Ness is very pleased with the trilogy’s new cover design, which he called “bold, fresh, and really striking.” And he noted that the covers are gender-neutral, “which was also very important to me. “I reread the trilogy in preparation, and it really felt like a good, warm family reunion.” “That story was so much fun to write, I thought, ‘Why not do two more?,’ so I wrote one for each book,” he said. He penned the first one as a writer-in-residence for Booktrust, a literacy charity in the U.K. Ness said he also enjoyed creating the prequel stories that appear in the Candlewick reissues. And if it is the last, why not go out in a blaze of glory, trying to write a mad, huge trilogy? It was fun!” “Publishing a book is such a privilege, I always assume that the next time might be the last.

“I like stories that have an end, even if ambiguous, and that don’t outstay their welcome,” he said. The author envisioned the story as a trilogy from the start – for two tactical reasons. I just wondered what the next logical step was: what if you couldn’t get away?” “I think we’re already pretty noisy with smartphones and apps. “The inspiration was our own world,” he said. Although the trilogy falls under the science-fiction umbrella, Ness didn’t have to look too far to find the premise of involuntary revealing one’s thoughts. At that point, I thought my job was just to say, ‘Great!’ and run with it.”Īnd run he did.

“I just set out to write a book, and it eventually revealed itself to be YA. “It was the story that told me what it needed to be,” he told PW. Ness, who had previously written fiction for adults, did not make a calculated move into YA.

The trilogy centers on a teen who lives in a world populated only by men infected by the Noise germ, which enables residents to hear each other’s thoughts. Candlewick has just reissued the trilogy in paperback with new covers and a prequel short story in each, and is promoting the re-launch with a campaign dubbed Noise for Ness. Candlewick launched this YA saga in 2008 with The Knife of Never Letting Go, with The Ask and the Answer (2009) and Monsters of Men (2010) following in its footsteps. by Walker, the series has been translated into 22 languages and has sold more than 350,000 copies in the U.S. Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking trilogy obviously has legs.

Chaos walking the complete trilogy