Maze Runner on Audio and Kirkus Review

I wanted to wait until tomorrow, but you know how I am with good news. Can't ever show any patience. Well, it is MY blog, ya know? Plus, the whole point of this blog was for my readers to experience the day to day life of an author.

I received a very happy phone call today from Lauren Abramo from my agency, Dystel & Goderich. She's over subsidiary rights, and today we sold the audio rights for THE MAZE RUNNER to Listening Library, a division of Random House. It will be published for both the retail and the library market at the same time the book comes out (Christmas 2009), unabridged, on both CD and digital download.

To learn more about Listening Library, CLICK HERE. They are awesome, best of the best, and they do audio for much more than Random House. For example, they also do Percy Jackson, the Twilight books, and Harry Potter to name a few. I'm very excited, not only to be with them, and to stay with a division of Random House, the same company doing the book itself, but I'm also just ecstatic that MAZE will be on audio period. I had no clue until today.

Kudos go not only to Lauren for getting this deal, but also to Michael Bourret for originally keeping all the subrights to MAZE in the first place (audio, foreign, UK, movie, etc.). Otherwise it would've been a long time before I saw any money from this. So there's a little lesson on the business side of authoring.

I can't wait to hear it on audio. I think it could really work well, unless they hire that deep-voiced dude from American Idol's first week of auditions.

Okay, onto the second item. We got our first major review for THE HUNT FOR DARK INFINITY today, and it's from Kirkus. At first I didn't think it was really that glowing OR negative, just kind of neutral. But on further readings, I think it's very good. The only thing even slightly negative is really just a plot misunderstanding (when they say "no explanation"). In hindsight, I could've made that a little more clear.

Now, it's semi spoilerish. You know me. I'd hate to read a review like this before reading a book. I'll put up a warning both before and after the review. Read at your own risk.

!!!!SPOILER WARNING!!!!

Tick, Paul and Sophia were brought together to solve a set of clues that led them into other dimensions in The Journal of Curious Letters (2008), the first installment in this intriguing series. They’ve spent the summer relaxing with building anticipation for their next call to action. It isn’t long in coming. A message from Master George tells them to meet in the woods for transportation to headquarters and their next assignment. They’re whisked away into another reality…but was it Master George who did the whisking?

The Realities are crumbling around the edges, and it is up to the trio to save the day. They race across surrealistic landscapes drawn from an imagination that crosses Salvador Dalí with Baum’s Land of Oz. Readers will be as puzzled as the characters, who tumble from one complex and outrageous situation to the next, rescued from each at the last minute—sometimes with no explanation. But it all holds together remarkably well, encouraging suspension of disbelief to make way for glorious flights of imagination. (Fantasy. 10 & up)

!!!!SPOILER WARNING!!!!

Now, if you didn't read it (yeah, right), here are my favorite, non-spoiler highlights:

"intriguing series" Yes, indeed, my good man.

"an imagination that crosses Salvador Dali with Baum's Land of Oz" Boo-yah!

"holds together remarkably well" Why, thank you.

"glorious flights of imagination" Ah, glorious. Simply glorious.

Not bad, huh? Kirkus has been known to be tough, so I'm more than thrilled with this review.

Finally, a very interesting article in Time Magazine about the future of the book industry. You can read it by CLICKING HERE.

Thanks, and have a great day!!!