Barry Lyga's Blog: The BLog, page 13

The fine folks at the Calgary Herald have kind things to say about The Hive, including:

This fast-paced and sometimes highly technical novel will appeal to readers aged 14 and up who love a dystopian chase.

Check out the complete review!

There’s currently (as of the date of this post) a sale on the I Hunt Killers ebook — you can snag a copy at e-tailers everywhere for a mere $1.99!

I have no idea how long this sale will last, so go grab it now!

Thirteen years ago, I gathered a few dozen friends and families to celebrate the release of my first novel, The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy & Goth Girl. I recently stumbled upon some photos from the event and figured I’d post them. Enjoy!

Guests were greeted by the cover at poster-size.

Centerpieces featured members of the Legion of Super-Heroes, along with comic book panels repurposed to “speak” early reviews.

Damn, I was young!

I am thrilled to announce that there’s a new Jasper Dent story available today!

The story is titled “Six Ways to Kill Your Grandmother” and it’s set right after Billy is arrested and sentenced. Jazz (who isn’t called “Jazz” yet, but whatever) is living with his grandmother, desperate to stay out of foster care. Here’s a snippet from the opening of the story:

If there was one thing Jasper Dent had learned from his father, it was this: There were many ways to kill someone, but damn few ways to do it without being caught. This is what sufficed for “pearls of fatherly wisdom” from Billy Dent, quite possibly the world’s most infamous serial killer.

The killing part is easy, Billy had told him time and time again. Might even be too easy. It’s the getting away that separates the men from the boys.

Jasper was only fourteen years old, but he thought there was a good chance he could fit into the “men” column and get away with it. His theoretical victim was his own grandmother, Jasper’s only relation who wasn’t in jail or flat-out missing.

You’ll find the story in the anthology Life is Short and Then You Die, which also features stories from such talents as R.L. Stine (!), Jonathan Maberry, Kelley Armstrong, and more!

AVAILABLE NOW:

So, Brian Michael Bendis is writing/relaunching/reinventing the Legion of Super-Heroes. This has caused me to think about my past a bit. Because the Legion is and always has been my favorite comic book and my favorite super-hero team. And it’s a weirdness and a joy that somehow I’ve stumbled into becoming friends with the guy who most famously guided the team during its heyday, Paul Levitz.

Now Bendis is taking over the reins and I have a weird, joyful connection to him, too.

In 2004, I began writing the book that would eventually be titled The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy & Goth Girl. I knew that the protagonist would be a young comic book geek and that he would be based on my own experiences as a teen.

The novel was influenced by many things, one of which was an old book from my childhood titled Dear Bruce Springsteen. Oddly enough, I never read the book, but I remember seeing it at the library and reading the cover copy. The basic conceit stuck with me, the idea of having a fictional character admire a real-life contemporary celebrity.

Decades later, I put my own spin on that idea. Fanboy would worship a comic book creator, and it just made sense — since Fanboy was me — to have him worship Levitz.

But I didn’t even have my fingers on the keyboard before I realized that this wouldn’t work: In 2004, Paul wasn’t writing comics any more. The odds of a kid born around 1990 being obsessed with a comic book writer who’d left his last monthly assignment in 1989 were…slim. And that’s putting it generously.

The book was set in the present of the early 21st century. Who would be my Paul Levitz? If I were a kid in the Aughts instead of the Eighties, whose work would I have obsessed over?

There was only one answer: Bendis.

In 2004, Bendis was everywhere and he was huge. Ultimate Spider-Man. Daredevil. Avengers Disassembled. Alias. Powers. He defined and shaped an era of comics, and it just made sense that the iteration of me in the novel would glom onto that. 1

So, I chose Bendis and I wrote the book.

Realize that at this point I had published a couple of short stories and a handful of comic books. I had no agent. I had two trunk novels that no one wanted to publish. The idea that this book would actually be published… Well, I had a feeling, but I’d had feelings before. The novel was written with hopes and dreams and absolutely no assumptions.

And then I got an agent.

And then I got a phone call, saying that the book would be published.

In those first heady days (and weeks and months, let’s be honest), Bendis was the furthest thing from my mind. I was going to be published! My name was going to be on the cover of a book! It was all about me me me!

My editor, the wonderful Margaret Raymo, admitted that at first she’d thought I’d invented Bendis, not realizing he was a real person until partway through the editorial process. Once she found out, that opened up some thoughts on her end, including asking me if I thought we should approach Bendis’s Powers partner — Michael Avon Oeming — to do the cover to the book.

(I don’t think they ever pursued that avenue, and we ended up with a gorgeous cover anyway, courtesy of Jon Gray.)

So, the editorial process ground along, as it does, taking forever 2 A year went by, and suddenly my publication date loomed in the near future. I had galleys of the book in my hands. I had postcards with my book cover, as well as temporary tattoos that the publisher made.

And I suddenly freaked out. What the hell had I done? I’d used a real person in my book! I’d put words in his mouth! Without his permission!

What if Bendis was offended?

What if he was angry?

What if he was…litigious?

I assured myself that there would be no problem. After all, in Powers Bendis had used famed author Warren Ellis as a character. He couldn’t be a hypocrite about it, right?

Ah, I reminded myself, but that Ellis cameo just repurposed Ellis’s published essays as dialogue. And besides, for all I knew, Bendis and Ellis knew each other.

I continued to freak out. Had I shot my career right between the eyes at the very moment of its birth?

I emailed an acquaintance from the comics biz, someone who knew Bendis, telling him of my concerns. He replied, “Bendis is a lovely guy. He’ll probably be flattered.”

Probably wasn’t good enough for me. I was envisioning my career set aflame by my own hubris and stupidity. I needed definitely if I was ever going to sleep again.

I contacted David Gabriel at Marvel Comics, where Bendis was doing all of his work. David and I had worked together on Marvel’s bookstore distribution when I’d worked at Diamond Comic Distributors. I told David about the book and asked him if he had any way of seeing if Bendis would be offended or otherwise put out by the use of him as a character.

I didn’t hear back right away. I commenced curling up in a fetal position under my desk.

A day or two later, I unfurled myself long enough to attend the Baltimore Comic-Con. As I wandered the aisle, who should approach me at top speed but David Gabriel, on his way to an important panel. But as he blew past me, he turned and shouted, “Hey! I just talked to Bendis! He’s fine with it!”

I breathed my first truly relieved breath in quite a while!

Well, the book came out and it did well and people seemed to like it. They really seemed to like the verisimilitude lent to the book by including Bendis as a character. If it meant the end of my career, that ending’s been a long time coming because I have five books scheduled through 2021.

Fun anecdote: At a later Baltimore Comic-Con, I brought a copy of the book. I was on a mission. I found Bendis’s table and approached him, holding up the book.

He demurred. “No, man, you don’t understand how many people have given me copies of that book…”

“It’s not for you,” I told him. “I’m the author. And I was hoping you would sign it to me and say something rude.”

He chuckled, then applied his Sharpie to the page. You can see the result right here:

That’s exactly what I wanted. Perfect.

One final story: A couple of years later, I again saw him at Baltimore Comic-Con, this time a few weeks before Goth Girl Rising, the sequel to The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy & Goth Girl came out. I gave him a Goth Girl Minimate and told him the sequel was coming.

“Oh, God,” he said. “What do I do in this one?”

I was happy to tell him: “This one’s not really about you. This one’s all about Neil Gaiman.”

In any event, I was grateful to him then for his forbearance and kindness, and I’m grateful still for his being a good sport this whole time. Dude doesn’t know me at all, but he still did me a solid just by being cool. I really appreciate that. And I will be first in line to buy his Legion of Super-Heroes comic. Mostly because, let’s face it, I’m a giant nerd. But at least partly because, hey: it’s Bendis!

This is a first for me: a book in People!

It’s the September 9, 2019 cover date edition, available on August 28 (because magazine publishing).

The Hive was named one of the magazine’s best titles of Fall 2019. You can see more by clicking on the picture of Kelly Clarkson.

Here is another creepy video for The Hive…

With no further ado…

The folks over at Chapters (the blog of Books-A-Million) have interviewed yours truly and Morgan Baden about our collaboration, The Hive! Here’s a little excerpt:

The plot kicks off as Cassie, the protagonist, makes a fateful error—she posts a tasteless joke about the president’s grandchild—and is forced into hiding, running for her life from the Hive. But the reason she makes the joke is to try to fit in at her new school. Do you have any personal examples of these kinds of peer-pressure-induced mistakes?

Morgan: I would love to find someone who doesn’t have a personal example of a peer-pressure-induced-mistake! In a way that’s one of the reasons I love writing YA so much – it gives me the chance to transfer all the regrettable teenage decisions I once made into fictional characters, and lets me then control the outcomes of their bad decisions.

Barry: I think a lot of us like to look back and say, “I was fiercely independent as a teen! I never followed the crowd!” But the truth of the matter is that most of us did. There are some things I did as a kid that I look back on and think, “Oh, wow — that was seriously uncool and I didn’t even question it at the time because it seemed like EVERYONE was doing the same.” But I grew up in a pre-digital world, so I was allowed to do stupid stuff. Today’s teens — like Cassie — live fully documented lives, where their mistakes and stupidities will follow them forever.

Head over to the site to read the rest of the interview and see what made me say, “So, so, so, so doomed.”

Coming September 3 is my next YA novel, The Hive… which is one of those rare books that did not start out as my own idea. It was actually the brainchild of…Jennifer Beals! (Yeah, Flashdance, The L Word — that Jennifer Beals!)

Here’s the book in a nutshell:

Cassie McKinney has always believed in the Hive.

Social media used to be out of control, after all. People were torn apart by trolls and doxxers. Even hackers — like Cassie’s dad — were powerless against it.

But then the Hive came. A better way to sanction people for what they do online. Cause trouble, get too many “condemns,” and a crowd can come after you, teach you a lesson in real life. It’s safer, fairer and perfectly legal.

Entering her senior year of high school, filled with grief over an unexpected loss, Cassie is primed to lash out. Egged on by new friends, she makes an edgy joke online. Cassie doubts anyone will notice.

But the Hive notices everything. And as her viral comment whips an entire country into a frenzy, the Hive demands retribution.

One moment Cassie is anonymous; the next, she’s infamous. And running for her life.

With nowhere to turn, she must learn to rely on herself — and a group of Hive outcasts who may not be reliable — as she slowly uncovers the truth about the machine behind the Hive.

Sound good? Sound a little too close for comfort? Well, I hope you’ll enjoy it, especially because I cowrote this one with my wife, Morgan Baden! Which was an amazing experience, honestly. Other than our kids, we’d never collaborated on anything before, and working on this book brought us together in a whole new way.

You can read an excerpt of The Hive with this link or by clicking on the book cover above. It comes out on September 3, but I’d appreciate it if you could go ahead and preorder it with this link right here. It would mean a lot!

While you’re here… If you find yourself in New Jersey on September 7, why not join us for The Hive Launch Party? We’ll be at [words] Bookstore in Maplewood, NJ from 7-9pm, celebrating with food, friends, and a signing…as well as a discussion moderated by bestselling author Sarah Maclean. Stop by if you can!