Stephanie Meyer Is a Dystopian Science Fiction

¶ … Stephanie Meyer is a dystopian science fiction story about non-demonic possession. In the novel, a young woman named Melanie is forcibly possessed by the alien soul of a being known as 'Wanderer.' The planet earth has been overtaken by the 'Souls,' and Melanie is one of the few real human beings who remain. The alien invaders have no bodies themselves, and must live as parasites within the bodies of other living beings. Wanderer is an old soul and has lived on many planets in many bodies. However, Melanie is determined to resist the attempt of Wanderer to assimilate her personality. Eventually, Wanderer becomes fascinated with Melanie's old life and goes to seek out Melanie's old love interest, Jared. Wanderer is resisted by members of the group of humans who see her as an interloper. However, eventually she develops a love interest which creates a conflict between Wanderer, Jared, and Wanderer's boyfriend Ian. Wanderer is overwhelmed by the experience of being human, and the intensity of the emotions it brings. She decides to give up her life to allow Melanie to live, and shows the human healer 'Doc' how to detach the souls of the aliens from their human hosts. The book suggests that the sensation of having a particular type of body can change a person's soul, even though the soul and the body are not completely synonymous, in Meyer's understanding.

Wanderer is changed by her experience of embodiment in a manner that is different than her previous incarnations, because of the nature of human experience and physicality. While all the Souls take on the bodies of humans because they have no autonomous physical state, Wanderer is special because she has done this so many times and lived so long. Her compassion has a quality even greater than that of humans, despite her growing loyalty to the human race. For example, when Wanderer shows 'Doc' how to remove the souls, she does so only when Doc promises that he will not kill the Souls, but will send them to another planet. Doc agrees to do so, even though the renegade humans once wished to kill all of the Souls. Because Wanderer entrusts the life of her race to Doc, he responds in kind and honors her trust. Her humanity changes Wanderer's loyalty, but her previous experiences as a Soul makes her even more humane than humans who have lived only one life, in one body.

The book raises questions as to what it means to be 'human.' Wanderer, because of the intensity of life as a human, begins to shift alliances from her own species to that of the original inhabitants of earth. Yet she has a sense of compassion and self-sacrifice that few humans in the book manifest. Several times people in the community of humans try to kill Wanderer, but she does not hold this against them. In fact, she is willing to allow herself to be injured to gain knowledge of how to heal humans, to help others. Wanderer has an egoless spirit of self-sacrifice that she has learned from her many incarnations as different beings. This stands in profound contrast to the individualistic nature of humans. Yet Wanderer clearly feels that she has learned more, emotionally, from her life in Melanie's body than she has in many of her other manifestations. Eventually, Wanderer slowly transitions from being a centipede-like Soul to becoming 'Wanda,' suggesting her new relationship with the human community.

Wanderer learns from humans but she shows superhuman compassion. She is willing to give up her life for Melanie, even though this enrages her lover Ian. Ian regards this as a form of suicide. The book has a happy ending when Wanderer's soul is transplanted into a body that has never had an adult human consciousness, but it raises profound questions over what it means to have a right to live. The two species cannot coexist and share the same earth. The Souls seem more kindly, peaceful, and knowledgeable than the humans who react with fear and violence to the alien race. However, to live, the Souls must cannibalize other civilizations. Is any civilization, no matter how pure and how good, worth such a sacrifice, asks Meyer? And can a civilization and a race really exist without a bodily existence, given the wisdom that the body can teach? There is something special about the human body that generates positive, life-sustaining as well as negative passion and anger that is greater than even the insight of the Souls.