Retribution sneak peek

Not the kind of sneak peek you're hoping for, I know. It's still too early for that. But in the past, I've posted screenshots of my Scrivener corkboard for Unbecoming and Evolution, so I couldn't very well not do the same for Retribution.

So here it is:

It's heavy on influences and light on text because I can't share much yet. (I don't know when I will be able to share more, but when I know, you'll know too.)

Also, I've got a Retribution pinboard on Pinterest that I actually do update, so if you're the type that likes to look out for clues, that would be the place.

What else? I did a Skype visit today with my Spanish publisher, Edicionas Maeva, and a number of awesome book bloggers from Madrid. The questions asked were so smart and Marta, the translator, was a total star. They asked me to share a picture for the Twitter component of the chat, and since my dog is in it, I can't really pass up the opportunity to post it here too.
michelle hodkin

The Retribution of Mara Dyer has a cover!

So today, Entertainment Weekly revealed the cover for the the third book in the trilogy, and it's here.

And I love it. I love it so much I can't even really talk about it here except to say--it fits. It fits this book.

There are Evolution spoilers in that article, so here's a quick wrap-up of the most relevant details should you glance at the cover and click away:

- The book will come out on October 22, 2013

- There will not be any ARCs. Many of you have been asking why. This was a decision made by my publisher, Simon & Schuster, to make sure that the ending to the trilogy isn't spoiled before everyone gets the chance to read the book on the same day, 10/22.

- You've also been asking when you'll get a synopsis/description/snippets, and the answer is that I'm not entirely sure, but I can say that it won't be until much closer to the release date. Right now, the only thing I've been allowed to release from the actual book is this.

- As for pre-orders, the links won't be up for a while yet, but that's a good thing. Simon & Schuster is working on something special on that front, as a thank you to readers who run out and buy the book right away.

- And last but definitely not least, there's a shiny quote on the cover from Lev Grossman about the series, and I am insanely proud of it so I am sharing it everywhere. In full, it reads: "Deep, dark, passionate and funny, Mara Dyer is one of the great characters in young adult fiction—and Michelle Hodkin is one of the great talents." 

As many (if not all of you) know, I have had a longstanding obsession with The Magicians and The Magician King, so this? This means more to me than I can say. 

Thank you all for the cover love--it makes me so happy to know that you think it's as gorgeous as I do.   

And now, back to my book. 

I Saw The Hobbit (Or, We Need To Talk About Radagast)

So I saw The Hobbit a week and a half ago. Yeah, be jealous. But for Reasons, I wasn't able to talk about it until today, and so I have kept all of my many Hobbit feels inside, which has been mad hard, you don't even know, because there are a lot of them. A LOT. I am going to try and keep spoilers to a minimum, but if you're nervous, you should skip this post. Also, before I share, a disclaimer (I am still technically a lawyer. Disclaiming is in my blood):

There is about to be some serious Tolkien geekery up in here.

Not, "I've read The Hobbit 17,234 times," geekery (though I have):

 (My copy of The Hobbit, with notes.)

 or "My senior thesis was on the Lord of the Rings" geekery (though it was).

We're talking LOTR RPG geekery. We are talking fanart levels of nerd, here. Proof:

That is Teen Me's rendering of Galadriel, circa 1999. I was sixteen, a junior. I wrote her name in the corner so I wouldn't forget, I guess?

I can't explain why she kind of looks like Cher.

Lest you think that this was just a one-time thing, think again, because I drew Shadowfax, too:

I know what you're thinking: "That's just a random horse!" BUT YOU WOULD BE WRONG.

See? Shadowfax, motherfuckers.

(Guess how popular I was in high school. Guess.)

I am polishing up my nerd credentials here not to impress you (you are impressed, though, right?) but to impress upon you that the lens through which I viewed The Hobbit is bound to be quite different from your lens. From most people's lenses. Because most people don't have A Tolkien Bestiary sitting on their coffee table at this very moment, now, do they?

That's right. Also, I read The Silmarillion and I liked it. (We're going to come back to The Silmarillion. GET EXCITED).

So, now that that's out of the way, I saw The Hobbit and this is what I loved:

1) Martin Freeman. He is Bilbo Baggins. Admittedly, it has been awhile since I read The Hobbit for the 17,234th time, but no matter—now, when I think of Bilbo, it's Martin Freeman in my head. He was extraordinary. Not a hero but heroic, kind of a coward but still courageous. He more than held his own against Ian McKellan and Andy Serkis (who were superb, obvs). He anchored this movie in a way that the LOTR didn't demand of Elijah Wood. He was brilliant.

2) Speaking of Andy Serkis, Riddles in the Dark. I've been dying for this scene since I first heard that the Hobbit was greenlit, because Serkis was beyond perfection in the LOTR, and I can't. I cannot. I am unable to can, guys. It was everything I hoped it would be. Go back and reread my disclaimer. It was everything I, Michelle Hodkin, who logged more years hours than I am willing to publicly admit on a Tolkien-inspired text-based multi-user dungeon, hoped it would be. That is a lot of hope.

And it was rewarded. I might have been grinning like an idiot and clasping my hands together and stomping my feet a little and giggling, which alone is quite a picture, but add 3D glasses and it gets extra sexy.

3) The Silmarillion references. When it was first announced that The Hobbit was to be a trilogy, most people on my Twitter timeline freaked out in a bad way ("There's not enough material!") I, however, freaked out in a good way. You see, I did not think we were just going to be served the straight up Smaug questing situation in 3 parts. Oh my no. I assumed we were going to get deep into the Appendices and Histories via flashbacks. Melkor deep. And if there's one thing I love more than a supervillain, it's a supervillain origin story.* I had no real basis for this assumption, other than that I would (perhaps unwisely) trust Peter Jackson with my firstborn child, but I am happy to report that not only do we do get more than just hints of the Necromancer in the Hobbit (not enough for my taste, but more than in the book, so I'm happy)—there was an Ungoliant reference, too. I am aware that this means nothing to like, 99.9876% of you, and I may well have been the only person at the screening to notice, but I did notice and I loved it. 

4) Aiden Turner as Kili or, as I said to my friend, The Hot Dwarf. I had to Google to find out whether he was Fili or Kili. He was Kili. But no matter; it was apparent who I was talking about. Aside from Thorin he was the standout dwarf for me, and not just because he was hot.** I am super psyched to see more of him in City of Bones next August.

5) The ending. I knew what was going to happen given how Jackson framed the shot, and I was expecting it but I still jumped. So, so excellent. I am way pumped for Part II.

What I didn't love:

1) The 48fps. God, this was distracting. While watching the movie, I had no idea that the frame speed was double the normal frame speed or whatever, and I kept thinking that it was the 3D that was irritating me and pulling me out of the experience and couldn't figure out why that was. I have seen tons of movies in 3D, and I think it's pretty fun. But 48fps? It wasn't really fun. It made the beautiful stuff (Rivendell) distractingly beautiful, and the hideous stuff almost gratuitously hideous. Obviously, this being Middle-Earth, there are orcs and goblins and in 48fps, you can see every pustule. I have never seen so many pustules in my life. And I've got a seriously high tolerance for gross—I watched The Human Centipede for the lulz.

So, overall, the frame speed was not my bag.*** It made the Shire scenes in particular feel like I was watching a film set rather than a film. I think this very well may be an individual thing as my friend seemed to take no issue with this, so quite possibly we can chalk my reaction up to my personal weirdness (which by this point, should be well established). I, however, will be buying the film in 24fps if I can.

(***The one exception to this, by the way, is Gollum. Gollum looks impossibly more real in 48fps—you can read every thought in his eyes the second he has it. I can't tell you how extraordinary this is, or how extraordinary I think Andy Serkis is, or how blown away I was by this performance, because I'm not that great of a writer, but basically, Me + Andy Serkis = 5eva)

2) The tone was kind of bipolar. It felt like Jackson couldn't quite decide whether he wanted this to be a LOTR-style epic or a Pixar-y romp, and so scenes swung a bit wildly between serious dwarving business, like battle scenes backed by a full choir, and then their exaggerated physical comedy, particularly during the Unexpected Party scene (the burping and shit went on like 7 minutes too long). Then we'd switch again to sinister and/or serious stuff, and then cut to Radagast dashing through the woods in his bunny sleigh. Speaking of Radagast…

3) I feel badly about the things I'm about to say. Being the nerd that I am, I was psyched, PSYCHED, when it looked like we were going to get a look at this character who merits only one mention in the Hobbit and one in the LOTR; even in the Histories of Middle Earth (yep, I own 'em), he gets little more than a footnote. But Radagast was reduced to comic relief in a movie that really didn't need any more of it. What little we know of Radagast comes from like, one line spoken by Gandalf: Gandalf respects the dude, but Saruman thinks he's a fool. Well, the movie version has me siding with Saruman. Which is not really a great side, ever. Radagast was painfully ridiculous, which I guess would have been fine had the movie been more of a comedy? But—it wasn't. It was kind of epic, and moving, and then Radagast shows up and there are birds shitting in his hair and it's like, are we really doing this? Really?

4) The language. There were a few references to distinctly non-Tolkien-ish things, like Bilbo telling the trolls that the dwarves are infested with parasites, which is a word I am fairly certain appears in Tolkien's books never not once, because I am also weirdly obsessed with parasites and I feel like I would have noticed. There was also an obviously unintentional but nevertheless unfortunately timed "Make him squeal," line delivered by one of the trolls and being the utter deviant that I am, all I could think was Deliverance and it was all I could do not to choke.

That said, these are minor gripes, I think. The cinematography is outrageously beautiful, the casting is perfect, and the performances were pretty exceptional. My issues stem from my belief that the LOTR trilogy was flawless, and The Hobbit, for me, wasn't. But the movie really was excellent, and I am eagerly awaiting Part II which had better include Beorn and Tom Fucking Bombadil or there will be hell to pay. And by 'hell to pay,' I mean that this time next year, I'm going to whine about it on my blog.

So, bottom line? Go see it. And then come back here and geek out with me.

*Hinthintjustsayingjustsaying
**Okay maybe a little because he was hot.

Tour, in pictures.

An enormous thank you to everyone who trekked out to see me--some of you braved wind and rain and others flew in from faraway states. I am grateful to every single one of you.

Writing about all of the events is less fun than posting the pictures I remembered to take, so it's pictures you'll get. ALSO, there are three more events left this year (HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!), and you can view them here. But if you can't make it to Charleston, Vegas, or Dallas, there are still a few signed copies of The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer and The Evolution of Mara Dyer left at:

Books and Books in Coral Gables, FL

Inkwood Books in Tampa, FL

Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville, IL

Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee, WI

Just call or email any of those stores and tell them you want to place an order for a signed copy.

And now--pictures!

Signing your preorders with the incredible Becky from Books & Books until close to midnight after the event.

In which Mara Dyer hits the list.

So yesterday, I announced on Twitter that The Evolution of Mara Dyer debuted on the New York Times bestseller list.

I heard the news on Twitter, actually, due to the S&S infrastructure being down thanks to Sandy, and proceeded to flail in 140 characters. But 140 characters isn't really enough to say what I need to say, and that is this:

You did this.

You read The Unbecoming and you told your friends to read it, too. You handsold it in bookstores and you recommended it to your patrons. You handed it to your students and you reviewed it on your blogs and on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com and on Goodreads. You begged your parents to let you buy just one more book. An entire year passed between books, but you didn't forget about Mara and Noah--you rushed out to read The Evolution as soon as it was released.

This is especially astonishing to me because The Unbecoming was not a "big" book. There was no major deal. No fortune to fuel the hype machine. It sold to my first editor, Courtney Bongiolatti, who loved it so much and wanted it badly and because she is determined, she persuaded my amazing publisher, Justin Chanda, to take a chance on it too. A book that many people, if not most, still don't know how to categorize. I still have trouble describing what it's about. The odds of a book hitting the New York Times list is low to start, but the odds of books like mine hitting it? Even slimmer.

I wrote the books as well as I could, and my brilliant editors, Courtney and Alexandra Cooper, worked unbelievably hard to help me make them the best they could be. Lucy Ruth Cummins designed the most beautiful, evocative covers she could conceive of to help fit the books' mood and to try and catch your attention. My tireless publicist, Paul Crichton, and Siena Koncsol, along with the Marketing and Sales teams at S&S, worked to get Mara Dyer into readers' hands. But as hard as they worked, things like the New York Times list are out of their hands. They only have so much control, and as I discussed here, I have even less.

I controlled the words on the page--and that's really, seriously it. I couldn't control whether bookstores would buy my book at all, or whether they would unpack it on time or how many copies they would display or where they would shelve it in their stores. And I heard from several of you who told me that your bookstore didn't have Evolution last Tuesday, or that it wasn't out for days after its release, or that it was shelved in strange, hard-to-find places. But instead of walking away, you did something extraordinary. If you couldn't find it on shelves, you demanded that staff unpack it from the back rooms. If they didn't have it at all, you left that store and went to a different one. You not only preordered hundreds of books from Books & Books, helping to support an incredible independent bookstore, but while waiting for them to arrive, you bought the ebook, too. Many of you started reading it the second it was released at midnight, and you talked about Mara on Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr and to your friends and customers and students and patrons and you made fan art and posted reviews.

You have been relentless in your support of my strange, unbecoming* characters and Mara and Noah's twisted story since before the Unbecoming even came out, and there are not enough words in the English language to be able to adequately thank you for everything you have done and everything you do. I am humbled and most of all, beyond grateful. Mara Dyer was a dark horse if there ever was one, but not anymore, thanks to you.


*(couldn't help it)

the family reacts to Evolution

Fan art by Bev

So The Evolution is now, officially, out in the world. You can read it if you want to. And I really hope you want to. 

I have no idea what your reactions will be, because very few people read the sequel with the exception of my agent and my editor. Even my family only just read it in the past few weeks. I thought about writing a personal post about what it feels like to publish your second book with lots of feels and stuff, but then I saw their reactions. 

I decided to post those instead. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

CAST: 

Jeremy (the brother)

Brother 2 (the other brother)

Stepbrother (the stepbrother)

Gbob (Grandfather)

Grandma (self explanatory)

Aunt (ditto)

Mom (you get the picture)

SCENE: 

Various undisclosed locations across the country.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jeremy: This is a lot scarier than the first…

Brother 2: Mich, this is actually really good.

Jeremy: This entire chapter is porn.  

Me: That chapter is entirely dialogue. They are literally just talking. 

Jeremy: I know. But I felt dirty after reading it. 

Gbob: Your grandma and I both liked this better than the first. 

Me: Why?

Grandma: It was scarier. 

Gbob: It was sexier. 

Mom: I like how you portayed Mara’s mom in this one much more. She’s a really fascinating character. 

Grandma: I did not expect [REDACTED] or [REDACTED] at ALL. 

Gbob: The girls are going to hoot and howl, boy oh boy.  

Stepbrother: Okay, I’m oddly sucked in, despite being a thirty-year-old high fantasy obsessed male. I just blew through 250 pages in 3 hours…WTF? 

Jeremy: I’m only mentioned on 52 pages of the book.

Me: Actually, you're not in this book at all. 

Jeremy: I did the math. That means 9.8%. Less than 10%!!!! Your fans are going to be very disappointed, and that's nothing compared with my fans.  And Brother 2 is on 92 pages!!! 

Me: Neither of you are in this book. 

Jeremy: That’s almost double me!!

Stepbrother: Did you put crack in here? 

Aunt (via voicemail): Michie, I LOVED your book, but can you pretty please not leave copies around where your very innocent 13-yr-old cousin can read it before I have a chance to redact the language? Love you so so much my darling, darling niece! 

Brother 2: Why are you so obsessed with that James Hogg book? Why?

Jeremy: HAHAHA that slow clapping scene!!! Pure amazingness. 

Stepbrother: Alright, so Noah is making me question my sexuality. Not sure I’m comfortable with this.

Grandma: I was SHOCKED by [REDACTED]. I can’t believe [REDACTED REDACTED]. 

Brother 2: Interesting take on the Freud/Jung dichotomy. Nice. 

Sister in law: MICHIE IT WAS SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!

Mom: _____ is exactly what I would have done in Mara’s mother’s situation. She is absolutely right. 

Brother 2: Yikes, creepy book is creepy. 

Stepbrother: HILARIOUS BOOK IS HILARIOUS. 

Gbob: I really feel that this is an epic love story, Michie. Absolutely epic. 

Sister-in-law: [REDACTED REDACTED] BROKE MY HEART!!!! I WAS CRYING!!!!

Gbob: Like Rhett Butler and Scarlet O’Hara. 

Brother: The carnival synecdoche is really brilliant. 

Jeremy: Do you have literary license to end a sentence with a preposition?

Brother: Do you know why it’s brilliant? Do you understand what you wrote? 

Gbob: Except Mara is much more fun than Scarlet. Nuts, though. 

Stepbrother: Oh man. Shit just got real. 

Brother: Jamie’s T-shirt; clever. I think he might be your best character. 

Gbob: You really do have a superb vocabulary. Just superb. 

Jeremy: Free Willy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Grandma: I’m going to buy copies for everyone at the beauty parlor. 

Brother 2: Great book, Mich. Well done. 

Jeremy: Hold me. Like the River Jordan. 

Stepbrother: asdfghjklklhkjjhj

Mom: I'm just blown away by your characterization, Michie. Mara’s mother is so complex!

Me: Do you have feelings about any other characters? 

Mom: I think Mara would be a dom. 

Me:  What?

Mom: A dominant. 

Me: What the— 

Mom: I’m reading this book—

Me: I DON’T WANT TO KNOW THIS. 

Gbob: Listen, Michie. I have an idea for your next book. There’s this volcano…

FIN.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

(I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did, and I hope you enjoy the book even more. If you spot Evolution or the Unbecoming paperback out in the wild today, I'd love it if you shared a picture on Tumblr (#mara dyer) or on Twitter @MichelleHodkin. It would totally make my day. 

And now--off to Tampa! Miami, Austin, Chicago, Milwaukee, and New York: I will see you soon. 

Evolution Playlist, Part II: Noah

Well, hi! You're back!

This is good, because today, I'm posting Noah's playlist. I wrote yesterday that I listened to different music to help fuel their scenes, and that Evolution is as much about Noah as it is about Mara.

What songs do YOU think he'd like? Are there any songs that remind you of him, or of Mara?

Simple Song - The Shins
Free Fallin' - Tom Petty
Little Talks - Of Monsters and Men
Night Moves - Bob Seger
The Lengths - The Black Keys
I Will Follow You Into The Dark - Death Cab for Cutie
OD - Ed Tullett
Silver Drive - Ed Tullett
Close Your Eyes - Young Love
It's Been Awhile - Staind
Save Yourself - Stabbing Westward
Use Somebody - Kings of Leon
Wicked Game - James Vincent McMorrow
Love Interruption - Jack White
The Bad In Each Other - Feist
Solid Sender - John Lee Hooker
You're The One - The Black Keys
Feeling Good - Nina Simone
Chasing Cars (Acoustic) - Snow Patrol
Light Outside - Wakey!Wakey!
Can't Help Falling in Love - Ingrid Michaelson
The Crane Wife 3 - The Decembrists
Mountain Man - Crash Kings
We Don't Eat - James Vincent McMorrow
Gold On The Ceiling - The Black Keys