PATRICK NESS is the best-selling author of the ‘Chaos Walking’ trilogy, set on a distant planet where thoughts manifest into telepathy called ‘the Noise.’
After finishing the series in 2010, he’s back with a brand new trilogy set in the same world, starting with the first book Piper at the Gates of Dusk. Read on for a Q&A.
MEET PATRICK NESS
Why did you decide to return to the world of ‘Chaos Walking?’
It was the idea. I never planned on it; in fact, I was pretty much against it. I was happy with how ‘Chaos Walking’ ended, really proud of it, thought it told a whole story, and I was happy to send it off, completed, into the world. Then all these years later, an idea showed up. Sometimes you just have no choice.
Where did you originally get the idea for the Noise?
From the way social media has made all our voices amplified. It’s not all a bad thing, of course, but in the years since the original trilogy, I feel like the internet has been weaponized in ways we didn’t predict. The world is even scarier, even Noisier. It’s hard, and how hard must it be for young people, especially? I trust the young. I think they’ll find their way. But we sure aren’t making it easy for them.
What was the inspiration behind the title Piper at the Gates of Dusk?
The book has a Pied Piper theme, and I was aware of the Pink Floyd album title Piper at the Gates of Dawn (though this book has nothing to do with Pink Floyd). So I started doing some digging, and I discovered they got their title from The Wind in the Willows. And it was perfect! I even used The Wind in the Willows as an epigraph. And I changed dawn to dusk because, well, it’s book one, and things are only going to get darker.
How has the Noise changed in this instalment, and how is it affecting the next generation?
In this instalment, they’ve found an extremely effective “cure” for the Noise. Not everyone has taken the cure, and some of those who have, have been harmed by it. So the question is, which is better? Living with Noise and adapting to it, or trying to cut it off, especially in a world that’s based entirely in Noise. I wanted to make the answer not quite so clear cut, and you’d understand why people would go either way. But every choice has consequences…
Can you tell us a bit more about brothers Ben and Max? How do they differ as characters?
Ben is the biological son of Todd and Viola, and he’s one of those affected by the cure. His voice box doesn’t respond to commands from his brain, so he’s had to learn to communicate through both sign language and typing out his words into a communicator. I wondered what would it be like in a Noisy society to not have what most people think of as a “voice” (though he’d be the very first to tell you that not being able to speak does NOT mean he doesn’t have a voice).
And Max was adopted as a baby by Todd and Viola, so they’re brothers who are the same age. Max reveals, too, that the gender he was born with was not the one he identifies as, which has been a longstanding question readers have asked: if Noise is binary (men have it/women don’t), then what about those people who aren’t at either end of the binary? It’s a great question, and made for a great character.
After the Civil War between the colonists and the indigenous race of the Spackle in the previous set of instalments, what is humanity’s relationship with the Spackle twenty years on?
Tense.
I feel like we never learn our lessons. I mean, America re-elected Trump! And the whole world is paying for it now. The Spackle (or the Land as they prefer to be called) haven’t been sitting idle, though. They’re seen here as the smart, creative, and technologically interesting species they’ve always been, for those humans who choose to see that. Of course, not every human does, and that leads to tension. Humans do like an enemy. And boy, have we made some bad, bad choices about that in our history.
What was the most rewarding element of writing this new set of stories?
Honestly just finding out what Todd and Viola are like as grown-ups. I was so proud of them and what they did as young people; what joy to see them as mom and dad, with all their flaws and love.
Without spoilers, what can you tell us a little bit about where the series is going to go? Will we see another alien planet other than New World?
I don’t want to give anything much away, but I’d have to say, yes, something is coming all the way through Piper. When it arrives, it’s not what everyone expects. And the next two books are going to explore that in detail. What happens if we meet an alien species with whom we have zero common ground to even communicate, much less understand each other?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patrick Ness (he/him) is the New York Times best-selling author of A Monster Calls (inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd), which won both the Carnegie Medal and the Kate Greenaway Medal, was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist, and was made into a major motion picture for which he wrote the screenplay. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed and best-selling ‘Chaos Walking’ trilogy, More Than This, Release, Different for Boys, The Rest of Us Just Live Here, Burn, and his latest, ‘Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody.’ His many accolades include two Carnegie Medals, an Olivier Award, the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, the Book Trust Teenage Prize, and the Costa Children’s Book Award. Patrick Ness lives in London.
Read our review of ‘Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody’ here.
0 Comments