To be a Pure is to be perfect, untouched by Detonations that scarred the Earth, and sheltered inside the paradise that is the Dome. But Partridge escaped to the outside world, where Wretches struggle to survive amid smoke and ash. Now, at the command of Partridge's father, the Dome is unleashing nightmare after nightmare upon the Wretches in an effort to get him back.

At Partridge's side is a small band of those united against the Dome: Lyda, the warrior; Bradwell, the revolutionary; El Capitan, the guard; and Pressia, the young woman whose mysterious past ties her to Partridge in ways she never could have imagined. Long ago a plan was hatched that could mean the Earth's ultimate doom. Now only Partridge and Pressia can set things right.

To save millions of innocent lives, Partridge must risk his own by returning to the Dome and facing his most terrifying challenge. And Pressia, armed only with a mysterious Black Box containing a set of cryptic clues, must travel to the very ends of the Earth, to a place where no map can guide her. If they succeed, the world will be saved. But should they fail, humankind will pay a terrible price...

Listening Length

16 hours and 44 minutes
Author

Julianna Baggott
Narrator

Khristine Hvam, see all
Audible release date

February 19, 2013
Language

English
Publisher

Hachette Audio
ASIN

B00B50LH10
Version

Unabridged
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Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	16 hours and 44 minutes
Author	Julianna Baggott
Narrator	Khristine Hvam, Casey Holloway, Kevin T. Collins, Pierce Cravens
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com Release Date	February 19, 2013
Publisher	Hachette Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B00B50LH10
Best Sellers Rank	#188,837 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #956 in Dystopian Science Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) #1,316 in Teen & Young Adult Science Fiction Action & Adventure #2,258 in Teen & Young Adult Dystopian

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4.6 out of 5

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JR. Forasteros

Great Continuation... Everything is Better (AND WORSE!)

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 11, 2013

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Fuse is the second installment in Julianna Baggott's Pure trilogy, and like any good second installment, the world expands, the stakes get higher and the characters sink to depths that make us fearful for them. In my review of Pure, I highlighted the religious overtones of the book. In Fuse, Baggott continues to weave reflections on faith, fundamentalism and our future into a story where these elements are an organic part of the world.

Fuse isn't a morality tale about the dangers of religion, but we'd do well to heed its warnings.

As Bradwell comes to understand the Fundamentalist character of Willux' worldview, he reflects on the nature of our world - his `Before'.

During the Before, the box we stored God in kept getting smaller and smaller. On the one hand there was science. And with all that science, Willux thought he could play God. And then on the other hand, there was the church invented for their own purposes-- where the rich knew they were blessed because they were rich. Once one person's better than another, it lets people get away with all kinds of cruelty.

Bradwell's words ring true as a prophetic description of the Modern world.

As Science pushes God further and further out of the public discourse, humans can more easily play God.

The Fundamentalist answer to this has been to "take science back for God" through organizations like the Discovery Institute and Answers in Genesis. These groups fail to appreciate the significant differences between the pre-Modern worldviews of Biblical writers and the assumptions of Modernity that underpin the Scientific method.

The way Fundamentalism uses Science is the like bringing a knife to a gun fight. We'd do better to lay down our weapons and deny that any conflict between Faith and Science exists at all.

In Bradwell's words, Julianna points out how complicit the Church often is in consolidation of power. Though the Return to Civility and the Righteous Red Wave are fictions, we recognize them. The seeds of that brand of Fundamentalism grow around us, and we know the fear that they may not be far from bearing fruit.

When the Church seeks political power, when the Church divides the world into Sinners and Saints, we sacrifice our witness to the life and work of Jesus.

Here again, the world of Pure turns a principle into a picture. The Dome takes Fused children and turns them into Pures, releasing them back into the world unable to speak anything but the Dome's own twisted doctrine of Salvation. So, too, can the Church compromise its witness.

A popular strand of Christianity advocates withdraw from the world. Fused New converts are plucked from the World and made into feeble copies of the Pures Christians who `saved' them. They're then sent back out into the world programmed trained to spread the Dome Doctrine Church's Evangelism techniques.

Bradwell rejects the possibilities the Dome's technology represents. He sees real beauty in Pressia, and in the broken world. He tells her

You want to erase your burns. You want to be like them.
- Bradwell

"Is there something so wrong with that? Really? Is wanting not to be disfigured and burned such a crime? ...I still have this memory of who I was. I want that person to exist. I want to be wholly me."
- Pressia

You are whole, Bradwell says. ...You go around seeing beauty in all this wreckage, but when will you see it in yourself?

Bradwell doesn't want to return to some primeval purity. He recognizes that he has been irrevocably changed by the Detonations, and he wants to move forward. He also understands the basic hypocrisy of the Dome. Though they look Pure, they're more monstrous than anything that exists outside.

So too, we must reject any Gospel that takes us out of the world. Jesus came into the world, not to condemn the world, but to love it.

The Incarnation is an embrace of the world. God loves us as we are, and does not erase our scars, but redeems them. Our sins, our mistakes, are part of who we are. Any redemption worth having is one that must redeem those scars, not make us forget them.

We're not Pures. We're all Fused, and we owe it to the world not to pretend otherwise. Any Gospel that rejects the world for its evil misses the core of who God is. It's a false Gospel that's shut God away in a box.

Maybe [the box] just kept getting smaller until only a speck of God still exists, maybe only an atom of God.

Pressia whispers a prayer:

Maybe that's enough for God to survive.

To the Pressias of the world, those who live in brokenness and have learned to hate their scars, we must offer more than a God who hates their scars. We must offer more than a Church that is more concerned with its own power and standing than with loving those God loves. We must bear the image of a God who loves us, who died for us, and who seeks to redeem us, scars and all.

Bottom Line: Fuse is another stellar entry in the Pure story. The world gets bigger, the stakes get higher and you'll finish wanting more.

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Anastasia McPherson

Writers are Scared - And Sacred

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 12, 2013

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Dystopias and post apocalyptic novels are dotting the landscape, especially in the young adult genre, but in spite of the fact that catastrophe has become the new pulp fiction and many of the offerings are mediocre at best, speculative fiction remains the literature of ideas that delineates our hopes and fears for the present and the future. Fuse is literature that stands squarely in this category. I've been a reader of dystopian and post-apocalyptic novels for far longer than their current up-tick in popularity, even searching out dusty paperbacks of obscure offerings both great and small, so I feel qualified to say that Fuse is the real thing and the series has potential to be one of the greats of the genre.

Fuse follows Pure more or less immediately in time, returning us to the narratives of Pressia, Partridge, Lyda and the Captain, adding depth to existing characters and situations and new characters that move the story forward in unexpected ways. Fuse and Pure are set in a post-apocalyptic world that is deadened and where the unlucky have been not only wounded, but fused to objects and animals in their environment. Baggott implies throughout both books and in the afterwards that nuclear holocaust would be more cataclysmic and damaging than we know. The "lucky" are those who were in the Dome when the explosions came and they are whole in body if not entirely in spirit. In Fuse, the reader learns more about the conspiracy to end the lives of billion and almost end the life of the planet so that the elite could ultimately live in a paradise. The action concerns the efforts of the protagonists to stymie the second part of this plan, the paradise for the elite, even though the shattered Earth is now very far from paradise after nuclear holocaust.

Writers are scared and this theme, the theme of an elite that knows the planet has reached a tipping point and that those in power now want not only all of the power and money for themselves but actually want the entire planet for themselves and are willing to kill billions to do so is a theme that I see repeated in fiction and non-fiction more and more urgently in the past five years. Its not just for tin foil wearing conspiracy theorists anymore. Jospeh D'Lacey's Black Feathers is one such book in the fiction category and Progress or Collapse: The Crises of Market Greed is an excellent recent offering in the non-fiction category but there are many, many others. Writers are scared and they are literally screaming their warnings to the populace in their work - that we must jettison our apathy, fear, helplessness that is the result of widespread propaganda and reform our society at every level. The fact that we have been told that our current state of affairs is the best humanity can possibly do is a big part of what holds us back. We must not just fix our current problems, though that is a pragmatic place to start, we must actually try to evolve as a species. Our writers are urging us forward.

Baggott's writing is amazing. She is a gifted and lyrical prose stylist and after first reading her in Which Brings Me to You: A Novel in Confessions with Steve Almond, I was a fan. After reading the first two books of the Pure Trilogy, I am a follower and I have sought out her earlier works in other genres. Baggott is the real thing in terms of writing. Other reviewers complain that the pace isn't fast enough, but Baggott isn't just adding another post-apocalyptic young adult novel to the pile; Baggott is committed to this work and it shows in the writing and the characters. My one complaint is that the dystopian and post-apocalyptic genres and their stories of change are now restricted to the young adult market. The conventions of the genre demand that adult characters are necessarily in the background in such works, when not rendered as either evil or ineffectual. When issuing a warning of such complexity and importance as that issued in Baggott's trilogy and other current dystoian works, it seems to me that an adult rendering of the problems and possible solutions is required. How much power and experience do teenagers have after all? That is why they need the fantasy outlets that these narratives provide. Pure and Fuse aren't essentially young adult novels, despite their young adult protagonists. The prose and themes are at a much higher level than the usual offerings.

Fuse is a wonderful middle volume in a trilogy that promises to become a classic in the genre. It is also a fearful call for help in the dark - a call and a warning that we must all take to heart.

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Bex

Middle Book Syndrome

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 3, 2015

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Oh you guys, I'm so disappointed. I loved Pure. Honestly, it was such an original, well imagined idea that I just devoured it. So I can't even tell you how much I was looking forward to Fuse. But it was more of a fizzle for me.

Fuse is the second book in what is set to be a trilogy within the Pure world. Essentially this second installement takes us back to Pressia and Partridge as they try to fix what is inextricably broken - The Dome. Remember that place? Where only the perfect, not the imperfect marked by their scars and fused to various bits and bobs, can live. The Dome where Partridge came from.

My major problem with this book was not the concept. As I've said, I loved Pure and the ideas are phenomenal - some of the questions raised about the meaning of being Pure are riveting. But Fuse was slow and bleak. It took such a long time for me to start getting into the book that, I'm ashamed to admit this, I almost gave up. I'm one of those people that NEVER quits on a book, you just never know if it's going to suddenly surprise you and then you'd just be gutted you never found out how good it really was. But seriously, I had to bribe myself to continue with chocolates and tea. This book has made me fat.

Fortunately, as the story progressed the storytelling did improve and I remembered why I fell in love with this world so much. But I just don't know if I can go through the torture of re-reading Pure and Fuse again for when the final installment comes out...

I really think a lot of readers will be disappointed by this, the real question is whether or not this is just a typical middle book syndrome problem or whether the third one is going to be any better. Look, I've just talked myself into reading the final installment just to make sure haven't I? Guess it wasn't that bad; a shame it took such a long time to take off, but I still have hope.

Paul Tapner

Under outside and beyond the Dome

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 26, 2013

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Second in the Pure trilogy, a series of post apocalyptic science fiction novels for young adult readers.

Recommended reading age is thirteen and up. Due to some language, adult moments, and a rather grim setting and situation.

It follows on from Pure (Pure Trilogy) . There is no exposition or recap in here at the start. So new readers shouldn't use this as a jumping on point.

Those who have read Pure, read on. Although the lack of a recap or early exposition in this does mean it might take you a short while to get into it, depending on how long it is since you read the first book.

This volume runs for five hundred and fifty pages. It has a prologue, then three parts. Those are divided into chapters, none of which are very long. Each has a different viewpoint character, out of a small group of them. Everything is told in third person present tense.

The prologue is one of those openings that seems a little strange at first read, since it's written in italics and brings in a new character in a strange setting. But hang on in there, as it will all make sense.

Then we're back with Pressia and Partridge and their associates. As they struggle to survive in the world outside the Dome. To find answers. To see what can be done about the Dome. And most importantly, about the Dome leadership's efforts to get Partridge back.

The opening part is one of those where it feels as if you're waiting for something big to happen, but pages do turn rapidly as the writing does keep you going qutie nicely while you wait for big events. The world of the story remains a very convincing and very nightmarish setting. There are a few sub plots going on also in regard to character relationships and love interests. Which are pretty good.

It does really get going when you get into part two, as Partridge is back in the Dome [this is not a spoiler, as it's on the back of the book] dealing with his father and having to adjust to his return to the place. Pressia and others are off doing other things. Which are pretty interesting too.

Their storyline is decent. And does go to some interesting places in the last part. But the last part is really great for Partridge, as what happens to him will have you desperate to know what happens next. And turning the pages rapidly. One character who figures strongly in his story does become very memorable, with some very believable actions.

This being the middle book of the trilogy, it naturally leaves lots up in the air at the end and some big cliffhangers. Which leaves all the characters well advanced from where they were at the start of the book, and you wanting to know what will happen next.

The final part of the trilogy Burn (Pure Trilogy) is on the way. I look forward to it.

One person found this helpful

Liz Barnsley

Loving this trilogy...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 16, 2014

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After a young Wretch is abducted by the Dome and ‘cleansed’ of her fusings and imperfections, she is only able to repeat the Dome’s latest message: ‘We want our son returned. This girl is proof that we can save you all. If you ignore our plea, we will kill our hostages one at a time.’ Willux will go to any lengths to get his son Partridge back, including murder.

So FINALLY having been galvanised into action by being granted the joy of the final part of this trilogy “Burn” via netgalley I dived into “Fuse” having actually purchased it the day it was released – so many books so little time! But I adored “Pure” the first part so I was looking forward to this one and I was not disappointed.

The world created here is highly imaginative – after the “Detonations” a select few survived whole, safely protected within the Dome. The rest of the survivors “fused” with various objects and sometimes people around them and are deemed impure – scratching out an existence in a bleak and unforgiving landscape. Into this scenario come our heroes Pressia and Partridge and various other eclectic characters. In “Pure” Partridge left the dome and joined up with Pressia, going on a journey of discovery about the truth behind the detonations. That is it in a nutshell – anything and everything else I leave you to discover for yourself – and discover it you should.

As far as YA trilogies go (and remember I have yet to read Book 3 and we know that occasionally I end up in a grump and disliking the endings, no don’t say it you all know if you follow my reviews which particular tales I’m on about) I have to say this is one of my favourites so far for pure writing genius. Its emotional. Its thrilling. It is occasionally quite insane in the best way possible. It pushes the boundaries of what you can do within this genre quite beautifully and has some unique aspects to it that put it ahead of the pack. After I’ve read Burn – which is next up for me – I will be able to say whether in my opinion it is one of the best overall. Ooh exciting.

This instalment adds to the mythology perfectly, has some fascinating new developments and I LOVE that it is not over heavy on the romance. The relationships are all drawn realistically – the characters, whilst developing deep friendships and emotional attachments, spend their time concentrating on survival, discovery and important life events rather than angsting over this boy or that girl – still the emotional aspects of it are all the more meaningful because of that. When they DO stop and take a moment it means something.

Overall a terrific part two and if the finale can live up to the previous standard of writing, even if I personally am not happy with the outcome for the characters, I will have no problem with highly recommending this trilogy as one of the best out there.

Lets see! Burn awaits.

Happy Reading Folks!

Andrea

unlike some book 2's this doesn't disappoint

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 7, 2013

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Pure was one of my best reads of 2012, it was one of those books that you get to the end of and feel bereft. Fuse took the first book and expanded on it perfectly, taking the characters we already knew, and defining them, like El Capitan and his fused brother Helmud becoming more individual as Helmud starts talking and acting independently in a particularly heart rending scene. Hastings, Partridges friend from the academy has become Special Forces with his standard issue guns embedded into his arms. Fignan the black box, who I can't help but be reminded of Dr Who's K9. The imagination behind all of this is sheer genius!!!
The book not only takes us further with its characters fusing a bond between us and them, if you like, but also with plot as we learn the sickening reason Willux wants his son back. It explores the world far from the Dome, in graphic detail describing Washington DC's sad bombed landscape, and then on to Ireland where the 'dusts' become brambles.
I gave Pure four stars, I would have given this 10 and I honestly can't wait for the conclusion

Liminal

Essential follow-on reading from "Pure," but does not stand up well alone.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 30, 2013

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For me, "Pure" was amazing reading, and there was no way I could keep myself from buying "Fuse," the next installment.
I enjoyed the continuation of the tale in "Fuse," but it certainly doesn't have the 'wow' factor of "Pure," for me. If you have not read "Pure" first, "Fuse" will make little sense to you, and even despite reading "Pure" earlier this year and thinking I retained a good grasp of the tale, "Fuse" still assumed too much about the reader's prior knowledge and memory of events, and lost me briefly a couple of times.
Added to this, the story didn't really grab me or intrigue me as "Pure" did, which I think it had every scope to do.
I am glad I read "Fuse" and I would read more work by this author, but I am afraid my ultimate opinion of the book is lukewarm.

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