Days of Angst and Coffee

Sometimes when you search for my books using the name I use on my picture books, Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen, this book comes up.



I have no idea why, but in the description under authors, my name is there. Once I went to a school and a teacher handed me a stack of books to sign. This book was in the stack. For the life of me, I could not convince her I had nothing to do with it. "Amazon listed it under your books." I managed to sneak it under the stack so I didn't have to sign it.
I get why she would think that. But I didn't help write it. Honestly. I would claim ownership if I had, believe me. I just feel a little bad for Mary Reed and Eric Mayer, the real authors, who probably wonder who the interloper is that always gets listed as the third author. They probably have voodoo dolls with my name on them. I know I would if someone else got credit for writing one of my books... 

Last week was a bit roller coaster, because I did get this great news before I got the bad news I recently posted about.
The Compound has won the 2011 Nebraska Golden Sower Award. Here are the winners and runners-up for all three age groups...

http://www.goldensower.org/index.htm

The Hunger Games won last year which puts me in some very fine company. I'll be heading to Omaha in October to accept the award at the state library conference. ( And they have posted the nominees for next year. I'm happy to see April Henry's Girl Stolen on the list. Great book you should read if you haven't.)

Piracy, in terms of copyright violations, "includes the unauthorized storage, reproduction, distribution, or sale of intellectual property." Which includes books. For my purposes, and this post on my blog, this particularly applies to the unauthorized distribution of the electronic copy of the galley of The Raft, which will not be released until August. Here is a screen shot from the website Share Term Papers.


As you can see, The Raft has been down loaded 61 times. Of course, this was March 7, so I can only imagine how many more times it has been downloaded since then. Share Term Papers does have an Author Opt Out list, so you can put your name on there and this will not be allowed on the general boards. Of course, this happened on the private boards, and you can see the bold-faced Please do not repost on STP or any other site.
And apparently, Net Galley denied Book_Fiend an electronic copy of The Raft ( for review purposes only) , so she went on here to get it. I don't think that's the way Net Galley intends for their review copies to be used. I did a bit of looking around, and found a book of Lauren Myracle's that had been downloaded 45 times.  Now you are probably thinking, "Oh well, 45 copies, 61 copies. No biggie." My books don't sell a million copies. I am not wealthy. Nowhere close. And I have a kid in college this year and will have two next year. But the royalties from 61 copies might buy a week's worth of groceries. Or fill up the gas tank once, maybe twice. Maybe buy a textbook for one of my kids. In this economy? That makes a difference.
Honestly? I believe with all my heart that none one of these people would have gone out and dropped $16.95 on The Raft when it comes out. Does that mean they should get to read it for free when most of my friends and relatives will wait until August? Hell no.
And I'm not going to sit here without at least letting people know this crap is going on with a  lot of people's books.

So, this just hit Publisher's Marketplace, so I guess I can share:

THE RAFT and THE COMPOUND author S.A. Bodeen's first four volumes of a first middle grade series, pitched as "Swiss Family Robinson" meets "Lost," about a recently-blended family on a sailing trip in the South Pacific as a bonding adventure for the new step-siblings and step-parents, when things go terribly wrong, to Jean Feiwel and Liz Szabla at Feiwel and Friends, by Scott Mendel at the Mendel Media Group (world).

A couple of years ago, I read this:


The Marbury Lens by Andrew Smith is one of my favorite novels of the past couple of years. It's dark and sinister and not easy to read. It's freakin' scary. If you haven't read it, because you've been too busy reading about vampires and witches and teenagers- that- are- dead -but -somehow -still- manage- to- narrate- an- entire- book-while-wearing-fashionable- clothing, you need to get it. Because it is a great read.
But I'm soooo excited, because my UPS dude, Kelly, just dropped this off.


Passenger by Andrew Smith. The sequel to one of my favorite books of the past few years. It doesn't come out until October. Yes, I despise when people do this. "Oh snap. Lookie what I've got. But you can't read it for three years yet, because it's not out, but I have a galley because I'm cool like that." I despise that. So here I am, doing a despicable thing. Only because I have been dying to get my hands on this ever since I heard it was going to happen. So I did what any respectable reader would do: begged my editor, who happens to be Andrew's editor, to send me one. And, wonderful person that she is, she sent me one . Along with a note saying Buckle up tight. It's a dangerous ride.
 ( I don't do this very often. Beg for a galley. In fact, I do it much less than often. Maybe once a year I beg for a galley I want to read.) I didn't do this so I could lord it over you all who don't have a copy. (Because those of you who live near me will certainly be knocking on my door to borrow it and I will let you. Maybe.) I wanted the thing so I can read it, because if I had to pick only novel, YA or other, to read in 2012? This one would be it. And I don't want to wait until October. So forgive me for doing that which I despise. But hey, may I just say, "Oh snap. Lookie what I've got...."

This is The Compound, my first YA novel that came out in 2008. I honestly never thought about writing a sequel. Ever. It was a stand-alone story with a fairly open ending. But was there really more to tell?
Apparently,according to readers, yes. This past year and a half I spent a LOT of time in middle school and high schools in states where the book has made it onto state reading award lists. And everywhere I went, it was the first question they all asked: "Will there be a sequel?" And I always said no. Sequels are never as good as the first, everyone is disappointed, etc. etc. There would be no sequel. But then, I was watching television, as I am wont to do, and heard this fairly amazing story on the science channel about a discovery. And it got me thinking. ( Also as I am wont to do...) And I came up with this CRAZY idea. In July, my editor and I presented together at a SCBWI conference in Maryland, and we had a chance to talk. I said, "Okay. I've never considered a sequel, but...I have this idea. You will either think I am insane or you will love it." I told her and and she said, "I love it."
Well, I spent the next few months working up a synopsis to go with the idea, not sure it was going to work. But, I just found out last week that it is a go. So the next book you'll see from me after The Raft will be the sequel to The Compound.

I'm thrilled to see The Gardener on this list....

Sonnenblick, Jordan	After Ever After	Scholastic
Shusterman, Neil	Bruiser	HarperTeen
Falls, Kat	Dark Life (Dark Life #1)	Scholastic
Henry, April	Girl, Stolen	Henry Holt
Carter, Ally	Heist Society (Heist Society #1)	Hyperion
White, Kiersten	Paranormalcy (Paranormalcy #1)	HarperTeen
Shulman, Mark	Scrawl	Roaring Book Press
Choat, Beth	Soccerland	Marshall Cavendish
Bodeen, S.A.	The Gardener	Feiwel and Friends
Shulman, Polly	The Grimm Legacy	Putnam Juvenile
Riordan, Rick	The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus #1)	Hyperion
Reichs, Kathy	Virals	Razorbill

This round over at One Potato Ten we are posting about our publishing Scrooges:

http://onepotatoten.blogspot.com

I've been sick all week, hence all the couch-potato reading going on. I got another galley today and read the whole thing.


Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi. Here's the premise:

Exiled from her home, the enclosed city of Reverie, Aria knows her chances of
surviving in the outer wasteland—known as The Death Shop—are slim. If the
cannibals don’t get her, the violent, electrified energy storms will. She’s been
taught that the very air she breathes can kill her. Then Aria meets an Outsider
named Perry. He’s wild—a savage—and her only hope of staying alive.A
hunter for his tribe in a merciless landscape, Perry views Aria as
sheltered and fragile—everything he would expect from a Dweller. But he needs
Aria’s help too; she alone holds the key to his redemption. Opposites in nearly
every way, Aria and Perry must accept each other to survive. Their unlikely
alliance forges a bond that will determine the fate of all who live under the
never sky.


The story is told in varying viewpoints between Aria and Perry, which works really well. We get to see where they are both coming from, and believe me, they both come from two very different places. The world of this book is original, it might be Earth and it might not, which makes it different from recent dystopias which make it clear we're reading about an Earth in decay. I liked that it was different, and it was no problem to visualize the setting. The tale of Aria and Perry, and the evolution of their relationship, is compelling. They are not the only fascinating characters in this book, and I really liked how we did get to care for more than just the main two. I totally enjoyed this read and suspect teens will eat it up.

I just got this galley in the mail yesterday and finished it last night:


Partials by Dan Wells

The concept: The human race is all but extinct after a war with Partials—engineered organic beings identical to humans—has decimated the population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by RM, a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island while the Partials have mysteriously retreated. The threat of the Partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to RM in more than a decade. Our time is running out.

Kira, a sixteen-year-old medic-in-training, is on the front lines of this battle, seeing RM ravage the community while mandatory pregnancy laws have pushed what's left of humanity to the brink of civil war, and she's not content to stand by and watch. But as she makes a desperate decision to save the last of her race, she will find that the survival of humans and Partials alike rests in her attempts to uncover the connections between them—connections that humanity has forgotten, or perhaps never even knew were there.

Wowzer, this was an insane read. The sci-fi element was there, but the story was about humans in their new society, arisen from the decay of the old. Of course, the new society is flawed, still haunted by the memory of the old. Though the book does end on a cliffhanger, setting us up, presumably, for a sequel, I was totally satisfied with the wild ride this one took me on. And I'll be waiting to read the next one.