Westerfeld and Wasserman!

Last night, I had the great pleasure of attending a presentation by Scott Westerfeld and Robin Wasserman at Politics and Prose here in DC. They were there to talk about their new books (Leviathan and Crashed, respectively) but the way they did so brought the experience of the author visit to a whole new level. I was blown away by the amount of time and effort had gone into their slideshows and lectures — clearly, I’ve gotta up my game.

Scott’s lecture was about the history of illustration in novels, since his new book, LEVIATHAN, features 50 gorgeous illustrations of his unique and beautiful world.

He also talked about how a lot of the things in the book are not so outlandish as one might think — a topic which I hear myself relating all too often (ahem, bone-covered monasteries).

And then Robin’s presentation was about the history of robotics, and how did we get from a place where we thought robots were cute little toys to the place where we are daily frightened of the robot revolution.

And let me tell you why, I, personally, am afraid of the robot revolution. Scary fast robotic hands. Robots that jump 25-foot fences. We’re already creating the robots that will hunt us down and kill us the second SkyNet gets smart. ::shudder::

However, the thing I find so interesting about Robin’s series is that she goes, “Hey, let’s look at it from the robot’s POV.” And the thing that’s especially fascinating about SKINNED, the first book in the series, is that the main character, Lia, spends the whole time questioning whether she is really Lia Kahn, the dead girl whose brain has been “downloaded” into a cyborg body, or she’s just been programmed incredibly well to think she’s Lia Kahn. The question of identity is mind-blowingly complex.

(Ahem, insert rant here about how YA literature is some of the best and most interesting out there…)

So what I’ve got today is a SIGNED copy of CRASHED to give away to one lucky blog reader. And to enter the contest all you have to do is leave a comment here on one of hte following two topics:

1. Are you afraid of the roboto revolution? If so, why? If not, why not, you foolish, foolish human? 😉
2. If I were to come and do an author visit where you are, what kind of slideshow/presentation would YOU like to see?

Have at it! Tell your friends!