please do mention the war.

[ewein2412]

6 Feb 2012 Code Name Verity goes OPERATIONAL, so I'm posting a few pertinent Public Service Announcements.

------------------------

"This bloody radio interview. All lies, lies and damned lies."

I'm going to be on speaking live on Bookcafe, hosted by Clare English, on BBC Radio Scotland on Monday, 6 Feb. 2012 at 13.15 GMT. I'm not planning to lie but I MIGHT make a fool of myself. The programme is repeated on Sunday, 12 Feb. 2012 at 15.00 and is also available on Listen Again throughout the week. You can't listen on iPlayer from outside the UK, but I am told by a reliable source that you can download the podcast.

Monday's programme information: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01bmm32

Podcast downloads: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/bookcafe

Bookcafe home page: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0079gb9

------------------------

"I have told the truth. Isn't that ironic?"



It begins today at the Booktrust website, with me talking about the theme of 'friendship' in CNV. (Oh, how it tickles me to have the most mature and complex book of my 25 year career as a writer be called my "debut book". I only wish I'd made a debut like this. In a blue silk ball gown. Whatever it takes! It is my debut in the UK, at any rate.)

http://www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/teenagers/blog/308

chachic's Book Nook over at Wordpress isn't officially part of the tour, but she's written a great review and has a fantastic blog. Check out the posts for her Queen's Thief Week celebration of the books of Megan Whalen Turner while you're over there!

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"You ignorant quisling b******, I am Scottish."

Yep, it's official... Books for Scotland called me (in a tweet) "American-born Scottish writer Elizabeth Wein." Delightfully, they've chosen CNV as their Children's Choice book for February 2012:

http://www.booksfromscotland.com/

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"It is a BRILLIANT photograph - totally convincing."

My friend Helen, aka the Best Roommate Ever, spotted this in an independent bookseller's in Dulwich, South London:



--------------------------

And away we go! Watch this space, because I really really want to make a post about Mark's Year 7 class and their AMAZING BURNS SUPPER last week. At the moment I have rather too many balls in the air to do it justice.

Comments

[sovay]

My friend Helen, aka the Best Roommate Ever, spotted this in an independent bookseller's in Dulwich, South London

Mazel tov!

[ewein2412]

thank you!

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

That would leap into my hands off of a front list table so fast even if I didn't know your books already.

[ewein2412]

yeah, yeah. I think you are a LITTLE BIASED.

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

Sure, just a wee bit biased, but I do tend to pick things up off of front list tables, and that's the thing that looks most like something I'd read.

Well, and Pegasus but I don't trust Robin McKinley with something cliffhangery.

[3rdragon]

Pegasus . . . Eh, was okay. It was a bit long and a bit slow and didn't get REALLY good until the last chapter or two and then it cliffhangered.

And have you heard that it's going to be four books now? I know that it's bad form to wait until the end of a series to buy them all, because it may mean that the series never exists at all, but considering McKinley's following (and the fact that she writes SLOWLY), that's probably what I'll be doing. I didn't like the first one well enough to read it three times before the series is even entirely published.

[chachic.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

It's out in the wild! Love the picture, it's right above A Monster Calls and near Pegasus. Congratulations and happy book birthday, Code Name Verity! :) Thank you so much for linking to my review, I really hope it manages to convince my friends to read the book. Already dropped by the Booktrust website and can't wait to see the rest of the blog tour posts.

[ewein2412]

You're welcome! You are a fantastic publicist!

[deliasherman.livejournal.com]

Do you have ANY IDEA how much I want to read this book? Which I can't get, because I live on the WRONG CONTINENT?????

Sigh.

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

I got a copy sent to Boston by The Book Depository. It took about a week.

[estara.livejournal.com]

What Tiboribi said *nod*

Here's a link ^^ - and the UK cover is prettier than the US one anyway:
http://www.bookdepository.com/Code-Name-Verity-Elizabeth-Wein/9781405258210

[ewein2412]

patience... :)

there's that great aviation-type icon of yours. hee.

[tigertrapped.livejournal.com]

I'm gearing up to go over the top on this...

[ewein2412]

The CNV Front Guard!

[estara.livejournal.com]

How do you feel about the fact that so many seem to categorize CNV as young adult or children? I'm not sure how some of the very graphic and the very psychological torture bits are going to come across to that target audience - not to mention that 'Verity' and Maddie are in their early 20s.

[ewein2412]

interesting question. I always intended it as YA and I don't think that any of the editors every doubted it would suit the YA shelves. I personally don't think the torture is any more graphic than in, say, Octavian Nothing or The Hunger Games or even Harry Potter - probably even less so than some of what goes on in Hunger Games. But the problem with CNV is always going to be, this was real. Because it was. And that makes it a lot less palatable than when someone is blown to bloody pieces in a sci-fi dystopia that you know never REALLY existed.

I also try hard not to be too descriptive of the "graphic" stuff in my books - the word "torture" never even comes up in the first section of CNV, nor do you get any descriptions of what's going on. (Though I suspect this sometimes makes it worse. You end up forced to imagine what's going on, and what it feels like.) One editorial comment was that I was being too subtle and could I please be more specific so that readers would know what I was talking about (it was in reference to a certain Wireless Set being not entirely dismantled. Um.)

As to the characters' age, they have actually been aged down a bit since the early draft that you read - very subtle stuff, but some references to Maddie's age have been removed and you're encouraged to think she's still in school in the beginning, Verity's "younger" brother gets turned into her "older" brother. She leaves school and goes to university earlier and spends less time there, so by the time she gets sent to France she is only just old enough to be legally allowed in the SOE (and her age isn't mentioned, either). It trims her back down to her late teens for most of the narrative. The book is definitely geared at OLDER teens - it's recommended for readers 14 and up. But it's received wisdom that kids tend to read up in age anyway.

It means that I can't do a sequel featuring characters from this book, however - they'll all be way too old if the war goes on another 2 years!

[estara.livejournal.com]

That's it in a nutshell: this was real (did you take out the bits with the red pullover? And the execution of that fellow prisoner was scary enough for me). Also, I can't compare because I haven't read the Hunger Games and am not planning to. I hate dystopias - I hated them as a YA, too - the few that were available then.

well, I think if it's successful enough you still could do so, because the readers would grow along with the books - just think of the fact that Eugenides and Irene are growing in MWT's series and taking on more responsibilities of the usual adult nature - mostly Eugenides, the main women of the series always ruled their countries after all.

Interesting to hear that Jamie is older now - awww, I liked 'Verity' as the older sister. I would have preferred a more realistic age - that new book with the American teenager in Paris who suddenly joins the Resistance and stuff I thought sounded a bit fluffy. But them I'll be 45 years old this year so what do I know ^^.

[ewein2412]

The pullover is definitely still there!

Eugenides is a great example of someone who's probably MUCH OLDER than he should be in a YA novel by the time we get to the 4th book, but I don't think you notice aging characters as much in fantasy, either. Robin McKinley's books are often like that (the earlier ones are, anyway).

And that's another thing - the plausibility factor. That's the main reason I couldn't, and didn't, make the girls any younger than they are: I really wanted this to be as plausible as possible. I just didn't want them lying about their ages. So there was a lower age limit that I had to conform to.

I think that, were you to read it again (and I totally understand why you might not), you wouldn't really notice any difference. It would still feel grim in the grim bits and the characters would still be working in adult jobs.

But one of the things that gives this its YA feel is perhaps the lead characters' innocence - their trust in their superiors, the fact that ALL the people in charge are 20 years their seniors, and their relative lack of sexual experience or independent living (except for various barrack situations, both girls are still living at home) - stuff like that.

[estara.livejournal.com]

That makes a lot of sense to me. I'll own the print copy in... 3 days? I think Amazon.de said they were going to ship it to me on the 8th. I'm sure to compare to what I read in the manuscript - but I might not read all the way through for a while, true. I have to be in a calm state of mind to read books like this, because of the cost involved to the girls (and the World War IIness, of course).

When I was a kid and YA, I had already been reading adventure novels with grown-up heroes for years (and of course lots of books with child heroes) so I really didn't care about the age of the protagonists much as long as I could relate to them. I'm still happy reading certain kinds of school shoujo romance manga, after all.

On the other hand I am NOT going out of my way to read books about people who are 30 years older than me, and their aches and ailments. Hmm.

[ewein2412]

I have personally acquired a taste for middle-aged heroes. Our Man in Havana is rather fabulous on that score.

Estara, I am sending you an autographed copy, for goodness sake. You have earned that at least!

[estara.livejournal.com]

Aww that's so kind ^^ - I can always pass my own copy on to the library at the grammar school here and I want to boost your first week sales numbers personally!

I think the grammar school library has some English books (the two middle school libraries don't - but really the level of English would be to high for them).

ETA: Oh and I have a taste for middle-age heroines - like Martha Wells' Maskelle in Wheel of the Infinite, for example.

[ewein2412]

middle aged heroines too! (that was what I liked best about Agatha Christie's N or M)