The Science of Across the Universe: Getting There--while Avoiding Freezer Burn

A glimpse of the Godspeed's
blueprints from Beth's website.

Time to state the obvious (and get my geek on). Space is big, and it takes a really long time to get anywhere good.   Science fiction writers have been dealing with this distance thing for as long as they’ve been dreaming of colonization and galactic empires. Some writers use some sort of FTL (faster than light) drive. (Think warp drive on Star Trek). Some  (Star Wars, Stargate / SG-1, Bablyon-5) use hyperspace to get from point A to point B quickly.   Others embrace the fact that it does take a while to get where they’re going.  Beth takes this old school approach in ACROSS THE UNIVERSE.

The Godspeed is a generational sleeper ship.  The colonists are frozen for the 300-year (or so) voyage.  Meanwhile generations of crew are born, live, work, and die on the Godspeed without ever even seeing the stars.  The colonists aren’t supposed to wake up until they reach their destination. However, Amy is woken up early and experiences the society that has developed over the centuries on the ship.  (We could talk all day about the society on the Godspeed, but I don’t want to give anything away. )

So let’s talk about freezing people for the long sleep.  Cryonics is the science  of freezing living matter—with the aim of ultimately thawing it out. Alive and well.  But, you can’t just dip someone in a vat of liquid nitrogen and hope for the best. Cells get damaged. (That is, you get a hell of a case of freezer burn.) Instead, the process (at least to date) involves pumping the body with a cryoprotectant—human antifreeze—to protect the tissue from damage in the freezing process. Then the temperature of the liquid is lowered. (This is actually called vitrification rather than freezing.)

Beth paints a vivid picture of the experience.  A lot of fiction imagines the cryo process something akin flash freezing peas. Someone flips a switch, and then you wake up a thousand years later as fresh as the day went into the freezer. (Think Fry on Futurama. Or Woody Allen in Sleeper) In AtU, Beth does not gloss over how it must feel to be vitrified.

Hassan squeezed the bag of blue goo again. A line of blood trickled from under Mom’s teeth where she was biting her lip.

“This stuff, it’s what makes the freezing work.” Ed spoke in a conversational tone, like a baker talking about how yeast makes bread rise. “Without it, little ice crystals form in the cells and split open the cell walls. This stuff makes the cell walls stronger, see? Ice don’t break ’em.” He glanced down at Mom. “Hurts like a bitch going in, though.”

And this is just Amy watching her mom go through it.  The process is agonizing for Amy, and the her poor neurons are still firing during her long journey.   Check out the AtU trailer for a taste of how Beth so adeptly handles this part:




(And yes, that’s Lauren Ambrose from Six Feet Under narrating!)

Need a bigger taste? Check out the first chapter of Across the Universe.

So, kudos to Beth for tackling the “reality” of the vitrification process head-on. It’s one of the many things that makes ACROSS THE UNIVERSE great science fiction—and an epic story.

So, you may be wondering how far-fetched (or far in the future) is the whole sleeper ship—or cryonics thing in general? You’ve probably heard about people wanting to be frozen after they die. (The whole Walt Disney thing is a myth, BTW.  Baseball great Ted Williams, however, was indeed frozen—and evidently his body was not treated well.) There are a few places in the world (Alcor, Cryonics Institute) that will freeze you or your pet immediately following death. (In the US, you have to be legally dead before being frozen. Sorry, vitrified.) But no one is even close to being able to revive a corpsicle, let alone a still living “sleeper.”  If you’re interested in the freezing process these places use, check out this Channel 5 documentary.

Given what you know now, would you sign up to take a sleeper ship across the universe?  Or if you had an incurable (now) disease, would you want to be frozen with the hope of being revived--and hopefully cured a few centuries from now?

Introducing ACROSS THE UNIVERSE by Beth Revis

This week is the epic launch of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE by Beth Revis! I'm starting off the awesome, and throughout this week, there will be much more to come, with Beth herself wrapping it up for us on Friday.

First up: The trailer for ACROSS THE UNIVERSE says everything.



From Beth's website:

Summary: A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awake on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into a brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone—one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship—tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn’t do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now, Amy must race to unlock Godspeed’s hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there’s only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

Hardcover, 400 pages
Published January 11th 2011 by Razorbill
ISBN 1595143971 (ISBN13: 9781595143976)

Audio Book also available:
Audio CD, 8 pages
ISBN 014242899X (ISBN13: 9780142428993)

Oh. My. Heck. Doesn't that sound amazing?

Well, it is. I've read it and it will blow your mind. Blow your mind, people! You can get signed copies (after tomorrow) and check out other awesomeness on Beth's book page.

My Twitter Review: With strong storytelling, brilliant writing, creepy characters, and a budding romance, ACROSS THE UNIVERSE has everything to satisfy readers. (Okay, so sue me. I have one extra character.)

Other Noteworthy Things:

• It's one of Amazon's Best Books of the Month for January, and has received many glowing reviews. Make sure you get your copy when it hits shelves tomorrow!
• Make sure you check out the official website for Across the Universe. I'm pretty sure there's going to be something amazing happening there tomorrow... And in case you haven't read the first chapter, you can read it there.
• As if you're already not excited enough, Beth is having an amazing contest in celebration of Across the Universe. Click here for full details.
• And make sure you click over and become a fan on the Across the Universe Facebook fanpage! That's where all the action is happening.

Congrats, Beth! Here's to a successful launch week!

So, who's had a chance to read Across the Universe? Let us know in the comments (no spoilers, please!). Who is going to die if tomorrow doesn't come like RIGHT THIS SECOND?? We wanna know that too.

It's a Book Baby! Welcome to the World, XVI!

Wow! Just like giving birth to a baby, I don't think anyone could've prepared me for the actual birthing of a book baby! Welcome, XVI! With human babies, you pretty much know that nine months after conception, you're gonna give birth. With books -- nuh uh...

Here's a peek at the conception-to-birth path of XVI.

Conceived: November 1, 2005 (in the back seat of NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month!)

Formative milestones:
1st complete draft, November 30, 2005
1st revision, January, 2006
Made mistake, tried to birth, March, 2006 (we will not talk about that!)
1st showed to critique group, October, 2006
2nd revision complete, July 2007
Queried possible midwives (agents), July through October, 2007
Found midwife, November 2007
3rd revision, complete, December 2007
Midwife began querying doctors (editors), March 2008
Possible doctor found, September 2008
4th partial revision, complete, October 2008
Hospital, declined, January 2009
5th total revision, complete March 2009
Same doctor, still interested, June 2009
New doctor, interested, July 2009
Both doctors want to birth, August 2009 (tough choice!)
Choose original doctor, September 2009
Pre-natal surgery, April through June 2010
Obligatory waiting period

Birth Announcement -- It's a Bouncing Baby Book!
Name: XVI
Mother: Julia Karr
Doctor: Jen Bonnell
Midwife: Kate Schafer Testerman
Hospital: Penguin, USA
Delivery Room: Speak
Date of Delivery: 1/6/2011

Mother and Baby - exhausted, but doing fine!

This week has been an amazing roller-coaster of emotions -- hopes, fears, dreams, joy, and tears -- all tumbling out at various times, sometimes simultaneously. Just like having a baby (and I know of whence I speak!) Thanks to everyone for attending the birth of my book baby! She's already everything I dreamed she'd be!

Buzzing about XVI

Oh my heck! Oh my heck! Our first Leaguer is out of the gate today with XVI! If you haven't already, go get your copy, and join us here on the blog for a discussion.

Here's what people out there are saying:

"Gender politics and sexual awareness play prominent roles in Karr's thought-provoking dystopian debut, set in a totalitarian future. A solid, enjoyable story." ~Publishers Weekly

“A fun little thriller.” ~Kirkus

“In her unsettling debut, Karr depicts a sex-obsessed future where women are the perpetual victims of predatory marketing, and other societal ills seen in our present...taken to terrifying ends. ...there’s no doubt this well-written, accessible sci-fi thriller will provoke discussion.” ~Booklist

Now those are the professionals. But we all know the real pros are the readers. So you wanna know what other people are saying? How about Princess Bookie? She weighs in with FOUR CUPCAKES! That's pretty darn delicious.

And Zoe over at Zoe's Book Reviews had some amazing things to say also. Or check out Supernatural Snark's review. So if you don't believe the pros, maybe you'll believe your fellow readers. Because nothing speaks about a book louder than readers.

As for this reader, I only have a few words to say. XVI of them, actually: XVI is the kind of book you lay awake thinking about. And that’s a good thing.

Have you read XVI? Care to add your own 16-word review in the comments? Haven't read it? Tell us what you're most excited for in XVI.

Interview with XVI Author Julia Karr

One of the best parts about being in the League is the chance to read advance copies of each other's books and then talk directly to the author about them! So recently, I had a chance to pick Julia's mind about XVI, and here's what I discovered!




Where did you come up with the idea for XVI?
The initial idea for XVI was a random imaginary picture that popped into my brain. It was a teen girl walking down the street of a big city, ear buds in as she tried to block out the cacophony of noises. She stepped over a homeless person, passed out on the street. And then, she turned around - not willing to be oblivious to others any more. That was the beginning. The story itself morphed out of that.


Do you think the world of XVI--with 'verts blaring everywhere, sex treated as an expectation of girls above a certain age, and a class system based on rank--is a possibility in our own future? What do you think exists now that might one day become the world of XVI?
Unfortunately, I do think it’s a possibility for our future. We have a rapidly declining middle class. The rich are getting ultra-rich and the poor are, indeed, getting poorer. We’re heading to a two-class system of haves and have-nots. That’s one thing.

The sex expectation of girls... OMG. I don’t know if you’ve seen the recent Tom Ford layout in French Vogue - but, it is basically the sexualization of young (5 to 8 year old) girls. How anyone could consider that okay is beyond me. But, here’s the thing, and this is what makes me think the world of XVI could happen... mothers and fathers allowed their daughters to be displayed that way. Just as young girls get all decked out for pre-pre-teen beauty pageants and the like. One only has to walk through a shopping mall to see girls under twelve wearing tight, revealing clothes that have no business on a teen, let alone a child. Oh dear... ranting, aren’t I? Let’s not even talk about baby bootie high heels. Gah!


In XVI, the people are classified in levels or ranks based on their economic, academic, and employment level. It's very hard for people to break into a higher class--one reason why there's pressure on girls to join FELS. Do you think this is currently happening in our society today (or is a possibility for the future)?
Again, I think it’s a possibility. With the cost of a college education rising at a rapid pace, many families will not be able to afford to send their children to a traditional college. Scholarships will go to the star students – standouts in their studies and/or sports. Technical and two-year colleges will pick up some of the slack. Those students, traditionally, go into service industries – lower paying jobs. Back down to the haves and have-nots. Class separations begin in areas like this.


In XVI, girl are forced to get a tattoo labeling them as 16 years old (and available for sexual encounters). Men seem to have the upper-hand in this society--if a girl is an XVI, she's expected to be willing and even eager to participate in sex. The book drops us in medias res and we don't really know about the origins of this attitude and practice, but could you tell us a little bit about how the world came to be here? What happened in Nina's world's history that made society place such an emphasis on sexuality in girls?
There was a point where the Fems, in a bid to end wars forever, revolted and ended up ruling the western world. The pendulum of power tipped to the female side. But, because there wasn’t an equal balance between men and women, that same pendulum swung in the opposite direction. Men in charge of the media and big business waged a subtle, all-out psychological war against the women. The end result being – in an effort to prove their desirableness to men – they ended up giving away all their power. Of course, that focus on women being sexually desirable above all else had to be perpetuated. And, girls reaching maturity could not be allowed to really think for themselves, lest the Fems of the past be revived.


I thought that Sandy and Nina were two sides of a coin--Sandy embraced the XVI world, and Nina was uncertain of it. Why do you think these two girls are so different--how did their different view points develop? And why did they become such close friends anyway?
Geography played a lot in their becoming friends. When Nina’s mother moved her family out to Cementville, Sandy lived in the house next door to them. And, Sandy’s really a sweet, fun girl. Of course, they developed so differently because of their mothers. Nina’s mother didn’t trust the government and didn’t believe girls were nothing but sex objects. Sandy’s mother was desperate for Sandy to either get into FeLS or get married to a higher tier. She was constantly encouraging Sandy to practice being desirable. Nina’s mother was just the opposite.

Some reviewers have said that XVI is pro-abstinence. Was that your intent with the novel? What is your position on abstinence?
It was my intent to write a story, not take a stand on issues. As far as abstinence goes... well, it hasn’t worked so well for a lot of people, has it?

My position is that teens should be educated about sex. What it is, why it is, what can happen if you have sex, how to be safe, and how to say no, and to understand that no means no. All the ramifications of becoming sexually active should be right out there for girls and guys to understand. Teens are constantly being bombarded with images on TV, in movies, and on-line about sexuality – not to mention that their bodies are a mass of raging hormones. I personally think it’s unrealistic to think that abstinence is the only answer. There’s just too much going on physically, mentally and emotionally for teens to be able to make good decisions regarding sex – UNLESS they are making their decisions from an educated and (to them) moral place.


Can you tell us a little about the sequel to XVI coming out next year?
The sequel, tentatively titled “The Sisterhood,” is a continuation of Nina’s world and what happens when the FeLS scandal breaks loose (including “all hell” with it.)


I was fascinated with the lives of your side characters. Mike's sister is mentioned only for a few pages, but I felt as much sympathy with her as I do with some of the other larger characters' fates. Will we be seeing her in the sequel?
Yes. Mike’s sister, Joan, definitely plays a part in the sequel.


What one theme or lesson or idea do you hope readers get from XVI?
I would hope that readers of XVI would stop for a minute and think, really think, about the way girls are viewed in our society. They should be cherished in their childhood and allowed to become adults at their own pace – not at the pace of corporate bottom lines.



I hope you all enjoyed learning more about the world of XVI as I did! I have to say, I find it fascinating to learn about the history of the world and of Nina in particular, and I, for one, agree entirely with Julia's stance about education over abstinence. Do you have any other burning questions for Julia?

Who Were you When you Were XVI?

First off, YAY!!! Our first League release! Congratulations Julia! We all know this book is going to hit the world like gangbusters!

In anticipation of this release I got to thinking that one of the things that really struck me about XVI is how well Julia depicts the momentous experience of going from 15 to 16. There's something about that transition and our reaction to it that seems to form so much of who we are and who we come to be. 

Who knows, maybe it's because 16 is when we start driving (at least here in the States) and we feel that first adrenaline rush of freedom and power, or maybe because we're finally rounding the corner into the last leg of High School and thinking more and more about college and beyond. 

Whatever the reason, for me 16 felt like a major pivot point between being a kid and being an adult. From your place at 15 everything on the other side seems simultaneously thrilling and terrifying, like you're about to step into a whole new world. This is exactly what's happening to Nina in XVI, and it's so well expressed in the book.

So in the spirit of XVI, I'm wondering what all of you were like when you were just 16.

I'll start.

Yeah, this was me. Me and my glorious glorious mullet. 

Beyond sporting the "business-in-front, party-in-back look," who was I? Musically I was moving out of my all Prince all the time mode and starting to discover 80's angst rock like REM, The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, New Order, XTC and others. I had just started to drive (my dad's old powder blue Chevy Malibu) and was dating a cute and spunky red head with a  turned up nose who eventually completely broke my heart.

Most importantly, I was starting to get into theater in a big way. The above picture is from a production of Man of La Mancha.  Ever since I was little I remember looking for what my thing was. I knew it wasn't sports or music or academics. I dabbled in drawing and writing, but for some reason when I got up on stage the first time, that's when I felt myself slide into something that felt right to me. I was more and more sure that this was the path for me in life. The funny thing is that in a way it actually was, acting lead to writing plays seriously which that lead to writing books so in a way I'm still on that path, it was just a bit twistier than I imagined.

Ok, so I went ahead and embarrassed myself a bit here, so how about all of you, in honor of the release of Julia Karr's XVI, tell us a little about yourself at 16.  Who were you? What were you doing? What were you thinking? Did the 16 year old you lead directly to who you are now?

Jeff Hirsch

The Eleventh Plague

Coming from Scholastic, Fall 2011

Find me at jeff-hirsch.com and @jeff_hirsch

Introducing XVI by Julia Karr

This week we’re celebrating the release of our own Julia Karr’s first book, XVI.  (And next week is dedicated to the release of Beth Revis’ ACROSS THE UNIVERSE.) So, I’m kicking it off with a little introduction to XVI.  During the rest of the week, we'll cover the book more in depth, talk to Julia, maybe do something fun, and then end with a wrap-up by Julia herself.  On to XIV! (btw, check out the pic below of XVI spotted out in the wild!)

XVI spotted face out in a Nashville bookstore.

The Jacket Blurb (via Amazon):

Nina Oberon's life is pretty normal: she hangs out with her best friend, Sandy, and their crew, goes to school, plays with her little sister, Dee. But Nina is 15. And like all girls she'll receive a Governing Council-ordered tattoo on her 16th birthday. XVI. Those three letters will be branded on her wrist, announcing to all the world - even the most predatory of men - that she is ready for sex. Considered easy prey by some, portrayed by the Media as sluts who ask for attacks, becoming a "sex-teen" is Nina's worst fear. That is, until right before her birthday, when Nina's mom is brutally attacked. With her dying breaths, she reveals to Nina a shocking truth about her past - one that destroys everything Nina thought she knew. Now, alone but for her sister, Nina must try to discover who she really is, all the while staying one step ahead of her mother's killer.

Reading level: Young Adult
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Speak; Original edition (January 6, 2011)
ISBN-10: 0142417718
ISBN-13: 978-0142417713

My Favorite Things:

• Strong, compelling female characters.  Nina is a jeans-and-t-shirt kind of gal who’s not taken in by the media hype.  Best friend, Sandy, on the other hand, buys the whole “sex-teen” thing wholeheartedly—because she sees it as a way out of poverty. 
• The setting. Future Chicago is almost like another character in the story.
• Heart-wrenching ending.  That’s all I’m gonna say!

Anyone else had a chance to read XVI yet? If so, what were some of your favorite things? Please no spoilers!