Waiting On Wednesday (41) Upcoming Dystopian Fiction Sequels

As anyone who is at all familiar with the book blogosphere knows, the 3rd Hunger Games book, due August 24th, got a name (MOCKINGJAY) and a cover. I like the cover progression. It all looks very hopeful, no? (#teampeeta!) No summary as of yet, but we do know there won't be any ARCs *sobs*

The US version of Patrick Ness' 3rd book in the Chaos Walking trilogy, MONSTERS OF MEN, got a cover this week too. It's due Sept 28th in the US (and May 3rd in the UK).

I also just pre-ordered my signed copy of Carrie Ryan's THE DEAD-TOSSED WAVES, companion to THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH (read my review of TFOHAT) which comes out March 9th. You can read a teaser excerpt on Carrie's website.

WIRED, the third book in Robin Wasserman's Skinned series comes out Sept. 14th. While I have my problems with the series (read my reviews), I still can't wait to see how it concludes. (Gotta love the tagline on this cover too!)

James Dashner's follow-up to THE MAZE RUNNER, called THE SCORCH TRIALS is set to drop October 12th. Megan from Po(sey) Sessions attended his reading of 2 chapters of TST at LTUE so if you really need a hint of where the series is going...ask her!

Next Wednesday, I'll preview some more upcoming dystopian fiction - standalones or new series.

Meanwhile, check out this great post by Diana Peterfreund on the definition of dystopias. I especially like this part:

If the idea of fantasy and science fiction is about holding up a mirror to real world issues, it helps if you can recreate the entire world of your story around that particular real-world issue. Do you want to talk about genetic engineering creating unfair class differences? Gattaca. Do you want to talk about ideals of beauty? Uglies. Privacy? 1984. Free will? Candor. Censorship? Farenheit 451. Third-world exploitation and getting desensitized to televised violence? The Hunger Games.

Like a scientist, the author of a dystopian work of fiction creates a set of very particular conditions within which he runs his human experiment.

And of course Publisher's Weekly's recent article - Apocalypse Now - about the popularity of YA dystopias is not to be missed.

Tuesday (93) = Picture of Emmy, Dystopia Style

In this dystopian world, cats must sleep at least 18 hours a day....


Oh wait, that's what they do anyway!

Don't forget to vote for Emmy and Finn in A Novel Menagerie's Beautiful Baby Contest in all three categories if you haven't already:

Most beautiful bab(ies)
Most adorable cat(s)
Cutest couple

Right now they are losing and we can't have that can we?! Because if they lose, they might be too sad to appear on the blog anymore. And that would be a real dystopian situation.

ETA: In case anyone is really worried, I was just kidding about removing the cat pictures. Please do not overthrow me ;)

Book Review: Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

Claudia lives in a future society that plays at living in the 17th century and where technology and anything “off-era” is forbidden. Her father is warden of an experimental prison closed off from the Outside called Incarceron. Trapped inside Incarceron is Finn, a teen sure he’s from the Outside and determined not only to prove it but to return there.

My reading during Dystopian February has been amazingly varied so far, proving that dystopian fiction comes in many different forms. I’ve read some that have skewed sci-fi, literary fiction, horror, even slightly “comic”. INCARCERON skews high fantasy (a genre I tend to avoid) thanks to a whole fantasy world existing within Incarceron.

Plot-wise, there is a lot going on here. We have Claudia on the Outside who is caught up in an assassination plot, preparing for her arranged wedding to the Queen's feckless son and discovering a device that lets her communicate with the Inside. Then we have Finn on the Inside who is on the run from his adopted clan and following the path of Sapphique, the only prisoner ever to leave the prison. He acquires a device that lets him communicate with the Outside (i.e Claudia).

It turns out that people on the Outside think that Incarceron is a perfect world, an experimental utopia if you will. Well, we all know what happens to engineered utopias don’t we? As one of the prisoners writes in his diary, “…is it that man contains within himself the seeds of evil? That even if he is placed in a paradise perfectly formed for him he will poison it, slowly, with his own jealousies and desires? I fear it may be that we blame the Prison for our own corruption.” (p 320) When Claudia finds out how bad it really is Inside, she makes it her personal mission to free Finn. But is it really that much better on the Outside?

I really enjoyed the philosophical questions the novel raised, the twisty plot, the interesting characters, and the world building of the Outside world (17th century to the naked eye, but with hidden washing machines – cool!). I was a little less keen on Incarceron itself. I liked that it was “alive” and its' all-seeing eyes (and the implications of that), but some of the scenes Inside kind of bored me because they were too high fantasy and too bogged down in description.

INCARCERON was just released this month in hardcover in the US and is available in paperback in the UK. Find out more about it at the author’s website.

My Rating - 4 Zombie Chickens: An Excellent Example of the Dystopian Genre

PS. Come back on Wednesday when I will be reviewing the sequel SAPPHIQUE and will offer both books in an international giveway!

See index of all dystopian reviews on Presenting Lenore

Happy Valentines Day & Linger Contest!

Valentine's Day has never been my favorite holiday. But Daniel and I gave each other books and chocolate...so I can't complain about that. I'm not a big fan of romance in books, because usually it just doesn't ring true to me. It has to be really well written for me to really believe it, and one book that did that last year for me was Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver. So obviously, I am very excited about the follow-up Linger. And the following contest...

In Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver, Grace and Sam found each other. Now, in Linger, they must fight to be together. For Grace, this means defying her parents and keeping a very dangerous secret about her own well-being. For Sam, this means grappling with his werewolf past . . . and figuring out a way to survive into the future. Add into the mix a new wolf named Cole, whose own past has the potential to destroy the whole pack. And Isabelle, who already lost her brother to the wolves . . . and is nonetheless drawn to Cole.

At turns harrowing and euphoric, Linger is a spellbinding love story that explores both sides of love -- the light and the dark, the warm and the cold -- in a way you will never forget.

Comes out in stores everywhere July 20th. Pre-order here.

Enter to win an advanced review copies of LINGER, Sisters Red, The Dead-Tossed Waves, and The Replacement on Maggie's blog.

Book Review: Lockdown (Escape from Furnace Book 1) by Alexander Gordon Smith

In a dystopian (alternate? future?) England, gang violence has gotten so bad that the state has sanctioned a hellish underground prison for young felons dubbed the Furnace. Once a teen criminal has been sentenced there, it’s for life – with no chance of ever seeing the sun again. One inmate is 15 year old Alex Sawyer. Alex may be a thief and a bully, but he didn’t kill his best friend – he was framed. And his only hope for justice and redemption is escape from a place no one has ever escaped from.

LOCKDOWN is very much a plot-driven action/horror spectacle aimed squarely at teen boys. You’re not going to find a lot of deep exploration of weighty themes here, but you are taken on quite the thrill ride as Alex navigates his way through his new hellish environment and plots his seemingly impossible escape. There are some very scary supernatural elements at work in the prison, and the main motivation to keep reading in spite of the nightmare-inducing setting is to discover just what the warden does with kids that are “taken” from their cells at night, never to return. And of course to hope that Alex and his buddies find a way out.

Being that there are two more books in the ESCAPE FROM FURNACE trilogy, SOLITARY and DEATH SENTENCE (coming in 2010 and 2011 in the US, but already released in the UK), this first book definitely takes over the set-up role, and although there is a measure of closure, the story you came for (i.e. escaping) is most definitely not complete (must get sequels now!).

Find out more about the trilogy on the author’s website. Also, read an interview with the author (where he mentions that dystopian classic 1984 and its "complex relationship between desperation and hope" was an influence on his work) at the publisher's website.

My Rating – 3 Zombie Chickens: Well Worth Reading (especially if you are into horror, or are a teenage boy)

See index of all dystopian reviews on Presenting Lenore

Book Review: The Things that Keep Us Here by Carla Buckley

Ann and Peter’s marriage is over, damaged slowly but irreparably by the loss of a child years before. Their two daughters aren’t taking their split well. Ann feels like friends are shutting her out. But now that a pandemic of H5N1 avian flu is threatening their very lives, Ann and Peter face much bigger problems.

This apocalyptic novel hits most of the beats you expect it to, especially if you’ve read this type of “everyman vs large scale catastrophe” angle before (such as LIFE AS WE KNEW IT by Susan Beth Pfeffer or INTO THE FOREST by Jean Hegland). There’s the mass panic race to get food and supplies with shocking moments of human ugliness, the grim reality of modern conveniences dropping away one by one, and the inevitable specter of death close to home. The unique selling point for me as a reader was the fact that it is from a mother’s point of view, a mother that would do anything to keep her children safe – and believe me, this mother has to make some heartbreaking, impossible, horrifying choices.

First-time novelist Buckley does some things amazingly well. The atmosphere she creates is pitch perfect, especially in the early chapters which are creepily foreboding. The narrative arc of Ann and Peter’s relationship is what holds the story together and it is both believable and touching. And there are quite a few memorable scenes that haunt you long after you read the last page (the one with a cough used as a weapon probably haunts me the most).

The plot can stretch credibility a bit with dramatic highs and lows more suitable perhaps for one of those high octane TV disaster movies of the week. Ann and the family are hit with one crisis after another – it’s relentless. But when they do catch a break, their good luck often seems illogical within the framework of the story which can be jarring (I can’t name specifics without spoilers, but if you want to discuss this, e-mail me).

There’s also the not-insignificant matter of the truncated climax and a very unexpected epilogue which switches to the first person perspective of one of the novels most criminally underdeveloped characters. On the one hand, the epilogue is a beautiful and emotional ending, but on the other, I kind of felt like it took the easy way out and left a lot of my questions unanswered.

THE THINGS THAT KEEP US HERE was released this month in hardcover. Find out more about it at the author's website.

My Rating – 3 Zombie Chickens: Well Worth Reading (I actually vacillated a long time between giving this 3 or 4 Zombie Chickens. So ask me tomorrow and I may have changed my mind!)

P.S. I just have to mention that I adore this cover. I never thought a bird feather could be so scary!

See index of all dystopian reviews on Presenting Lenore

Where My Last 20 Books Came From (5)

Once again, where I got my last 20 books.

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness - Bought

The Resistance by Gemma Malley - Requested from publisher (a very, very long time ago!)

The Maze Runner by James Dashner - Reviewer X got this for me at the YA Galley Grab the day before BEA

The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist - A trade with My Friend Amy

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde - Provided by publisher after I accepted review query

Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore - Picked up at Frankfurt Book Fair

The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris - Got signed at BEA (JF is the cutest!!)

My Soul to Save by Rachel Vincent - Provided by publicist after I accepted review query

My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent - Picked up at BEA

Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves - Picked up at Frankfurt Book Fair

Becoming Madame Mao by Anchee Min - Bought

Give Up the Ghost by Megan Crewe - Provided by publisher after I accepted author query

Once a Witch by Carolyn MacCullough - Provided by publisher after I accepted publicist query

The Dark Divine by Bree Despain - Requested from publisher

Dream Life by Lauren Mechling - Provided by publisher after I accepted author query

Dream Girl by Lauren Mechling - Provided by publisher after I accepted author query

All Unquiet Things by Anna Jarzab - Picked up at Frankfurt Book Fair

The Last Surgeon by Michael Palmer - Requested via Bostick Communications

Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers - Provided by publisher (I'm pretty sure I requested this)

The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg - Provided by publicist for book tour

Only 2 bought books? I think my next 20 will be more balanced! How about you?

Author Interview and Giveaway: Patrick Ness discusses The Chaos Walking Trilogy

I reviewed Chaos Walking Book 1 THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO in 2008 and Chaos Walking Book 2 THE ASK AND THE ANSWER earlier today. So far, the series has been spectacular, and a must-read for fans of thought-provoking dystopian fiction. I'm thrilled that the author, Patrick Ness, is joining us for Dystopian February today.

Welcome Patrick! What are some of your favorite dystopian novels, if any? Did they influence you at all in the writing of The Chaos Walking trilogy?
It's odd to think of it as dystopian, really, but David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest" is one of my favorite novels ever and is, in fact, about a messy future. As for influential, there's actually a film that I saw years and years ago as barely a teenager called "This Quiet Earth" about a man who ends up alone on the planet. The imagery of the deserted cities really stayed with me (no idea if the film is any good, it's been so long) but that solitude shows up a lot in the trilogy, even if it's not directly about being the last man alive.

You tackle a lot of issues so far in your trilogy – complete loss of privacy, extreme gender roles, information control – Is this where you fear our own society is heading?
Actually, I don't think dystopian novels are really ever about the future, I think they're about the present. Many of these problems, I think, are problems right now, and the books re-contextualize them to explore them. But golly, loss of privacy, information control, that's today's headlines! Yikes. The gender roles were more a way of exploring my theory about how badly we are as a species at handling difference. If something is different, it's either better (in which case we need to destroy it) or worse (in which case we need to exploit it). That was more a plea to accept difference as merely difference. We get into so much trouble because we struggle with that.

Why do you think dystopian fiction has become so popular recently? What’s the attraction?
Lots of reasons, I think. Terrorism physically reaching America, the strain of apocalypse in many popular religions, fear of new technologies, but also I think, the way the internet has turned into a great outlet for outrage and has made it oddly harder to respectfully disagree. Someone you disagree with isn't just wrong, they're the biggest idiot ever lived. Know what I mean? In those circumstances, it's hard not to worry about things coming apart, even if the facts are that we're mostly fine. It's a shame, really, and I hate how politicians (among others) play so heavily on manufactured discontent. It's enough to dent even the brightest optimist!

In addition to writing books, you also review books for The Guardian. Were there any books which were really difficult for you to review?
Not really. I'm naive enough, maybe, to think that it really is just my opinion and that if I write a negative review, then the writer is bound to get other positives. But in all honesty, I only give really negative reviews if I think the writer has been lazy or cynical. It's such a privilege to write a book that to take it for granted really annoys me. Mostly, though, it's a chance to celebrate books and tell people they should read them. Good fun.

What is your favorite part about being an American abroad?

I've lived loads of places, so it's odd that I never really think of myself as American abroad. I just think of me in my latest home. I'll tell you what my least favorite it, though: the lack of Mexican food in England! You never think you're going to miss Taco Bell until it's taken away from you...

I know what you mean - we don't have decent Mexican cuisine in Germany either. Thanks Patrick!

Read more of Patrick's thoughts at his online diary.

So thanks to Candlewick, I have copies of the first two books to give away to one lucky commenter. Here's your chance to catch up with the series before the release of book 3 MONSTERS OF MEN which promises to be explosive.

Just say something meaningful about Patrick's interview in the comments and you're entered to win. As always, I will give you one extra entry for posting a link on your blog (sidebar is fine) or on twitter.

This contest is open to residents of the US and Canada until 11:59 pm CST on March 8th.

Book Review: The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness

The Chaos Walking Trilogy introduces us to Todd, the only boy in a society of violent men who broadcast their every hideous thought for all to hear. When Todd finds a girl, Viola, in the swamp one day, his caretakers tell him he’s in danger, and he must flee.

If you haven’t read book 1, THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO, you probably shouldn’t proceed past this point of the review – because part of the excitement of KNIFE is discovering the secrets about his society as Todd does. It’s an amazing set-up and journey that ends on an incredibly painful cliffhanger. (Read my full review of KNIFE).

Ok, if you’re still with me, I am trusting that you’ve read KNIFE, because this is not a series where you can skip book 1 (because you a - you will be very, very confused, and b - you will miss out on just how much Todd's character matures, an amazing process to follow)…

THE ASK AND THE ANSWER blew me away. Whereas KNIFE followed Todd and Viola on the run to Haven, a town that should offer them protection and safety from the mayor of Prentisstown and his army, ASK shows them and us that there is no safe haven, makes them choose sides, and sets up a monster of a war to come to fruition in book 3.

Because Todd and Viola are no longer on the run, the pace is less furious this time around and we are able to get to know Todd and Viola more deeply on an emotional and psychological level. In KNIFE, they were pushed to their physical limits. In ASK they are pushed to their emotional and moral limits by two very ruthless leaders, each giving their arguments as to why they are the lesser of two evils – why they should be the ones to greet the new settlers on Viola’s ships. But after all Todd and Viola are put through, they wonder if there might be a third choice…

ASK is a long novel, and there is so much going on, so many themes to sink your teeth into: the dangers of information overload, control of information as a means to gain power, the power of love and forgiveness and much more. We do get a pseudo resolution after heartrending showdown, but the now-not-unexpected cliffhanger rears its vile head and we have to wait… for book 3, MONSTERS OF MEN (planned for May 3rd in the UK and September in the US…guess which version I am going to buy?).

Find out more about the series at the author’s website. Or come back later today when I have an interview with Patrick Ness and a giveaway!

My Rating: 5 Zombie Chickens - The Ultimate Dystopian Experience


See index of all dystopian reviews on Presenting Lenore

Tuesday (92) = Picture of Emmy, Dystopia Style

Did you hear there's going to be a movie version of Scott Westerfeld's dystopian Uglies series.... starring cats?!

Emmy wants the lead role of Tally Youngblood, so she's practicing her best "I can't wait to be turned pretty" look in the mirror.

PS: Emmy and Finn are in A Novel Menagerie's Beautiful Baby contest! You can vote for them in three categories:

Most beautiful bab(ies)

Most adorable cat(s)

Cutest couple

Go vote now!