Friday's Music: Heaven - Ailee

This song was actually a suggestion by Freehawk @eurecalaurice! It’s a genre, you could call it, that hasn’t featured here before, called Kpop. It’s quite a sweet song, and by looking at the translated lyrics in English, I straight away saw how it relates completely to Saba and Lugh’s relationship, minus the romance.

Where you are, I will be there too
Where you go, I will go there too

Their relationship was a rickety road for me. I got mixed feelings for Lugh in Rebel Heart, I almost found him –excuse my language- bitchy. But as I went on in the book, I felt I could look past that and focus more on Saba’s task at hand.

I smile for you every day, I pray for you
With thoughts of you, I fall asleep - I open my eyes as I call for you

~Bushra

Try It Tuesday: The Declaration!

This book was DEFINITELY a page turner. You couldn’t guess at all what was coming next, and each climax of the book was as good as the last. Many, many plot twists and GREAT character development. This book is literally an emotional roller coaster, and you also feel anger towards certain characters and ideas in the story.

It's the year 2140 and Longevity drugs have all but eradicated old age. A never-aging society can't sustain population growth, however…which means Anna should never have been born. Nor should any of the children she lives with at Grange Hall. The facility is full of boys and girls whose parents chose to have kids—called surpluses—despite a law forbidding them from doing so. These children are raised as servants, and brought up to believe they must atone for their very existence. Then one day a boy named Peter appears at the Hall, bringing with him news of the world outside, a place where people are starting to say that Longevity is bad, and that maybe people shouldn't live forever. Peter begs Anna to escape with him, but Anna's not sure who to trust: the strange new boy whose version of life sounds like a dangerous fairy tale, or the familiar walls of Grange Hall and the head mistress who has controlled her every waking thought?

An interesting thing about this book is the philosophical ideas and issues it brings up. Is it right for anyone to live forever? Is it okay to label ANYONE as a ‘Surplus’? Frankly, I just hope they never ever find a cure for old age because, this book has scared me away from that idea. Read the series, and decide for yourself whether you would be pro-life or pro-choice in this dystopian thriller.

~Bushra

The 1st Annual Dustlands.net Fan Fiction Contest!

Welcome Free Hawks!

Today I bring you a new contest from Dustlands.net, this time a proposed annual one. We'll see where this one goes.

Fan fiction. It's one my favorite things invented. Fans of stories, writing their own versions of their beloved books, movies, television shows, etc...

If you haven't ever read any fan fiction, head over to Fanfiction.net right now! That's your homework! Look up your favorite book/movie/TV show and see if there are any stories within that category. Click right here to head to a section of Fanfiction.net with stories dedicated completely to Blood Red Road! 

For this contest, we want you to submit your own Dustlands themed short story! Here are the rules: 

• Each story must be at least 500 words
• Each story must be related to the characters in the Dustlands series. (Blood Red Road and Rebel Heart)
• Each story doesn't have to necessarily take place IN the Dustlands. (Perhaps a story could feature Saba in a jungle? The possibilities are endless)
• Each story must be submitted by July 31st, 2013. 

Get planning and write your story soon so you don't forget! And make sure to make it the best it possibly can, you have the whole month of July!  Submit using the form below and spread the word! It's greatly appreciated.

Cheers, from the Dustlands.net family.

~Jake

Friday's Music: Under My Skin - Jukebox the Ghost

I have a lot of adoration for this band! Not too well known, but unique and quirky. I chose this song because I felt some parts of it represented the relationship between Saba, Jack and De Malo, something I’m sure a lot of us are curious about. It was something new when things started to happen between Saba and De Malo, and I felt like it changed Saba, opened her up. It literally felt that De Malo got under her skin.

I can feel you breathing under my skin,
Yeah I can feel you breathing under my skin

Of course, Jack gets under her skin, but in a different way. Where with De Malo Saba’s fire is sparked and harnessed into this beautiful passion, I feel like Jack is a gust of wind that creates a firestorm of feelings. Although this isn’t the only thing to look forward to in Raging Star, it is certainly something you should look out for. I want to see what Saba chooses to do with Tommo in the mix too, or rather, where the fates will take her.

I don't think there is anyone under your skin,
Like a Cheshire cat I think you're just a grin,
And I can feel you laughing, under my skin,
And the happy palpitations are making me... grin

~Bushra

Saba's Narrative - The Ins and Outs

'I’m frequently asked about the narrative voice of the Dustlands books....'

The creator of the Dust Lands trilogy, Moira Young, has answered a frequently asked question from fans below - why is the book told the way it is? And what exactly does Saba's voice consist of, and thus symbolise? Find out after the jump...

Friday's Music....?

Hello Free Hawks! Today I decided to try out something new, so instead of a song, you're getting a small comic strip. Meet the chibi version of Saba and Lugh! (click picture to enlarge)

If you have other ideas to be drawn, comment below. Or even better, send in your own commissions! p.s apologies for the hurried colouring, next time will be better, promise.

~Bushra

Read Along: Evaluation & Review

If you're here, reading this, then it's pretty clear that I don't need to write a review, or give a 5* rating to Blood Red Road, because clearly you feel the same. 

It has been a pleasure to re-enter the Dust Lands and really study Saba, Jack, Emmi, and all the rest in great detail. Sometimes you read for the fun of it, and sometimes you read to find some deeper meaning, either in yourself or in the story. Blood Red Road fulfills all of these aims. 

The read along posts remain available as an archive under our menu options. Hopefully they will be useful upon release of Raging Star, so that readers can enter Saba's world once again with ease. 

There are plans to commence with a read along of Rebel Heart, however, this will probably begin in September, due to the business of admins over the next few months.

Hang in there, Free Hawks!

~Ella

Try It Tuesday: The Age of Miracles!

What would you do if the earth's rotation suddenly began to slow, turning the days to night and the time of the moon to the hour of the midnight sun? If your world changed as sharply as Julia's does?

'On a seemingly ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, 11-year-old Julia and her family awake to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow. The days and nights grow longer and longer, gravity is affected, the environment is thrown into disarray. Yet as she struggles to navigate an ever-shifting landscape, Julia is also coping with the normal disasters of everyday life--the fissures in her parents’ marriage, the loss of old friends, the hopeful anguish of first love, the bizarre behavior of her grandfather who, convinced of a government conspiracy, spends his days obsessively cataloging his possessions. As Julia adjusts to the new normal, the slowing inexorably continues.'

~(As taken from Goodreads)

This is one of those hauntingly nostalgic novels that you discover strangely and, in hindsight, miraculously. It was recommended to me by the very talented Lauren Oliver - author of the Delirium trilogy - at a book signing. Upon hearing the premise of the story, I knew I had to read it.

For American readers, this may be a book you already know of, as it was released last summer in the US, but here in the UK - it's only recently been stocked on our shelves. About time!

Julia's story is arguably a lonely one. I personally felt a deep sense of sympathy for her as she struggles with family, friends, first love and the continuous upheaval of the world she lives in just as she's starting to adapt. This is what I think makes it so relatable for in particular, female readers. It also appeals to people in that stage between childhood and adulthood - on the very brink of something. 

On a more philosophical level, I loved the questions the book posed. As the hours of the day begin to increase - to a 48+ hour period, there's a dilemma between those who still wish to live by the 24 hour clock time - clock timers - and those who live in 'real time' - real timers - rising as the sun does, and adapting to sleep in 20 hour periods. It's political and gritty and told from a child's POV, strangely observant. 

I'd recommend to fans of the Dust Lands trilogy simply because it offers a different view of a potential apocalypse and the effects it would have on us 'Wreckers'. 

~Ella