Patrick Ness' The Knife of Never Letting Go became an instant classic — and apparently it's still in development at Lionsgate as a film, with Charlie Kaufman writing the script. And now, he's got a new novel out, in which a boy dies in America and wakes up in England.

With the Hunger Games premiere date just around the corner, Lionsgate is already searching for the next big teen blockbuster. And they've chosen Patrick Ness' Chaos Walking trilogy. But will this dystopian society rival the blood splattered world of Katniss and friends?

There's an absolutely fantastic profile of Patrick Ness, author of The Knife Of Never Letting Go, over at Publishers Weekly. Find out how he sold Knife based on just a 40-page excerpt, and how he's finishing another author's book.

The publishing industry is rushing to put out as many dystopian novels for teenagers as possible. Why is this? These grim survival-of-the-fittest worlds reflect teenagers' real lives, argues Laura Miller in a must-read New Yorker essay.

You think your city's leadership is bad? Just look at these 10 stand-out examples of terrible mayors and awful city leaders from science fiction and urban fantasy. They steal, they kill, they won't give the people air!

Britain's prestigious Arthur C. Clarke awards took the unusual step of announcing a "longlist" of 46 books published in 2008 that are seriously in the running. And the biggest surprise, according to the Guardian, is the inclusion of weird literary author Paul Auster, whose new novel Man In The Dark takes place in an…