The Final Warning is book four of the Maximum Ride series, a hugely popular collection by James Patterson. Unfortunately, it seems as though the title itself indicates the quality of the book. I am warning everyone who read the previous three Maximum Ride books to stop there and not be disappointed by this excuse for an action story.

The first three books of this series were all about non-stop action and adventure. Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gasman, and Angel (along with Total, the talking dog) make up the Flock. They became part human and part bird after scientists performed gene splicing and other horrific experiments on them. The Flock escaped and was continuously on the run to escape the dreaded Erasers (wolf-humans sent to exterminate the Flock).

Throughout The Angel Experiment, School’s Out Forever, and Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports, the reader was constantly engaged in fight scenes, character development, and just the right amount of romance to keep it interesting. All of this is suddenly non-existent in the final installment. Gone are the epic battles between the Flock and evil corporations, and in its place is a message about saving the earth. The Flock is asked to travel with a group of scientists to Antarctica to help them study global warming. Finally the reader understands what the “greater truth” is, the reason for why Max and the rest must constantly be on guard: global warming.

While I do understand that the Earth is gradually deteriorating and agree that something needs to be done about it, I do not think that The Final Warning was the place to express these ideas. The core of the Maximum Ride series is heart-pounding action and non-stop adventure. Instead, Patterson uses his popularity from the three previous books to preach about the earth, which is not what I was looking for. I’m not the only one who thinks this; a quick search on Amazon.com showed that 44% of customer reviews rated the book one out of five stars, complaining that it was a major disappointment.

I also was frustrated by the number of loose ends that The Final Warning failed to tie up. During the previous books and this one, different members of the Flock begin to discover new powers, including the ability to read minds and (in Gasman’s case) super flatulence. One would think that in the final book of the series these abilities would be explored and used, but this is not the case. Fang gains the ability to blend in with his surroundings with camouflage, and not once does he ever use this to his advantage. Iggy (who is blind) gains the ability to see things that are white, but he never is in a situation where this might be useful. Angel discovers that that she can change her appearance, but it never ends up being useful. It’s as though Patterson thought that he needed to make things more interesting and gave the characters super powers, but the characters never ended up doing anything super.

In addition, there is the issue of Jeb, Max’s father. He betrays the Flock at one point and loses Max’s trust. However, he still insists that Max should continue to do what she is doing for the greater good. At the end of The Final Warning, Jeb is forgotten, leaving the reader to wonder whether he and Max ever become close again.

Even with all of these problems, I think it would be possible for Patterson to clean up his act with another book. The Maximum Ride series has a huge amount of fans, and many agree that he should finish the series like he started it.