Author Marie Lu gives us the skinny on her upcoming book WARCROSS. Plus, enter the giveaway for a chance to win a copy of the book!
We got a chance to ask one of our favorite authors, Marie Lu, some questions regarding her upcoming Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality Young Adult novel, Warcross.
The book packs a punch with it’s virtual and augmented reality theme and with characters that totally draw you in, especially the main protagonist, the rainbow-colored hair teen and bounty hunter, Emika Chen.
We explore the game that’s taken the world by storm and the danger of becoming a star player in the game. But before we do that, we find out some tidbits about the book and the characters in the series.
The Fandom: Who/what was your inspiration for Emika Chen?
Marie Lu: Emika is both a self-insert and a wish-fulfillment character for myself. I gave her many of my insecurities, bad habits, and my struggle with trying to say exactly what I mean (I’m the queen of accidentally insulting someone when I’m actually trying to agree or be understanding). But Emi is also the braver, smarter, hipper, and more confident version of myself. In a way, I wrote some of her personality traits as goal posts for myself.
How does Emika compare to your previous female protagonists?
ML: Emika has a pretty solid sense of self, whereas both June and Adelina struggle to find their identities due to the societies they live in. She’s sarcastic and optimistic, understands her flaws, and has a fairly set moral compass.
What video games would you compare Warcross with?
ML: Warcross is like a mix between League of Legends and Mario Kart, although one of its levels was inspired by Sonic 3!
How would you describe Hideo Tanaka?
ML: Guarded, extremely passionate about his interests, and idealistic. He has a ceaseless desire to create.
Do we sense a special connection between Emika and Hideo?
ML: I mean….. 😉
Your book deals a lot with virtual technology and reality. Have you used virtual technology yourself and if so, how far do you think it will be before we’re all into a game like Warcross?
ML: It’s hard for me to say how long it’ll be until something like Warcross exists; I don’t work in the industry, although I’m fascinated by both AR (Augmented Reality) and VR. There are a lot of challenges the industry has to tackle–dizziness and nausea, rendering power, etc with VR in particular…but I firmly believe that once the One Magical Device is invented, it will change everything. I don’t think it’s that far off. And a lot of the other technology in the book–self-driving cars, automatic language translation–already exists. Elon Musk even recently announced that he’s backing a venture for a brain-computer interface he’s calling the Neuralink! (For the record, I’d like to say I called it the NeuroLink first. Haha.)
We’ve seen your drawings of some of your characters (which are amazing,) including some with your main characters. Do you have any others that you’d like to share or plan on showing in the near future?
ML: Thank you! Maybe I’ll sketch some again, although at the moment I’m too swamped with writing the second book and with promotion/tour. But if I draw something, I’ll upload it!
Both your previous book series have been trilogies. What made you decide on a duology for this series?
ML: It just didn’t seem like a story that needed more than two books to tell!
What kinds of challenges does writing a duology pose as compared to writing a trilogy?
ML: So–I thought writing a duology would be easier than writing a trilogy, but it’s actually been very challenging trying to structure a story to fit two books instead of three. The arc in the second book of a duology is very different from the second book in a trilogy; it has to both play the middle act and resolve everything by the end.
Which character would you say you have most in common with? June, Emika, or dare we ask, Adelina?
ML: I have a little in common with all of my girls, even Adelina! But I’d say Emika is the one I relate to the most.
Enter for a chance to win a copy of Warcross!
GIVEAWAY LEGAL:
Enter for a chance to be one (1) of three (3) grand prize winners of a WARCROSS prize set (including hardcover of Warcross, shirt, keychain, and postcard). (ARV: $18.99 each).
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Enter between 12:00 AM Eastern Time on September 4, 2017 and 12:00 AM on September 29, 2017. Open to residents of the fifty United States and the District of Columbia who are 13 and older. Winners will be selected at random on or about October 2, 2017. Odds of winning depend on number of eligible entries received. Void where prohibited or restricted by law.
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About the book:
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Marie Lu—when a game called Warcross takes the world by storm, one girl hacks her way into its dangerous depths.
For the millions who log in every day, Warcross isn’t just a game—it’s a way of life. The obsession started ten years ago and its fan base now spans the globe, some eager to escape from reality and others hoping to make a profit. Struggling to make ends meet, teenage hacker Emika Chen works as a bounty hunter, tracking down Warcross players who bet on the game illegally. But the bounty-hunting world is a competitive one, and survival has not been easy. To make some quick cash, Emika takes a risk and hacks into the opening game of the international Warcross Championships—only to accidentally glitch herself into the action and become an overnight sensation.
Convinced she’s going to be arrested, Emika is shocked when instead she gets a call from the game’s creator, the elusive young billionaire Hideo Tanaka, with an irresistible offer. He needs a spy on the inside of this year’s tournament in order to uncover a security problem . . . and he wants Emika for the job. With no time to lose, Emika’s whisked off to Tokyo and thrust into a world of fame and fortune that she’s only dreamed of. But soon her investigation uncovers a sinister plot, with major consequences for the entire Warcross empire.
In this sci-fi thriller, #1 New York Times bestselling author Marie Lu conjures an immersive, exhilarating world where choosing who to trust may be the biggest gamble of all.
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