Patrick Ness’s award-winning first book in the Chaos Walking trilogy,
The Knife of Never Letting Go, introduced us to a world of war, love, sacrifice and Noise
(read my review here). The second book in the series,
The Ask and The Answer, won Publisher’s Weekly award for best YA science fiction novel. The conclusion of the trilogy,
Monsters of Men, won the 2011
Carnegie Medal and was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke award for best science fiction novel, an unusual accolade for YA literature. The first two books are already on their way to the big screen
under the direction of Robert Zemeckis.
The knife in
The Knife of Never Letting Go symbolized the power our decisions have to altar the
trajectory of our lives for good or evil. In
The Ask and the Answer and
Monsters of Men, the New World (a colonized planet) is put to the edge of that knife.
After the events in The Knife of Never Letting Go, three separate plot lines emerge: Todd is forced to live with and work for the Mayor when he takes over the wistfully named town of Haven; Viola joins a group of rebels; and the Spackle prepare to take back their planet. To further complicate matters, an advance ship of new settlers has landed, and they have enough firepower to lead one side of this war to victory. Will war truly make monsters of them all? Is there a path to peace, reconciliation, and redemption? And is anyone beyond forgiveness?
