Unbooking: I Am Number Four

No Bag o' Speculative Swag for you today, fair readers. Something came in the mail a few days ago that deserves more comprehensive treatment than I'm afraid The BoSS allows for. Without further ado, have a gander at this little beauty:

This has to be the most luxurious proof I've ever laid eyes on - and I hate orange. As a flavour, it's fine; as a colour, it's so lurid as to be borderline offensive. And I Am Number Four is all about the orange.

But here, the orange is used, I think, to great effect, in striking opposition to the stark white of the symbol that adorns both the book and the slipcase. Oh, did I not mention the slipcase?

'Tis, truly, a beautiful thing. Publisher Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin here in the UK, have pulled out all the stops to ensure I Am Number Four by - get this - a gentleman called Pittacus Lore stands out from the crowd. As well it should do. Make no mistake: this is the next Next Big Thing in genre fiction.

I know, I know. The Passage is only barely behind us, and already we're looking ahead. The hype train simply cares not for such things. If Penguin have their way, and from what little I've read I tend to think they will, I Am Number Four will be everywhere you look in a month's time. Courtesy of Transformers egomaniac Michael Bay, in fact, the film adaptation is currently in production, with Timothy Olyphant in a starring role and Disturbia director D. J. Caruso at the helm. You'll have to wait till next Summer to see the movie; the book, however, can be yours as of August 26th. Here's the plot synopsis:

"John Smith is not your average teenager. He regularly moves from small town to small town. He changes his name and identity. He does not put down roots. He cannot tell anyone who or what he really is. If he stops moving those who hunt him will find and kill him.

"But you can't run forever. So when he stops in Paradise, Ohio, John decides to try and settle down. To fit in. And for the first time he makes some real friends. People he cares about – and who care about him. Never in John's short life has there been space for friendship, or even love. But it's just a matter of time before John's secret is revealed. He was once one of nine. Three of them have been killed. John is Number Four. He knows that he is next..."

Which is all well and good - if rather unremarkable, right? Well. The thing of it is, John isn't actually human. He's one of nine alien children sent away from his dying homeworld in the hope of prolonging his race. He has superpowers. And a bounty on his head.

It's all a bit Superman origin story, I suppose, but I Am Number Four has a fine hook, not to mention a neat lede-line, and from what I can tell, it's persuasively written, too. This is my current read, and you can count on a full review in the near future. For the moment, let's just say it's looking pretty good for Pittacus Lore - whom, I should add, is "a Loric Elder, from the Planet Lorien, which is three hundred million miles away. He is approximately ten thousand years old. He has been to earth hundreds of times, and he is here now."

That is when he's not busy being James Frey, whose A Million Little Pieces, a supposed memoir of drug addiction, came under fire on Oprah and in the American media for being, ummm... somewhat embellished.

But let's not end this unbooking on a bum note. I Am Number Four has zeitgeist written all over it, and though neither the regular edition nor the re-jacketed release for the YA market are as superficially remarkable as the ARC, I don't imagine that'll stop Pittacus Lore's blockbuster first novel from flying off shelves come publication day.

One to watch, people. One to watch.

Unbooking the First

If you follow the BoSS every Sunday, wherein I run down the books and proofs that I receive each week, you'll know that the increasing visibility of bloggers has meant publishers take the enthusiast press that much more seriously. Hardly a day goes by without one ARC or another falling through my letterbox for review here on TSS, and though I do what I can to cover as many of those books as is humanly possible, the sad fact is that many of them go unnoticed - but for a brief mention in the weekly books received feature, that is.

Short of hiring a small volunteer staff to read through and review those novels I'm simply unable to, it takes a name that I recognise, a synopsis that really gets me going or else a publisher or imprint that I have the utmost confidence in to ensure that I'll make the time to read something.

Any of those things - or, I find today, some truly kick-ass presentation.

Because once in a while, a book isn't just a book. Someone goes the extra mile to grab my attention. They slip a CD of recommended music to read by inside the front dustcover - as with The Whisperers by John Connolly; they'll write a letter explaining why they think this book, over all the other books, is worth my attention - many Gollancz releases do this; or bind a printed manuscript for me to read before nigh-on everyone else - see the great Kraken and Neil Gaiman's collection of Stories.

This morning, though, something new...

An unassuming parcel sealed with a wax stamp. Have a closer look at the seal:

It reads "05-08-10," which, and this is just a stab in the dark here, sounds to me like a release date. But for what?

For Sacred Treason by James Forrester, apparently, which a little explanatory note tells me is "a brilliant and enthralling debut historical thriller in the vein of C.J. Sansom." And here's the blurb:

London, December 1563. England is a troubled nation. Catholic plots against the young Queen Elizabeth spring up all over the country. At his house in the parish of St Bride, the herald William Harley – known to everyone as Clarenceux - receives a book from his friend and fellow Catholic, Henry Machyn. But Machyn is in fear of his life, claiming that the book is deadly... What secret can it hold? And then Clarenceux is visited by the State in the form of Francis Walsingham and his ruthless enforcers, who will stop at nothing to gain possession of it. If Clarenceux and his family are to survive the terror of Walsingham, and to plead with the queen’s Secretary of State Sir William Cecil for their lives, Clarenceux must solve the clues contained in the book to unlock its dangerous secrets before it’s too late. And when he does, he realises that it's not only his life and the lives of those most dear to him that are at stake...

Now ordinarily, this sort of fiction isn't exactly my cup of tea, but the special treatment the always lovely publicity folks at Headline have given it mean I can hardly resist giving Sacred Treason the old once-over. In amongst all the other books that pile through my letterbox - and I would stress that I'm certainly not complaining - it's been made to stand out where otherwise it perhaps wouldn't have, and you know what? I'm intrigued. So stay tuned, readers, for a review of baby's first historical thiller sometimes before, yes, the fifth of August.

And publishers: take note!