Meet The League

We are SUPER excited to be featuring

The League of Extraordinary Writers is a group of debut YA authors who write dystopian books.  Over the next 4 days we'll be featuring this group of writers.  We'll be having them answer a new question each day!  We hope you enjoy getting to know them!

We're going to start with an introduction and the first question!

The League: (click the book covers to order or pre-order)

XVI by Julia Karr, out now!

Nina Oberon's life is pretty normal: she hangs out with her best friend, Sandy, and their crew, goes to school, plays with her little sister, Dee. But Nina is 15. And like all girls she'll receive a Governing Council-ordered tattoo on her 16th birthday. XVI. Those three letters will be branded on her wrist, announcing to all the world—even the most predatory of men—that she is ready for sex. Considered easy prey by some, portrayed by the Media as sluts who ask for attacks, becoming a "sex-teen" is Nina's worst fear. That is, until right before her birthday, when Nina's mom is brutally attacked. With her dying breaths, she reveals to Nina a shocking truth about her past—one that destroys everything Nina thought she knew. Now, alone but for her sister, Nina must try to discover who she really is, all the while staying one step ahead of her mother's killer.

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE by Beth Revis, out now!

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

MEMENTO NORA by Angie Smibert, coming April 1, 2011

Nora, the popular girl and happy consumer, witnesses a horrific bombing on a shopping trip with her mother. In Nora’s near-future world, terrorism is so commonplace that she can pop one little white pill to forget and go on like nothing ever happened. However, when Nora makes her first trip to a Therapeutic Forgetting Clinic, she learns what her mother, a frequent forgetter, has been frequently forgetting. Nora secretly spits out the pill and holds on to her memories. The memory of the bombing as well as her mother’s secret and her budding awareness of the world outside her little clique make it increasingly difficult for Nora to cope. She turns to two new friends, each with their own reasons to remember, and together they share their experiences with their classmates through an underground comic. They soon learn, though, they can’t get away with remembering.

POSSESSION by Elana Johnson, coming June 7, 2011

Vi knows the Rule: Girls don’t walk with boys, and they never even think about kissing them. But no one makes Vi want to break the Rules more than Zenn…and since the Thinkers have chosen him as Vi’s future match, how much trouble can one kiss cause? The Thinkers may have brainwashed the rest of the population, but Vi is determined to think for herself.

But the Thinkers are unusually persuasive, and they’re set on convincing Vi to become one of them….starting by brainwashed Zenn. Vi can’t leave Zenn in the Thinkers’ hands, but she’s wary of joining the rebellion, especially since that means teaming up with Jag. Jag is egotistical, charismatic, and dangerous: everything Zenn’s not. Vi can’t quite trust Jag and can’t quite resist him, but she also can’t give up on Zenn.

This is a game of control or be controlled. And Vi has no choice but to play.

THE ELEVENTH PLAGUE by Jeff Hirsch, coming Fall, 2011 (Read Jeff's post about his book HERE)

The wars that followed The Collapse nearly destroyed civilization. Now, twenty years later, the world is faced with a choice—rebuild what was or make something new.

Stephen Quinn, a quiet and dutiful fifteen-year-old scavenger, travels Post-Collapse America with his Dad and stern ex-Marine Grandfather. They travel light. They keep to themselves. Nothing ever changes. But when his Grandfather passes suddenly and Stephen and his Dad decide to risk it all to save the lives of two strangers, Stephen's life is turned upside down. With his father terribly injured, Stephen is left alone to make his own choices for the first time.

Stephen’s choices lead him to Settler's Landing, a lost slice of the Pre-Collapse world where he encounters a seemingly benign world of barbecues, baseball games and days spent in a one-room schoolhouse. Distrustful of such tranquility, Stephen quickly falls in with Jenny Tan, the beautiful town outcast. As his relationship with Jenny grows it brings him into violent conflict with the leaders of Settler's Landing who are determined to remake the world they grew up in, no matter what the cost.

About the League:


How did the League get started?

The League of Extraordinary Writers began with Beth Revis. She and Elana sold their books at almost the same time, and had been blogging buddies for a while. Beth emailed Elana with the proposal, and from there things just spiraled into the League.

Our mission is to run a genre-focused blog that is entertaining to science fiction and dystopian fans, with a focus on bringing these “grown up” genres to teens.

Is your book part of a series, if so how many will there be?

• Julia: I'm currently working on the sequel to XVI. After that, I'm not sure.
  
• Beth: ACROSS THE UNIVERSE is the first in a trilogy.
  
• Angie: I'm currently working on a sequel to MEMENTO NORA; however, beyond that, I'm not sure if it'll turn into a trilogy.
  
• Elana: POSSESSION is a stand-alone novel. I do have some things up my sleeve, but they may or may not be related to my debut novel.
  
• Jeff: There are no plans for another at the moment, but I do have a follow-up story percolating in the back of my mind if people seem to like THE ELEVENTH PLAGUE.

Can you describe your book in 3 words?

• Julia: Feminist dystopian thriller
  
• Beth: Space murder mystery
  
• Angie: Near-future dystopian thriller
  
• Elana: Paranormal dystopian adventure
  
• Jeff: Post-apocalyptic love story (it's killing me that I can't add "with explosions")

Come back tomorrow for to find out the answers to this question:

What is the most interesting tidbit of information you came across while researching your book?