Gr 9 Up–A mix of dystopian, adventure, romance, and superhero origin tale, this book covers all the bases admirably as long as readers are able to suspend their disbelief. Faith Daniels lives in between the strictly government controlled Western and Eastern States, in a zone whose population is dwindling daily through the promised advantages of immigration to the west or east. She also has the Pulse. Dylan has been watching over Faith to find the right time to explain about the supernatural power of the rare few who have it. As events unfold, he is forced to reveal his secret and hers. Faith must adjust not only to her newfound powers but also come to terms with the loss of her parents and the unexpected murder of her best friend. All this must be done pronto, as the evil forces that wish to kill the duo and rule the world are gathering. Faith and Dylan find an ally in nerdy genius Hawk, who is able to hack into the tablets that control all communication and information. As Pulse comes to a close, the forces of good and evil face off for a showdown. Faith, Dylan, and Hawk await the chance to use their intellect and powers to save the world. Engrossing and suspense-filled, this book is sure to find an audience, and readers will eagerly await the sequel.–Cindy Wall, Southington Library & Museum, CT

“Pulse is a brilliant combination of thriller, mystery, and dystopian adventure. Set 30 years in the future in a world of amazing technology, dwindling energy, and imminent environmental disaster, this is a story of an independent teenager whose life is turned upside down when she discovers she can move objects with her mind. Can she master her new abilities in time to save herself and her friends from those who would hurt them? A fantastic beginning to a mind-bending new series that will leave readers eagerly waiting for the next book.”

Find the preview list of top 10 here:

http://news.bookweb.org/news/spring-2013-kids’-indie-next-list-preview

Best-selling author Carman launches a new series in a dystopian civilization that has its roots in today’s United States.

It’s 2051, and global warming has wreaked havoc around the world. Most of America’s remaining population has moved into one of the two remaining States, where life is stringently controlled and people are kept amused by whatever latest entertainment is available on their ever-present Tablets. Outside the States, life is freer, but even there, kids like Faith Daniels still have to go to school, despite shrinking student populations. On her own, she clings to her friendship with Liz while wondering what it would be like to have a boyfriend like Wade Quinn. She soon finds out that both Wade and his sister Clara are dangerous. When Liz and her family move into the Western State, Faith is even more alone, except for Hawk, a genius hacker, and Dylan, who can not only move things with his mind, but ward off almost all threats to his body. Faith has this extra “pulse” as well…if only Dylan can train her to use it in time. The third-person narration shifts from one character’s perspective to another in short, colloquial chapters, keeping the pace swift from the beginning. Carman’s grounding of his dystopia in this recognizable near-future makes it highly believable.

The successful mix of suspense and romance combines with unexpected twists to keep readers engrossed from the start and begging for more. (Dystopian romance. 13 & up)

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SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL – OCTOBER 2012

Gr 4-6–Fans who enjoyed Floors (Scholastic, 2011) and want more of the same should be pleased with Leo and Remi’s latest excursion. The fate of the wild and wacky Whippet Hotel is once again in the hands of 10-year-old Leo Fillmore. Merganzer Whippet, the eccentric owner of New York City’s most unusual hotel, has just discovered that the building is dangerously in debt. The brilliant inventor has recruited Leo and his friend, Remi, and has given them a quest to recover the items necessary to avert disaster. The two boys must venture deep into uncharted territory in the subbasements of the hotel to retrieve what Merganzer needs. This lightweight fantasy adventure provides puzzles to solve, fabulous rooms and inventions to explore, and large dollops of humor meant to tickle the funny bones of reluctant readers. This second installment doesn’t deviate from the tried-and-true formula: one-dimensional villains get thwarted, children are given free rein for thrilling adventures without too much danger, and the designer of the drama is conveniently pulling the strings so that everything comes out right in the end.–Stephanie Whelan, New York Public Library

3 BELOW

Author: Carman, Patrick

Review Issue Date: July 15, 2012
Online Publish Date: June 27, 2012
Publisher:Scholastic
Pages: 240
Price ( Hardcover ): $16.99
Price ( e-book ): $16.99
Publication Date: September 1, 2012
ISBN ( Hardcover ): 978-0-545-25520-2
ISBN ( e-book ): 978-0-545-46971-5
Category: Fiction
Series: Floors
Volume: 2

Leo Fillmore, 11 years old and proprietor of New York City’s most engagingly eccentric hotel (Floors, 2011), returns with a juicy, potentially calamitous dilemma When Leo learns that Merganzer D. Whippet, ex-owner of the Whippet Hotel (now in Leo’s capable if fumbly hands) and maker of wacky inventions, had neglected to pay the hotel’s taxes to the tune of $700,000, he has to unravel Merganzer’s strange instructions in order to save the joint from sale to an avaricious developer. (Actually, it is $7 million, but Merganzer is challenged in the 0’s department.) But it is as though Merganzer is speaking in tongues: “Remember!…Four Floogers, a zip rope, and the iron box!…An isle of Penguins, a boy named Twist, Robinson Crusoe!” Carman, however, is an intricate yet bell-clear storyteller, all the many wheels freely spinning but meshed, and soon a Flooger is as obvious and necessary as the pink rhinoceros in the diamond mine. The characters are slap-happy and tomfool without overdoing their weird behavior, though Carman may be at his best in creating the very strange world of the hotel, from its magical, duck-infested rooftop to the Realm of Gears in the super-sub-basement. Then, when all seems lost, in rides the cavalry, as is only right.

An adventurous romp, as atmospheric as incense and as smooth as lemonade on a summer day. (Magical adventure. 9-12)

Patrick Carman’s “Dark Eden” is a multimedia offering, but even in its simple print form it is a compelling read about seven terrified teens in a backwoods adventure.

Illustration from the book “Dark Eden” by Patrick Carman. (Patrick Arrasmith, Harper Collins)

By Susan Carpenter, Los Angeles Times
November 13, 2011
Dark Eden

A Novel

Patrick Carman

Katherine Tegen Books: 316 pp., $17.99 ages 13 and up

The seven video screens in the new young adult thriller “Dark Eden” flicker in black and white — not only as described in the book’s text but through an accompanying downloadable app that plays out the story’s action in video snippets viewable on iPhones, iPods, iPads and Android devices. The back cover of the latest multimedia creation from bestselling author Patrick Carman also incorporates a QR code allowing potential readers to watch the ominously creepy “Dark Eden” trailer.

Is it a book? A film? An audio book? “Dark Eden” is all three — an effort on the author’s part to encourage reluctant readers to embrace the written word through technological enticements. But even in its humble print form, without any of the bells and whistles and gadgetry, “Dark Eden” is a compelling read that transposes the best aspects of classic horror storytelling onto a modern backwoods adventure reluctantly experienced by seven terrified teens.

Each of them suffers from a fear — of rabid dogs, rickety ladders, kidnapping. None of them understands why they’re so afraid, despite years of psychotherapy. So their doctor corrals them together, driving them deep into a wooded area somewhere on L.A.’s outskirts and dropping them off on a dirt trail, saying only, “A cure is waiting for each of you down that path.”

Their doctor refers to them as “The 7.” All of them are 15 years old. They’re a mix of hormone-addled boys and girls, some of whom are inevitably romantically involved. None had met before being packed into their doctor’s van. They’re panicked to discover their cellphones are out of service range and even more freaked that the first person they meet after an hour’s walk is Mrs. Goring — a crotchety old woman of indeterminate age whose first words of advice are: “Act like grown-ups and I won’t spit in your oatmeal.”

Mrs. Goring is one of just two people living at Fort Eden — a compound that consists of buildings notable only for their bunker-esque architecture and sturdy iron doors. Dr. Rainsford also lives on the premises, perfecting his cure for fear, though the details of how he does so are unclear.

Faced with looming darkness and a lack of survival skills, six of the kids venture into the appropriately named Fort, but Will Besting stays behind. Will, it turns out, is scared of people and finds comfort in technology, specifically the vintage video games he plays at home and the audio recording device he brought with him. The Recorder, as he calls it, was cobbled together from old iPods and digital cameras he bought on Craigslist and reassembled into a device he uses to record audio and video.

Readers can hear and watch what he’s recorded through the “Dark Eden” app, the first episode of which consists of shaky video footage of the teens’ walk through the woods and audio files of the seven’s psychotherapy sessions that Will surreptitiously downloaded from his doctor’s computer. The first episode is free. Subsequent chapters can be purchased for 99 cents apiece or in their entirety for $9.99.

While “Dark Eden” is written in a visual manner that easily conjures images on its own, experiencing the story through Will’s eyes and ears heightens the fear factor in a way that words alone cannot. It’s chilling to watch Will observe the treatments, which are conducted in basement rooms with metal helmets that wouldn’t be out of place in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.” Hearing the seven’s interactions with their doctor makes the characters and their fears feel more relatable and real.

As befits a story taking place outside of L.A., all of the characters in the app are Hollywood-slick. And so are the video and audio production values, which amplify, rather than detract from, Carman’s inventive storytelling. “Dark Eden” is a fast-paced thrill ride that ends with big reveals about why the seven were taken to the Fort and subjected to Rainsford’s immersion therapy. Readers will need to wait until the second, and final, book in the series to find out if the fear cure actually works.

By Dennis Abrams

Patrick Carman is a traditional storyteller — the author of the bestselling YA series The Land of Elyon and Atherton, he’s also the creator of the popular and innovative 3:15 website, which uses a variety of media to encourage young readers to become interested in reading short stories.

And in his latest novel, Dark Eden, published this month by Katherine Tegen Books as an app for the iPad, Carman again pushes the boundaries of YA fiction by using text and video to tell the gripping story of seven young people forced to face their deepest darkest fears. Looking backwards, with references to Edgar Allen Poe, John Steinbeck and Kobo Abe, while exploring the future world of transmedia, Carman is very much a writer of and for our time.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Patrick via email, where we discussed transmedia, the desirability of book apps, and whether multimedia publishing can eventually lead young readers to Charles Dickens.

PP: Assume I’m a complete tech idiot — explain to me how the whole multimedia aspect of the book works and why I would want to do it.

PC: Dark Eden is designed to reach different kinds of readers. For traditional readers who prefer to read words, the book will give them exactly what they’re expecting (plus some amazing drawings from artist Patrick Arrasmith, who we were very lucky to have on the project). But I’m also interested in finding new ways of reaching very wired teens. And let’s be honest. Most of today’s teens are jacked in, wired up, and buzzing on tech throughout a normal day. The Dark Eden app tells the exact same story as the print edition; it just does it in a totally different way. With the app version, a participant enters into the story through a series of maps. Within those images are numbered icons that must be opened in order. There’s no way of knowing what’s behind the curtain of each number until they’re tapped, but every icon unlocks one of three things:

• An audio diary. With these, participants listen in on conversations taking place in the world of the story.
• A video, allowing participants to see firsthand what’s happening to certain key moments of the narrative.
• A journal entry. Taken directly from the book, the journal entries provide bite-sized reading segments.

I’ve had a lot of email on the app, and the overall viewpoint has been something along the lines of the following: I don’t know what I just did, but I liked it. So the Dark Eden app is extraordinary in that it’s a new palette. No story that I’m aware of has ever been told this way. It’s not a novel, it’s not an audio book, andit’s not a movie. It’s all three at one time. For some teen readers – the one’s publishing has lost in a rising tide of video games, movies, TV shows, the Internet, and cell phones — this is the kind of experience that will help them enjoy reading again. It’s a lifeline back to books, if you will. For traditional readers, it’s a new way to imagine what reading can be.

But given that, is there a risk that even though using multimedia encourages reading, it will lead to eventual disappointment when everything isn’t multimedia? Will going from you to, say, Dickens, be a letdown?

About half the books I write include zero multimedia, and that’s by design. My follow up to Dark Eden will be a traditional three book series for teens. If someone has experienced the Dark Eden app and liked it, maybe they’ll want to read the more traditional follow up by the same writer. So there is a strategy at play here, and its goal is to bring jaded young readers back to books. Having said that, in today’s kinetic tech culture, I think Dickens is a challenge for any teen reader. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but I’m convinced it’s the reality we faced as publishers, writers, and educators. Saying it’s not so won’t make it true, and we have to evolve in order to survive. Think of Dark Eden as a bridge to contemporary YA. The bridge to Dickens is a bit longer, but for some readers, that first step might lead to the streets of London in due time.

Given how Dark Eden changes what “reading” means, how does it change the writing process for you? Which comes first — the writing or the app?

I wrote the Dark Eden book first, but while I was writing, I was thinking about how it would become something else. When I finished the book, I worked with my director and writing partner to re-write the entire story for the app version. I’ve done this before with other projects like Skeleton Creek and Trackers and 3:15, and in every case, it’s a somewhat terrifying process to go through. The final document for the Dark Eden app was three inches thick, encompassing about 100 different assets that needed to be created. The hard thing about starting at a document like that is the uncertainty of it all. I stared at that binder of paper for a long time and wondered if it would all come together and form an experience as strong as the traditional book. There’s no way of knowing when you’re doing something that no one has ever tried. The only way out is to keep going, keep building, and always keep the basics top of mind: is this clear, is it compelling, do I want to follow these characters? I think the Dark Eden app works, I’m satisfied. Time will tell us whether participants feel the same way.

I downloaded the app for 3:15, and was fascinated by the way in which you transformed the basic short story into an audio introduction/text middle/video at the end experience. Can you tell me a little about it came about? And again, are you concerned that readers will grow up expecting all their texts to be like this and won’t be satisfied with simply reading a story?

The strategy with 3:15 is the same as everything else we’ve been talking about here. I love short stories, but they’re not very popular among teens and pre-teens (and actually, not very popular among adults, either). I was reading a short story a year ago by Flannery O’Connor and when I got done, I was a little bit angry. Why don’t more people read this stuff!? Why is this powerful experience being missed? 3:15 came out of that frustration as I began thinking about how short stories could be re-imagined for a new readership. The Twilight Zone informed the structure, because I thought having a host for a series of stories would help draw young readers into the experience. It was shortly after that I decided that it would pull in readers even faster if they could actually hear the host introduce the story, and thus Paul Chandler was born. At this point I’m hoping I’ve earned ten minutes of reading out of a twelve or thirteen year old, because I’m also offering a payoff — they get to watch how the story ends. All of this thinking came together perfectly in the series title, 3:15. The three stands for listen, read, and watch, and you do it all in fifteen minutes or less. For a young reader, this is an enticing bargain, but again, the endgame isn’t 3:15. My desire is that they move on to Chris Crutcher, Holly Black, Jonathan Strahah, and a host of other writers creating traditional short stories for teens.

How did your desire to go multimedia start?

Ten years in advertising and five running an internet start-up in the first .com boom certainly played a part. I was hard-wired to break the rules before I showed up in publishing. My experiences in those industries had a lot to do with making new rules in order to be heard, noticed, and taken seriously. I side with the late Steve Jobs here: the people who are doing things no one else thinks will work are taking the biggest risks and have the best chance of creating real change. I’m not a genre-maker or a category builder — vampires, dystopian, what have you — I’m a palette changer. I’m watching where kids and teens are going and building new storytelling methods that will meet them where they’re at. The ultimate goal is to discover ways to make reading relevant in an increasingly noisy world. But to be clear, I don’t think all books should be brimming with multimedia. That would be a tragedy! These projects are designed to re-introduce reading to an audience that doesn’t think reading fiction can be enjoyable. In a perfect world, a teen experiences the Dark Eden app and it puts them back in the reading for pleasure game. The next story they pick up, I hope is in the form of a traditional novel. Last disclaimer: there are plenty of teen readers reading normal books. Bravo, young readers! But let’s be honest with ourselves as adult readers and writers: there are a lot of teenagers who simply do not read for pleasure. It’s off their radar. I’m trying to win them back.

[Personally] I’m inspired by great stories, and I’ll admit to not caring what form they take. A season of great TV (Mad Men, The Good Wife, Battlestar Galactica), a riveting movie (The Matrix, Shine, Good Will Hunting), a video game (spend four bucks on LIMBO in the X-Box arcade and prepare to be wowed by a brilliant narrative), or a really good read (recent loves include The Lonely Polygamist and Freedom). It doesn’t matter to me. If I’m swept up in the world of the story, I’m pleased.

And this get to a bigger point I’d like to end on: no amount of tech wizardry will turn a bad story into a good one. My stories have to hold up, because a video might get a young reader in, but they’ll cut and run as fast as they can turn a channel on a TV if the story isn’t any good and the characters are flat. In fact, I think the stakes are even higher with multimedia. Who of us have not seen a special effects powerhouse that we forget ten seconds after leaving the theater? The palette may have changed in some cases, but the job is still the same. Dark Eden, whether it’s consumed as a traditional book or a multimedia app, has to deliver on the promise of a great story. I hope I’ve succeeded on both cases!

Ages: 13 and up
Illustrated by:
ISBN: 9780062009708
Price: $$17.99

Published By HarperCollins Children’s Books

Read The Original Post

Originally posted at www.publishersweekly.com

By Sally Lodge

Seven teenagers with crippling secrets and phobias travel to an eerie, mysterious place in hopes of finding a cure in Dark Eden, a novel and multimedia app by Patrick Carman. Published by Katherine Tegen Books on November 1, this psychological thriller was launched with a fittingly fright-themed marketing campaign that involved a “Fear Test” for teens to assess the source of their fears. The multiple-choice test is available online as well as on a CD-ROM that was distributed—along with other branded giveaways—at such venues as haunted houses, corn mazes, family gaming centers, and bookstores during the Halloween season. Pre-pub buzz for the novel was also generated by a 20-site blog tour, on which Carman offered guest posts and sneak peeks of Dark Eden’s multimedia components.

Patrick Carman. Photo:
www.kimberlyink.com.

Carman, whose earlier projects combining print and digital content include Skeleton Creek and 3:15, notes that Dark Eden offers teens the chance to experience the story in two distinct ways. “The idea is to reach every kind of reader,” he explains. “The book itself is a straight read, with no technology involved. If another kind of reader wants to experience the story through the multimedia app, they can unlock journal entries, audio recordings, and videos that tell the entire story from beginning to end in a different format. It’s kind of like having the book and movie come out at the same time.” Dark Eden‘s digital components are compatible with the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Android-enabled devices.

Released with an announced first printing of 100,000 copies, Dark Eden has been named a Winter 2011-2012 Kids’ Indie Next Pick. Katherine Tegen, the novel’s editor, calls the multimedia app’s combination of a game with short segments of text from the novel, “innovative and brilliant,” and the ideal way to snag today’s teens, who she notes “live on their phones. Teens who like to read—and teens who don’t—will be totally hooked by the app. Even though I know the story extremely well, every time I watch a segment of the app, I am totally transfixed by the multimedia experience of that same story.”

Branded banners were distributed to venues
nationwide, such as this haunted house in Seattle.

The publisher and Carman’s PC Studio joined forces to create what Tegen labels “the best viral campaign I’ve ever seen,” noting that the blog tour, organized by HarperCollins’s publicity department, resulted in “a stunning number of amazing blog reviews and online buzz.” She says that the haunted house partnerships and the Fear Test developed by PC Studio “like the app, employ real guerilla marketing tactics to reach teens where they live. Patrick deployed his ardent teen fans across the country to tag public places with “thefeartest.com” stickers. The teens were encouraged to take photos of their tags and five teens won prizes—signed books by Patrick—for the best photos.”

The promotional partnership with haunted houses and other Halloween-themed attractions enabled Carman and his team “to get the book in front of a lot of teens at one time,” he says. “Teens are really into haunted houses this time of year, and we pretty rapidly got a number of venues on board. It was a win-win situation, since we were able to draw teens into the world of Dark Eden, and the haunted houses were able to offer teens something that others were not.”

Two of the haunted houses that participated in the project are owned by Clear Channel Seattle, and each is sponsored by one of the company’s Seattle radio stations, KUBE 93 and 106.1 KISS FM. “Kids ages 13 to 15 make up the sweet spot demographically for these haunted houses, and that is right on the money in terms of Dark Eden’s target audience,” explains account executive Casey Anderson. “We integrated some pretty creative elements into our haunted houses, including stenciling scenes on the wall that related to the book. To pique curiosity for the book, we also handed out wrist bands and CDs, and ran some 15-second radio spots the last two weekends in October to tie it all together. It was a great strategy, and we feel good about the positive connection to reading.”

Fear Test stickers were sent to fans with instructions
to tag and photograph their handiwork.

Through these seasonal attractions and bookstores, 40,000 CD-ROMs featuring the Fear Test and some 100,000 wrist bands touting Dark Eden have been distributed to teens. Other giveaways include lanyards and bookmarks. HarperCollins, which has created a Web site for the novel, continues its marketing campaign throughout November with online consumer advertising for a total number of 2.4 million impressions, as well as mobile advertising at MillenialMedia.com.

Carman’s follow-up novel, Eve of Destruction, will be released by Katherine Tegen Books in May and will also have a multimedia app component. With its multimedia platform, this two-book series embodies Carman’s mission as author. “This orientation is crucial to me,” he says. “I’ve visited more than 1,400 schools, and of course there are always plenty of kids who read, but the percentage is not very high. If there is any way to throw kids a lifeline to reading, I am always looking to do that.”