Dust by Hugh Howey ★★★★★

DONE & DUSTED, SADLY

WOOL introduced the silo and its inhabitants.

SHIFT told the story of their making.

DUST will chronicle their undoing.

Welcome to the underground.

          The conclusion of a great series brings great sadness for the fans. Hugh Howey’s “Wool” saga only came into existence just over two years ago. So it’s been quite a whirlwind ride for fans and the author until now the release of Dust brings us the finale.

          Howey leapt from self-published author to New York Times bestselling novelist in record time. On the way, he changed the way authors and the publishing world did business by refusing to relinquish his e-book rights for seven figure publishing deals. He finally signed a historic deal with Simon & Schuster who received only paper-book distribution while Howey kept his lucrative e-book rights.

           With the publication of “Dust,” our visit to the Silo has ended. If you haven’t read “Wool” and “Shift” (the second book), then stop reading this review, and immediately purchase these two. You won’t regret it, and you will join the millions of fans who can’t get enough of this world.

It’s impossible to review “Dust” and not reveal spoilers for the original two, so I will give only a general outline of the world. “Wool” fans this is a brilliant continuation directly from “Shift” and finds the lead characters still embroiled in the politics of the Silo.

           The silo, which consists of nearly two-hundred below-ground, concrete levels, is filled with thousands of survivors from an event occurring over 60 years before. The unremembered event left the outside world uninhabitable with toxic air. Inhabitants who breach the strict Silo laws are sent outside to clean the one screen which gives the occupants a view of the desolate world; their last act before death by the poisonous fumes.

          The silo is segmented into class structures from I.T. on top, through to the middle levels, to the lower class “down deep.” From the “down deep” a hero, Jules, arises. She begins to question their world at a perilous risk to her and, also, the silo.

          “Dust” is an exciting adventure ride introducing new characters and new challenges for those we have come to love. Some will live, and you will be surprised by those who die. It is a satisfying conclusion to one of the greatest science-fiction worlds created in modern literature.

 

Read my review of Wool

Read my review of Shift

Read my interview with Hugh Howey: "A Shift in Power

My review copy of Dust thanks the wonderful and generous HUGH HOWEY

My very own paper copy to love and treasure from the very deep but fun people at RANDOM HOUSE Australia.

INFORMATION:

Release Dates: 17th August, 2013

To purchase from Hugh direct: click here

Australia and New Zealand: September 2013

To purchase:   click here

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

          Hugh Howey is the author of Wool, a bestselling novel that has appeared in the top 5 of science fiction on Amazon. He is also the author of the award-winning Molly Fyde Saga. He lives in Boone, N.C. with his wife Amber and their dog Bella.

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WOOL by HUGH HOWEY ★ ★ ★★★

READ MY FASCINATING INTERVIEW WITH HUGH HOWEY: CLICK HERE

A WORLD WORTH VISITING

If you haven’t heard of ‘Wool’ or Hugh Howey, hold on to your e-reader, you soon will. The hype around his journey from indie author to major book deal is making publishing headlines.

‘Wool’ was first published as a novella in mid-2011 but reader demand from Amazon reviewers had Howey hurrying back to his apocalyptic world to spin out some follow-on stories, five self-published over the next six months.  In January 2012, he released the ‘Wool Omnibus’ containing the stories and shortly later the publishing industry courted him with a seven-figure publishing deal. As well, Twentieth Century Fox and legendary Director Ridley Scott bought the film rights. 

Were there many changes from the self-published e-book to the publisher’s paper-book? “Minor revisions and localization edits,” says Howey.  “The biggest rewrite came from a small request from my extraordinary editor, Jack Fogg. He thought a couple of characters should get an earlier mention. The next day, I sent him a brand new chapter, which we slotted into the original book two. It’s now my favourite chapter in the entire book, and I was excited to record a reading of it for readers who had read the original.”  Howey sees the 550 page Omnibus as “a director’s cut”. 

Set in a post-apocalyptic future, ‘Wool’ tells the story of inhabitants of a two-hundred-level Silo who are bound by strict rules.  Breach them and you are sent outside in a specially made suit to participate in a ‘Cleaning’.  You then clean the only wall-screen that allows the inhabitants a view of the desolate world, before your suit disintegrates and you die.

‘Wool’ opens with the Sheriff who has lost his wife to a ‘Cleaning’.  Then we move through the volumes to view the Silo habitat through the eyes of various characters including Juliette, an engineer who begins to question the values and laws of the Silo. Then the fun really begins.

‘Wool’ is an extraordinary, rare gem. Howey has a talent for creating character depth, pacing, and his world-building is all encompassing. Putting ‘Wool’ down unfinished each reading session felt like I was leaving good friends in peril. The ‘Wool’ saga continues with ‘Shift’, already available on e-book and just released in paper-book.  Go visit the Silo. You won’t want to leave.

My review copy of Wool thanks to the hardworking people at RANDOM HOUSE Australia.
For more information please visit http://www.randomhouse.com.au

Release Dates: Australia and New Zealand: January 2013

To purchase:   click here

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hugh Howey is the author of Wool, a bestselling novel that has appeared in the top 5 of science fiction on Amazon. He is also the author of the award-winning Molly Fyde Saga. He lives in Boone, N.C. with his wife Amber and their dog Bella.

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Fuse (Pure #2) by J.C. Baggott ★ ★ ★★

PART TWO STILL PURE DELIGHT

Last year I fell in love with ‘Pure’ and the marvellous talent that is Julianna Baggott.  So my hand was firmly in the air for ‘Fuse’, part two of this dystopian trilogy.  I wasn’t the only passionate fan.  In between the books, ‘Pure’ has become an award-winning novel. 
The New York Times named ‘Pure’ in its ‘2012 Top 100 Notable Books’.  It was a People Magazine pick for its ‘“Still Hungry?” List’, as suggested reading for ‘The Hunger Games’ fans.  Entertainment Weekly picked it for “Find Me a Twilight” and the list goes on.  It even featured on Suspense Magazine’s “Best Book of 2012” list. 

If you haven’t read 'Pure' then put the first two of the trilogy on your reading list.  As Fox2000 has acquired the film rights and Karen Rosenfelt, the lead producer of ‘The Twilight Saga’ film trilogy will produce, expect to hear a lot more of ‘Pure’ in the future.

Do you need to have read the first book to enjoy ‘Fuse’?  Yes and you will enjoy every minute of the catch-up.  In ‘Pure’ we met Baggott’s finely imagined characters and the devastating and mesmerising post-apocalyptic world of the Dome-dwelling Pures, untouched by the Detonations.  The survivors, the Wretches, live outside in the wasteland, scarred by horrible fusions of whatever object they were nearest during the detonations; dolls heads fused to wrists, wings fused to backs, babies fused to hips and even a boy fused on his brother’s back.

In ‘Fuse’, Baggott hits the ground running as the determined group of Partridge, Pressia, Lyda and Bradwell embark on a plan to save the Wretches from the Dome-dwellers who seem intent on wiping them out. Told via multiple perspectives, our heroes separate on various quests.  Partridge returns to the Dome to confront his dictator Father Willux.  Pressia, El Capitan and Bradwell embark on an odyssey for the antidote to reverse the Wretches disfigurements and Lyda joins the savage Mothers. 

‘Fuse’ thrusts us deeper into Baggott’s horrifying future vision and expands the central characters without slackening the pace.  On the final page, we are left hanging precariously over a literary cliff but if anyone can leave you gladly dangling, it’s Julianna Baggott and her band of extraordinary ‘Pure’ heroes.

My review copy of 'FUSE' supplied by Hachette Australia.

For more information about this book, click through to Hachette website HERE.  

RELEASED:  Febuary 2013

More Information from the Publisher Hachette Australia

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

           Julianna began publishing short stories when she was twenty-two and sold her first nove

l while still in her twenties. After receiving her M.F.A. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, she published her first novel, Girl Talk, which was a national bestseller and was quickly followed by The Boston Globe bestseller The Miss America Family, and then The Boston Herald Book Club selection, The Madam, an historical novel based on the life of her grandmother. She co-wrote Which Brings Me to You with Steve Almond, A Best Book of 2006 (Kirkus Reveiws).
           Her Bridget Asher novels include The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted, The Pretend Wife, and My Husband’s Sweethearts. Asher’s novels are widely published overseas.
          She has also published award-winning novels for younger readers under the pen name N.E. Bode as well as under Julianna Baggott. Her seven novels for younger readers include, most notably, The Anybodies trilogy was a People Magazine summer reading pick alongside David Sedaris and Bill Clinton, a Washington Post Book of the Week, a Girl’s Life Top Ten, a Booksense selection, and was in development at Nickelodeon/Paramount; The Slippery Map, The Ever Breath, and the prequel to Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, a movie starring Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman, and Jason Bateman. For two years, Bode was a recurring personality on XM Sirius Radio. Julianna’s Boston Red Sox novel The Prince of Fenway Park (HarperCollins) was published in spring 2009. It is on the Sunshine State Young Readers Awards List and The Massachusetts Children’s Book Award for 2011-2012.
          Visit the "Pure" website for the first chapter of "Pure", loads of cool stuff and to learn more. Information on purchasing “Pure” and "Fuse" is also there. I highly recommend you buy yourself a copy of each. You will want to read them more than once.

            Visit author Julianna Baggott’s website and blog, with fabulously informative information for writers there. http://juliannabaggott.com/

Click here to purchase Pure

The Divergent Trilogy by Veronica Roth

Its not easy being different

 

Harry Potter was very concerned about joining Hogwart’s faction Slytherin as it seemed a breeding ground for bullies, where as Hufflepuff was mostly filled with jolly wizards.  But in Veronica Roth’s dystopian novels, Divergent and Insurgent, factions are a life commitment and there isn’t a chatty sorting hat in sight.

Roth by the age of 23 had best sellers on her hands with Divergent and its follow up Insurgent.  In 2012 she added a movie deal for her trilogy and is one of the new breed of authors, like the Hunger Games' Suzanne Collins, capturing the imagination of young readers by supplying a bleak future for humanity. 

In a dystopian Chicago, the population has divided themselves into five very different groups abiding by a strict code of conduct; their behaviour almost genetically implanted in them.  These factions, the citizens decide, allow them to live harmoniously.

Beatrice is born into Abnegation (the Selfless), and we meet her on her sixteenth birthday when she must choose to stay in her faction or transfer, and live the rest of her life in one of the other factions—Erudite (the Intelligent), Candor (the Honest), Amity (the Peaceful), Dauntless (the Brave).  Before deciding their future alliance all candidates must undertake an aptitude test to assist their decision.  Beatrice results are not so clear cut; unbeknown to her she is divergent with an aptitude to fit into more than one faction, a seemingly dangerous trait. 

At the ‘Choosing Ceremony’ she transfers to Dauntless, forsaking her family.  In her first hours at Dauntless she discovers they demand new initiates survive a ruthless initiation program for a limited ten spots.  The unsuccessful will become ‘Factionless’, a terrible fate of bleak homelessness.  During the program Beatrice, now renamed ‘Tris’, befriends fellow initiates and discovers that her talent for the tests creates dangerous enemies.  Despite her best efforts she also finds herself attracted to their seemingly heartless trainer, Tobias "Four" Eaton.

Insurgent follows on directly from Divergent, taking Tris and her collaborators on a journey into the true origin of the Factions. They will fight for the future of all divergents against faction leaders whose goal is anything but harmony between factions. 

The final in the trilogy is due for release in 2013.

My review copies of DIVERGENT and INSURGENT thanks to the fantastic people at Harper Collins Australia
 

To buy or learn more visit Divergent and Insurgent 
eBook is also available here eBook

Release Dates: 2011 and 2012
 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Veronica Roth graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in creative writing. While she was a student, she often chose to work on the story that would become ‘Divergent’ instead of doing her homework. It was indeed a transforming choice. Now a full-time writer, Ms Roth lives near Chicago.
DIVERGENT is her first novel.
Visit Veronica Roth's Official Blog: http://veronicarothbooks.blogspot.com.au/ 

Earthfall by Mark Walden ★ ★ ★★

NOT JUST FOR KIDS

         Dystopian novels are my favourites and so even though this book is aimed clearly at middle school readers it was a very engaging read for an adult.  It’s not a large book at 288 pages.  However, sometimes that is exactly what you feel like reading after wading through a tome like Justin Cronin’s The Twelve, at almost 600 dense pages.

           So EARTHFALL was like a cool refreshing drink.  If you are looking for an engaging, action packed read for your child this will do the trick.  And if you are like me and a sucker for WAR OF THE WORLD sagas, then you won’t care that the protagonist is a young boy.

          Mark Walden is the author of the very popular H.I.V.E series and he was inspired to write EARTHFALL because he believed there hadn’t been a book written featuring a simultaneous worldwide invasion. 

           In EARTHFALL, alien ships appear above London and suddenly every human being loses their free will and begins walking silently towards an unknown destination.  Everyone, except Sam, who watches his sister and Mother walk out the door with the rest of the neighbourhood.  He follows them but cannot stop them and is forced to leave them and become a fugitive from the invaders.

           Six months later and Sam has yet to find anyone like him who is not enslaved by the aliens.  He spends his days trying to survive and avoid the drones and alien invaders until he is stung and poisoned by a robotic drone.  It should have killed him but somehow he survives.  Ill and disorientated he is found by a small, organized group of other kids who are battling to save the Earth from the invasion.

         This is the first of the series, which Walden explains will run alongside his H.I.V.E. series.  EARTHFALL II is due to invade stores in 2014.  This book captured my imagination and I am looking forward to being enslaved again.

My review copy of EARTHFALL thanks to the lovable people at Bloomsbury Publishing Australia

To buy or learn more visit EARTHFALL

EBook available here from Bloomsbury EARTHFALL eBook $5.99

Release Dates: Australia and New Zealand: 1^st July, 2012

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mark Walden's first book, H.I.V.E., won Richard and Judy's 'Best Kids' Books Ever' 9+ category. Paramount has optioned the film rights, and it was chosen as one of ten titles for Booktrust's first Booked Up scheme. Mark has followed this success with a further six titles in the extraordinarily brilliant H.I.V.E. series and as a WBD author for 2009. He lives with his family in Hampshire.

Visit Mark Walden’s Official Site: http://www.markwalden.net/blog/

The Uninvited by Liz Jensen ★ ★ ★★

A FRIGHTENING VISIT

A good story always has a protagonist riddled with faults, self-doubts and obstacles.  It makes for realistic reading and gives the character room for growth.  But it’s a crazy brave author who imbues their lead character with Asperger's Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder causing sufferers to struggle with correct social interaction, repetitive behavior and obsessive interests.

In ‘The Uninvited’, author Liz Jensen’s Asperger’s sufferer Hesketh Lock is a world authority on anthropology, employed by large organizations to analyze worker’s group behaviour.  His syndrome, which makes him unable to form true relationships with other human beings, gives him the unique ability to unemotionally analyse patterns in behaviour.

When seemingly loyal workers in organizations around the world suddenly wreak havoc through sabotage, followed quickly by suicide, Hesketh is sent to Taiwan to investigate the first occurrence.  He then finds himself travelling across the world as more and more workers damage their companies in various ways, from computer espionage to setting explosions, before dying.

Simultaneously, children around the world are suddenly and violently turning on their parents and grandparents, killing and maiming them.  It begins with a seven-year-old girl who puts a nail-gun to her grandmother's neck and fires.   As the story progresses Hesketh begins to wonder if his step-son, Freddy, the only person for which he feels any type of love, is also becoming part of the global epidemic of insanity.

This book is fascinating and a challenging read for the same reason.   Hesketh’s Asperger’s makes it a very confusing book in the first third due to his propensity to jump from one seemingly unrelated thought to the next.  However, when your mind becomes accustomed to his disjointed voice, you begin to appreciate his compelling view of human nature and the world. 

Jensen has written a character rarely encountered in fiction. Her eco-apocalyptic vision is also refreshingly new and a departure from the usual mutated virus, zombie or nuclear winter apocalypse.

Enter the world of ‘The Uninvited’ knowing it’s going to be a disjointed and slightly sluggish beginning.  However, once all the scattered threads are drawn together, you will find the pace will barely allow you to catch your breath until the shocking revelations at the end. It is quite an experience that may have you exiting your children’s bedrooms for just a few days without turning your back.

          My review copy of "The Uninvited" thanks to the loveable people at Bloomsbury Publishing Australia

To buy or learn more visit The Uninvited
EBook available here from Bloomsbury The Uninvited EBook $24.99

 

Release Dates: Australia and New Zealand: 1^st August, 2012U.K.:  5^th July 2012USA Release:  8^th January 2013

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

          Liz Jensen was born in Oxfordshire, the daughter of a Danish father and an Anglo-Moroccan mother. She spent two years as a journalist in the Far East before joining the BBC, first as a journalist, then as a TV and radio producer. She then moved to France where she worked as a sculptor and began her first novel, Egg Dancing, which was published in 1995. Back in London she wrote Ark Baby (1998) which was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Award, The Paper Eater (2000), and War Crimes for the Home (2002) which was longlisted for the Orange Prize and is currently being adapted for the stage. Her latest novel, The Ninth Life of Louis Drax, is published by Bloomsbury in June 2004, and will feature on Radio 4's Book at Bedtime. Next year it will be brought to the screen by Miramax, in a movie written and directed by Anthony Minghella.

 

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thomas Walker ★ ★ ★ ★

A Time Stealer

Since I first saw the 1971 apocalyptic film “The Omega Man” starring Charlton Heston, I’ve been fascinated with the end of the world.  How many times can you read about the world ending and still find it interesting? It’s endless because the books are never really about the end of the world but about the characters and their struggles with their new lives.

In “The Age of Miracles”, first time author Karen Thomas Walker tells her apocalyptic vision through the reminiscences of an adult Julia, who as an introverted, only child of eleven, experiences the events of the world which became known as The Slowing.  With little warning, the earth’s rotation slows causing, initially, only a few extra minutes in the day and some mild concern. 

But as The Slowing continues and the days and nights become increasingly longer, the entire population begins to realise that they will need to alter their lifestyle.  Midnight can be in full sun and dawn doesn’t necessarily arrive early in the morning.  Decisions must be made as to whether the population sticks to clock time or lives according to the cycle of daylight and darkness.

The scientific facts and worsening health of the entire planet is a backdrop to the central story of Julia coming of age.  Julia’s parents seem to be growing as far apart as the day and night.  Seth, a class mate, for whom Julia has increasingly strong feelings, doesn’t know she exists.  Even her best friend has deserted her and moved with her family to Colorado.

What is most interesting is the layering of the story with the politics of school life, the principles of family and the broader divide in society as each new day dawns a little different from the one before.  When uncertainty is certain, some will abandon their current lives and others will make a stand.

Susan Beth Pfeffer stole a weekend from me when I read her YA novel ‘Life As We Knew It’ with a similar premise and a young protagonist.  So, too, now Walker steals another weekend.  But there is no better way to lose time than watching the world end in the hands of a stunning debut talent like Karen Thomas Walker.

            To read more about the book or this author please click over to http://www.theageofmiraclesbook.com/

About the Author

Karen Thompson Walker was born and raised in San Diego, California, where The Age of Miracles is set. She studied English and creative writing at UCLA, where she wrote for the UCLA Daily Bruin. After college, she worked as a newspaper reporter in the San Diego area before moving to New York City to attend the Columbia University MFA program.

A former book editor at Simon & Schuster, she wrote The Age of Miracles in the mornings before work—sometimes while riding the subway.

She is the recipient of the 2011 Sirenland Fellowship as well as a Bomb Magazine fiction prize. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband.

'12.21' by Dustin Thomason ★ ★ ★★

An Antidote to Sleep

It’s ironic an apocalyptic novel, where the world is threatened by a disease causing fatal insomnia, should have me up at 2am in the morning. As well as creating sleepless nights this book will fascinate you with facts about fatal familial insomnia disease. Yes it is real—you can die from not sleeping.

‘12-21' also delves into the sometimes bloodthirsty stories of Mayan history and culture. Add this, to a list of rich characters battling their own demons fighting to save a world sliding into oblivion, and you have the ingredients of a successful novel.

Best selling novelist, Dustin Thomason has given us his version of ‘The Andromeda Strain’ with all the key elements that made Michael Crichton novels such an entertaining read. There’s science, drama, well-drawn characters and above all an unrelenting pace that builds until the last pages of frantic struggles.

The quality is not surprising, as Thomason’s 2004 novel, ‘The Rule of Four’, co-written with Ian Caldwell, sold over four million copies worldwide and he was crowned best selling debut novelist of the decade.

In ‘12-21' our journey begins in an undiscovered ancient Mayan temple, in the jungles of South America, where a codex filled with seemingly indecipherable hieroglyphics is discovered by a looter. Travelling to the USA he sells his valuable artefact on the black market.

The Codex falls into the hands of Chel Manu, Antiquities Curator of the Getty Museum, and a world authority on ancient Mayan inscriptions. Chel risks everything in not alerting the authorities to the illegal find as she is desperate to translate the Codex herself.

In an LA hospital, in December 2012, a man muttering in an unknown language is admitted, suffering from the incurable, ‘fatal insomnia disease’. Dr. Gabriel Stanton, an expert on highly contagious diseases, quickly realises they have a deadly virus on their hands.

When Chel is brought in to translate the dying man’s utterings, she and Stanton find themselves inextricably united in a frantic quest to discover the geographical origins of the disease through the deciphering of the Codex.

‘12-21’ is a science thriller of the highest calibre, written with a flair that will certainly place it on the best seller lists. Warning: This book will create insomnia but once the last page is read you will recover.

'12-21' is available in Australia on 22nd August, 2012.  It's a highly recommended read from me. 

Thank you to Penguin Australia for the E-book review copy.  Read on my wonderful Kobo.  For purchasing information on the book, please visit here Penguin Australia "12.21".
About the Author

Dustin Thomason co-wrote the number one International and New York Times bestseller, The Rule of Four. He earned his BA in Anthropology from Harvard College and his Medical Degree from Columbia University.

He co-wrote the 2004 novel The Rule of Four, [1] co-created the 2006 ABC drama The Evidence and has executive produced numerous television series, including Fox's Lie to Me.

The Rule of Four reached the top of the New York Times Best Seller list, where it remained for more than six months. The book was a number-one national and international bestseller and has been translated into more than 25 languages. It has sold more than four million copies worldwide, and was the best selling debut novel of the decade.

Interview with Julianna Baggott

Read my review of Julianna Baggott's "Pure". Click here

PURE TALENT

When it comes to writing, there doesn’t seem to be anything Julianna Baggott hasn’t done.  There are over fifty foreign published editions of her books and over one hundred publications have carried her work.  Along with works under her real name, J.C. Baggott, she has penned multiple best sellers under Bridgette Asher and N.E. Bode.

So when she turns her eye to the post-apocalyptic Young Adult genre, with her first book of a trilogy, PURE, you know she is not going to just hit the mark, she is going to demolish the entire scoreboard.  Fox2000 thought so too and have purchased the rights to her trilogy even before the release of PURE.

In her own words on writing Baggott says: “I’m here because I’ve learned that writing – this twitch of my fingers – is really rooted deep inside of me. It’s a way of running your hands through the reeds, the silt – the kind of silt still clouding the day, the kind settled (like memory) waiting to be stirred.

It is with tremendous pleasure that An Adventure in Reading delves into the silt of J.C. Baggott’s mind. We recover answers on why the research for PURE was so difficult, with whom she would co-author a book if given the chance, and many more answers from a writer whose reviewers have worn out their superlatives in describing her talent.

Susan May (SM):     What were you doing when the idea for ‘Pure’ came to you?

Julianna Baggott (JB):        Maybe it came from desire, first. I was feeling restless. I wanted to do something really ambitious, cinematic, and large-scale. And, from that point on, there wasn’t any one glimmering resolute idea. There were 17 million tiny ideas. The notion of the doll-head fused to someone’s fist was something I played with in a failed short story. I suppose the realization that the girl with the doll-head fist belonged in THIS other world I desired to create was critical. Did it come in a flash? I don’t know. I wrote a riff from her perspective – hiding in an ash-choked cabinet – and read it to my daughter (now sixteen) and she told me it was the best thing I’d ever written. That was the start. I remember that moment – where I was sitting, where she was sitting. Yes. I won’t forget it.

(SM):   PURE contains dark scenes involving children, including their physical fusion with objects and people, during the blasts.  As a parent, how did you feel writing these scenes and characters?

(JB):    I have a hard time processing the real brutal world all around us. I had a hard time doing the research for this book that took me to the history of atomic bombs – Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Those bombs didn’t spare children. War and famine don’t spare children. And so children were part of the novel. They survived, and there they were, whether I’m a mother or not. But the characters in PURE called The Mothers – a band of violent warrior types — would not exist if I didn’t have children. I am the writer I am in large part because my kids mined my soul.

(SM):   At what point in the story did you realise it would become a trilogy?

(JB):    I always knew that it was a possibility. But the first draft was very hard and in later drafts the novel changed drastically. (There was another narrative point of view – a character who no longer exists at all in the book.) So, as much as I knew that there would be more, the bullying through of book one didn’t allow me to look too far beyond it. Once finished, the rest rushed in.

(SM):   PURE has been heralded as the next ‘Hunger Games’ and with film rights purchased it must be very exciting.  As you were writing the book, did you realise its potential to become the next big trilogy?

(JB):No. Not at all. My daughter loved the book. I mentioned the premise to my next door neighbours and they told me it was really compelling. My father was reading as I went, as was my husband. Everyone told me to keep at it. But it all felt very personal – as all of my books do before they become public, which is always a great shock.

(SM):   Your writing versatility is obvious in that your seventeen books range across many genres.  If you could co-author a book with any other author—alive or dead, who would they be?

Ha. Well, I do have one co-authored novel – WHICH BRINGS ME TO YOU – with Steve Almond. But, yes, in choosing to work with him, I had to stick to the “living” category. It’s hard, right? Because I’m drawn to some drinkers and depressives. Collaboration is much about the relationship, the sum not its parts. I’m going to choose someone living, though, and someone who’s done collaborative work before – a good bet. Neil Gaiman. I love his mind. I’ve heard him speak and he seems pretty down to earth. My husband met him and told him that my son wanted to punch him in the face, and he was lovely about that. (The link to that story is here: http://bridgetasher.blogspot.com/2010/11/why-my-husband-told-neil-gaiman-that-my.html ) I’d choose Gaiman. I’m sure of it.

(SM):   As an author, how have you adapted to the Digital age and what are your thoughts on it?

(JB):    I love the access to research. Things that would have taken days, weeks, years to track down, can pop up in .39 seconds.

(SM):   Is there an interview question you have not been asked?

(JB):    I assume the answer is infinite.

Thank you to J.C. Baggott for visiting us during her tour to promote "PURE".  We will be hearing much more from Julianna in the future and reviewing "FUSE", the second book of the trilogy which is due out in 2012.  We cannot wait to get our hands on an advance copy.

MORE INFORMATION ON JULIANNA BAGGOTT

Visit the "Pure" website for the first chapter of "Pure", loads of cool stuff and to learn more. Information on purchasing “Pure” is also there. I highly recommend you buy yourself a copy. You will want to read it more than once.

Visit author Julianna Baggott’s website and blog, with fabulously informative information for writers there. http://juliannabaggott.com/

Click here to purchase Pure