Unfortunately I’m gonna miss seeing them “for real life” as my daughter would say, because although I’m flying off to Australia-USA-UK today for the Epic Book Tour of Doom (check out my full schedule here), they’ll be down again by the time I get to London.

Curses!

Anyway, here’s the poster. If you spot one in situ, please post a pic to Twitter #shininggirls.

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The Shining Girls has hit the Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller List in its first week which makes me want to bounce off the walls and go lie down at the same time. Happiness + Shock is a bit of a confusing combination.

If you bought the book or tweeted about it or wrote a review on Goodreads or Amazon or your blog on for the media, thank you. You made this happen. (You shouldn’t shine) 

Nick Higham interviewed me for the BBC’s Meet The Author at the official launch at Forbidden Planet, where the signing line seemed endless, in the best possible way. WATCH THE INTERVIEW: Meet The Author with Nick Higham

I got to talk writing, comics, movies, punching payphones and the deep dark woods with Warren Ellis and Benjamin Percy at the Kitschies Storytelling Without Limits at the Brixton Ritzy.

I was one of the speakers at the Arthur C Clarke Award’s inaugural conference Write the Future (with the auspicious and appropriate hashtag #WTF13) ran to an intimate event at SOAS for a free-ranging discussion about all my books and raced back to attend the actual Clarke Award ceremony later that night where Chris Beckett won for Dark Eden.

All the events were fantastic, and thanks to my gracious hosts, my incredible publicist Louise Swannell and the HarperCollins team, and everyone who came along. I signed a megaton of books (pictured here at Goldsboro, with precariously balanced caffeinated beverage), figured out that signing in silver sharpie on the black endpapers of the HarperCollins edition looks the prettiest and met fantastic people all round.

And also managed to sneak in a viewing of The Book Of Mormon (dark, scathingly sacrilegious, hilarious), hang out with friends and husbandguy, buy a mermaid for the kidling, on specific instructions, have dinner with my brilliant, lovely agents, buy presents and do a bunch of interviews, including ones where I kept crossing with Pink Martini’s China Forbes who has promised (threatened?) to take me karaoke singing in Portland.

All round awesome. Thank you.

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Here’s the interview I did with Leigh-Anne Williams on Expresso Show last week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEOXS0m3l3g&feature=youtu.be

Sarah Hughes at The Observer said: ”It should be the book of the summer…. Forget Gone Girl; now it’s all about The Shining Girls.”

The Daily Mail said: “Confidently written by a South African author, despite the American setting, the dark tale is told inventively and is full of surprises… Keep the lights on.”

RavenCrimeReads said: “[The Shining Girls] transports us through the culturally and socially different periods of American history with ease, demonstrating her breadth of research to make each period perfect in detail and atmosphere. From the shanty towns born out of the Depression era and through the ensuing decades, the reader is instantly fixed in a time and place familiar through the smallest details… It’s a very clever conceit for a story and one that I think Beukes pulls off with aplomb throughout.”

FantasyFaction realises that time travel may not be “everyone’s personal story-chocolate”, but says the book has broad appeal. “The time travel element is very subtle… It fuels the plot but doesn’t take over.”

“Lauren Beukes has an obvious talent for writing about cities, for bringing them to life so that they become as much a character in the stories as the people are.”

“I felt that the author did a good job of neither glamorising nor glorifying the murders, and of ensuring that Harper remains a deplorable character even during his point-of-view sections. Lauren Beukes also gives each victim a voice, and she is extremely skilled at making us care for a new character in so few pages.”

Upcoming4Me wrote: “A completely insane time travel crime thriller as good as anything Stephen King wrote… Fresh, innovative and damn amazing! Read it!”

South African blogger BooksBootsAndBiology said: “Not only is this work a beautiful, fast-paced thriller that straddles genres and engrosses you completely, I believe it raises important issues at such a crucial time in our country.”

More to come, including Cape Times, Beeld and South Africa’s Sunday Times, but I have to go sign books at HarperCollins now!

The post More Shining Girls Reviews appeared first on Lauren Beukes.

Lego Han Solo already got his copy. Have you got yours? (via @mattlibrarian)

You can pick it up from all major bookstores, some major supermarkets or order online by clicking here.

Here’s the trailer by the evil geniuses at One Darnley Road.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go1sVbjxHVw

And here’s a round-up of some of the reviews so far:

SciFi Now says, “The Shining Girls is both a fascinating journey through modern American history and an utterly compelling and chilling thriller.”

“It’s the chapters devoted to Harper’s victims that really stand out. The shining girls are chosen because of their strength and potential, and each one is a fully realised character. Their separate eras are wonderfully rendered and Beukes endears these women who are doomed to meet Harper’s knife to us with great speed and skill, from the paranoid Fifties architect to the ship-welding WW2 widow to the radium-painted ‘Glow Girl’.”

Naomi Frisby on The Writes of Women: “It would be difficult to overstate how much I loved this book. It’s a thriller for people who don’t read thrillers; fantasy for people who don’t read fantasy, and literary fiction for people who don’t read literary fiction. It’s a bloody good book for people who like to read bloody good books.”

Curiosity Killed The Bookworm: “A genre defying novel… solidly crime but with an SFF element, weaving through periods in recent history as well as being a gripping thriller… [it] will stick with you long after.”

Over at Excuses And Half Truths, Rob Wickings said, “The Shining Girls is boldly inventive, fearlessly intelligent and bracingly original. Along with Michael Marshall, who made his name with a trio of mind-bending SF novels before moving into thrillers, Lauren Beukes is showing that it takes a writer with a taste for the fantastical to twist the serial killer genre into something new and exciting.”

KJ Mulder on Worlds In Ink: “It’s a fantastically creepy, mind-bending read that grabs you and just doesn’t let go until the very last page… The ending is worthy of anything Stephen King can come up with. It’s satisfying, gives closure but also brings things full circle in the most unexpected way… I found myself haunted by the implications for days afterward.

@mattlibrarian on the Teen Librarian blog: “The Shining Girls has a breathless, multi-layered narrative that kept me guessin… It is the type of book that grips you, demanding your attention and then rewards you with a thrilling story and ideas that stay with you long after you have closed the covers.. In closing please let me say AUGH! This book is amazing! You have to buy it, read it then tell your friends to do the same!”

Liz Wilkins on Goodreads: “Don’t let the “Thriller” tag give you preconceptions – it is thrilling, but trying to put this novel in a genre box is like trying to explain to people why you love your children.”

Dave Brendan’s blog: “This novel is disturbing, thrilling and intelligent – Lauren has shifted into new territory with this often-sad, eminently readable tale of a hunter and his prey, of the House you’ve always wondered about but never had the guts to enter, of the strength of character and the pull of destiny… the moments that stitch together our lives with lasting and reverberating echoes.”

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Moxy fridge monster

I love that Kira references the original covers with her work – this little guy now adorning my fridge is based on the Moxy monster on the first edition South African cover, designed by Joey Hi-Fi and made-up by Michelle Son .

Moxyland AdAstra Cover

Original South African Moxyland cover by Joey Hi-Fi

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The Shining Girls viewfinder

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I’ll be doing some hectic touring around my new novel, The Shining Girls, in the next few months.

Here’s a list of the confirmed public events so far (some details still to follow).

If you’d like me to do an event at your bookstore/library/college/school/culture-tech conference (see my talks at Webstock and DConstruct) /set up an interview / podcast while I’m in your city, please email me on lauren at lauren beukes dot com and I’ll forward to the relevant publicist. Or see below for publicist contact info in each country.

Some events are entirely free and open to the public, others require that you book a ticket / membership.  If in doubt, please contact the RSVP email address.

USA in March

March 22-24 Fablescon, Rochester Minnesota celebrating mythic fiction in comics and novels with Bill Willingham, Mike Carey, Mark Buckingham, Gene Ha, Adam H Hughes, Chris Roberson and Chrissie Zullo at a brand new awesome con called Fabletown & Beyond. I’ll mainly be talking about my run on Fairest: The Hidden Kingdom set in Willingham’s Fables universe, but I’ll also be doing some pre-arranged press stuff in New York and Chicago on The Shining Girls beforehand.

South Africa in April

Contact Kim Peters at Random House for interview/publicity requests.

CAPE TOWN

3 April SA Librarian’s Conference (for librarians only!)

JOHANNESBURG

15 April  18h30 Magwood & Twigg Book Salon. BOOKING REQUIRED. camillatwigg@iburst.co.za

16 April 18h00 CitiVibe launch at Exclusive Books Melrose Arch. Shop HL19: Melrose Arch Piazza Melrose Arch Boulevard. RSVP melrosearch@exclusivebooks.co.za

17 April 18h00 Love Books Launch, The Bamboo Lifestyle Centre, 53 Rustenburg Road, Melville. RSVP: info@lovebooks.co.za

18 April TBC Jenny & Co Book Club BOOKING REQUIRED. RSVP: justjenny@iafrica.com

CAPE TOWN

19 April 17h30 The Book Lounge 71 Roeland Street, Cape Town. RSVP booklounge@gmail.com

23 April 18h30 Kalk Bay Books 124 Main Road, Kalk Bay RSVP: books@kalkbaybooks.co.za

24 April 17h30 Exclusive Books Canal Walk, Shop 428 Canal Walk canalwalk@exclusivebooks.co.za

UK in April/May

Contact Louise Swannell at HarperCollins for interview /publicity requests

29 April 17h15 Forbidden Planet Launch, 179 Shaftesbury Ave  London WC2H 8JR

30 April 17h30 Signing at Waterstones London Wall

30 April 19h00 Kitschies Event TBA at Brixton Ritzy (very cool line-up but I can’t say more right now)

1 May 13h00-16h00 Clarke Award Conference at the Royal Society

1 May 13h00 -19h00 SOAS discussion at signing, Brunei Suite, SOAS University, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Sq, London WC1H 0XG

1 May 19h30 Arthur C Clarke Award at the Royal Society

2 May 18h30 Talk/Signing TBC at Foyles Charring Cross Road

South Africa in May

CAPE TOWN

May 10/11 Grande Roche Hotel, Paarl TBC

May 17-19 May Franschhoek Literary Festival, Franschhoek

Australia in May

Contact Kelly Fagan at HarperCollins Australia for interview/publicity requests

May 19 & 20 – Melbourne
May 21 & 22 – Brisbane
May 23 – 26 – Sydney Writer’s Festival
May 27 – depart Australia for USA

 USA in June

Lots still to be confirmed.

Contact Nicole Dewey at Mulholland if you would like to request a media interview / podcast / bookstore event /library visit / other interesting thing.

May fly Sydney – West Coast LA/SF

June 1 BEA in NYC

June 5 My Birthday (ahem)

June 6 or 7 New York events TBC

June 8-10 – Chicago, Printers Row Lit Fest + other Chicago events TBC

June 11 – Houston, Murder by the Book

June 12-18/19 – Phoenix, Poisoned Pen

TBC: San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, LA and Portland.

TBC: Europe / South Africa / USA July-August-September

European Festivals various that haven’t been announced yet. Also hoping to confirm SDCC and ReaderCon

South Africa September: 

7-11 September Open Book Festival, Cape Town

MORE EVENTS TO BE CONFIRMED FOR THE END OF THE YEAR.                                                                                             

The post The Shining Girls Tour Interim Schedule appeared first on Lauren Beukes.

First barista to do this to my cup of coffee gets a R50 tip!

And here are her original covers for Zoo City and Moxyland for Ad Astra:

And finally, I love this. Facebook’s translate claims it says:  “Zoo City or Moxyland? Two exciting vision of Africa, but is also similar: both have a hell of a secrets below the surface, and all the darkness. Which South Africa would you?”

Which South Africa would you, indeed.

The post Moxyland characters studies appeared first on Lauren Beukes.

Which reminded me of this photoshoot I did with Nico Krijno in crime doyenne Margie Orford‘s winter-neglected pool, all green and choked with leaves.

It was bloody freezing.

I swallowed half of it accidentally and mysteriously developed a throat-infection the next day.

But it was very, very Zoo City. 

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