fearless #37 but for whatever reason the main series ended at 36 books instead.
• Sometime in 2012, the first nine books in the series got republished in bundles of 3 with the writing mostly the same outside of updating some of the references to be more modern.
• Like the Sweet Valley High series, another book series Francine Pascal was involved with, Fearless was mostly ghostwritten.
• Recently, Francine Pascal has been working with Playwright Jon Marans, Graham Lyle (who is noted to have written several Tina Turner songs), and more to turn Fearless into a musical titled The Fearless Girl which is centered around Gaia. The completion date is currently unknown.

Links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fearless_(novel_series)

Comments

Loading comments...