Review: 'How Lost Got Lost' by John Rasor

This is a lightweight little book, at a suitably lightweight price. The author was so upset by the ending of Lost that he undertook to write his reasons down as catharsis. Having thought of doing exactly the same myself, I sympathised. His main objection seems to be the Sideways world of Season 6, whose whole purpose appears to be a deliberate deception to permit a dramatic reveal in the finale. Naturally, this takes valuable time from the ongoing events on the island, and raises a question which no one was asking anyway, namely, what happens after we die?

After explaining everything that was wrong with the writers' ending, the author suggests his own version of Season 6, which in my opinion is much better than the one the Lost writers came up with (but then, almost anything would be).

This book is an entertaining read, amusing rather than profound. Fully a third of it is taken up with a season by season rehash, with the author's comments, and a number of pages detail the overall story arcs of the numerous main characters, so the analysis chapters are a relatively small proportion of the whole. The author admits he was never an obsessive Lost-watcher, only watching each episode once, so there are a few minor mistakes, but nothing outrageous. Two stars. [First written in June 2011]