An Early Review of the dead & the gone

I'm a Reading Fool got her hands on an ARC for the dead & the gone, Susan Beth Pfeffer's companion book to Life As We Knew It. She has posted a review. It sounds very, very grim, a different kind of grim from the grimness in LAWKI.

Well, That Was Interesting

I was planning to do a Life As We Knew It post today because recently I received a couple of announcements through listservs regarding blogs that coincidentally both talk about the book.

And then while perusing those blogs, I found something really interesting.

Susan Beth Pfeffer has a blog up called Meteors, Moons, and Me. So far it's pretty much about her book, Life As We Knew It, which, of course, is what you'd expect from the blog's title. While reading through her posts, I noticed one with a reference to a less than stellar review that involved rice.

Also The Inter-Galactic Playground, which focuses on children's science fiction, went quiet for a bit but is back with new posts. Last Sunday, the site reviewed Life As We Knew It. As it turns out, the review isn't wildly complimentary, and early on the reviewer mentions...rice!

What are the chances I'd stumble upon all that? I ask you.

LAWKI was on my mind today because it's been rather cool here in southern New England recently. In fact, this evening it's very close to being cold. I was out on the deck trying to plant some parsley and wondering if all our plants will be destroyed because of this creepy weather the way the family's plants were destroyed in LAWKI.

As Farah at The Inter-galactic Playground suggests, I could just bring all the pots from the deck indoors before they're ruined. But...nah.

So This Is Why We All Liked LAWKI So Much

The L.A. Times ran an article on why apocalyptic novels are so popular right now. Briefly? 9/11 and Iraq.

The article doesn't mention Life As We Knew It, but, come on. Let's do a little adding of two and two.

More Post-Disaster Thrills

If you are a member of the Adbooks listserv and haven't been keeping up with your messages recently, you might want to check them now. This month they've been discussing Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. And who should show up to share some very interesting information about the book but Ms. Pfeffer herself.

She has given me permission to pass on the news that she recently finished a "companion volume," though she is going to refer to it as a parallel book because the action parallels what is happening in Life As We Knew It. The new book is called The Dead and the Gone, and it takes place in New York City with a male protagonist. The book is written in the third person--no diary format this time. The story begins on May 18th when the moon is struck by the meteor and continues until...well, I don't believe in giving too much away.

The Dead and the Gone won't be coming out until next spring at the earliest.

A lot of adult readers never got over the disaster-induced anxiety of Life As We Knew It. We've got some time to try to toughen up for the next installment.