STATUS REPORT

Michael Grant (co-author/co-creator of Animorphs) is currently on his U.K Tour to promote Gone, and his newest series The Magnificent 12. For those in the area, the full schedule of his U.K Tour has now been updated on his new website: www.themichaelgrant.com. Click here for the Tour page.

His new website also features a new blog for himself. So be sure to keep an eye on that for regular updates. (His previous blog, The Stupid Blog Name, is now closed, and I have changed the links on the right side accordingly).

Also, there is a trailer up for The Magnificent 12 series (posted below), and a new U.K one for Lies (Gone #3). Both are available on Michael Grant’s site.

You can now support Hirac Delest through the Amazon Associate’s Program! Following up from our previous post, if you haven’t purchased any of the upcoming books, but plan to, then please use the following links! Each time you purchase from these specific links, Amazon gives us a small percentage of your sale back towards this site. This money then goes entirely towards the hosting & domain payments of Hirac Delest.

We hardly make enough to profit from this (approx 4-6% per sale), but every little bit helps in making sure that this archive stays online and ad-free. It’s a great way to support us if you’re already going to be ordering the books anyway. Thank you for your continued support to Hirac Delest for the last two years that we’ve been online. It’s greatly appreciated!

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This isn’t technically Animorphs news, but it is related to the people who were involved with the series. Most of you fans already know this, but if you don’t, then here’s a quick rundown of what you can look forward to this May.

The first one is obviously:
 

LIES (Gone #3) by Michael Grant Release Date: May 4th, 2010. See Product Details Watch Trailer Read the first 6 chapters.

It is the highly anticipated 3rd book (out of the planned 6) in the GONE series by Michael Grant (co-author/co-creator of Animorphs). As part of the release of this book, Michael Grant has also once again announced a tour date to promote his series. According to his latest Twitter update, his first meet & greet is at:

Tuesday May 04, 2010
6:00 PM
Orange Town & Country
791 South Main Street Suite 100
Orange, CA 92868
714-558-0028.

The second book that might be of interest to fans is:
 

MONSTER SLAYERS by Lukas Ritter (aka, Jeff Sampson.) Release Date: May 11th, 2010. See Product Details Visit the Official Website Read the “Training Day” prequel short story. (Online exclusive)

‘Lukas Ritter’ is actually just a pen name for Jeff Sampson. If that name doesn’t sound familiar to you, then simply open up your copy of Animorphs #22, and you’ll see that the book is dedicated to him!

Jeff Sampson is the Animorphs fan who is mostly known as the owner of Morphz.com, a popular Animorphs fan site that ran until the series ended. He was in direct contact with K.A for several years, and provided fans with many exclusive sneak peaks at upcoming books, and various news and trivia regarding the series. He even helped write the Anibase for Scholastic, acted as The Informer, and then later went on to writing a bit of K.A’s following series Remnants as well!

He’s now a published author, and Monster Slayers is his very first hardcover release. I enjoyed his Dragonlance series quite a bit in the past, which is why I’m promoting his new book here. For D&D and fantasy fans especially, I think Monster Slayers will be worth looking out for this May.

That really about covers it for now. I’m currently going through many of your submissions and trying to find the time to get to them as best as I can. So don’t worry, I’ll still keep you guys updated, depending on my schedule.

Until next time!

Just a heads up, the deadline for Michael Grant’s Fan Promo Video is tomorrow (April 16th). If you plan on participating, be sure to submit it by then! For those that don’t follow Michael Grant’s Twitter, this promo video is for the GONE series, which will hold compilations of fans talking about why they love the series. In order to participate, here are a few things that Michael Grant has listed you must do:

1. Follow @TFSubmissions, and send an @reply to this account saying that you want to participate.
    
2. Record yourself saying what you like (or don’t like) about the GONE series. High quality video is better, but anything is accepted.
    
3. At the start of the video, have a parent say that they are OK with you being in the video.
    
4. After they step out of the video, pause for a second, and say what you like/don’t like.
    
5. Email the video to jake@jakemates.com. Don’t upload it to YouTube or any other video site, just email the file.

To keep up with any future updates for the video promo project, just follow @TFSubmissions. Best of luck to everyone!

Michael Grant has informed fans, via Facebook, that the first 6 chapters of LIES (Gone #3) have been published for free online at Pensive Sarcasm.

Read the first 6 Chapters of LIES here!

Also, in relation to this, I have noticed that there has been a lot of discussion about the Gone series in general here on the blog (see right side under recent comments), so I’ve decided to create a separate section and category on the Hirac Delest Community Forums to talk specifically about the Gone series. Simply click on ‘Community’ in the header above and sign up at the forum. (Registration is free and only takes a few minutes).

Registered members of Hirac Delest also get special privileges to the Downloads Section at the forum (some of the content which is unavailable at the site, and invisible to those who are only guests).

That about covers it for now. More updates coming soon.

This is not Animorphs related, but I thought I’d share it with the fans of the Gone Series by Michael Grant (co-author/co-creator of Animorphs). Here is a promo video released by Egmont for Hunger (Gone #2):

For those that have missed out on Hunger’s first hardcover release, you can catch its re-release on April 6, 2010 in paperback. Also, in addition to this, Lies (Gone #3) will be released on May 12, 2010. Michael Grant has released the first few pages of it for free online, in collaboration with his son, for a new project that they are working on. You can check it out at getfre.com

Lastly, as a side note, I wanted to add that I’ve slightly changed the right side of the blog. You can now view ‘recent comments’ made on the most discussed blog enteries and go directly to them, rather than scroll through page after page, looking for your topic.

This isn’t Animorphs related, however I know that many of you also read the Gone series by Michael Grant, so I thought I’d post an update on the upcoming book anyway. Here is the new cover for LIES:

The book is currently set to be released May 4th, 2010 (US).

Update: For future updates, I’ve now added new separate categories for the Gone Series and K.A & Michael specifically on the right side of the blog. Hopefully this will simplify things from now on.

Michael Grant (co-author/creator for Animorphs) won the “Best Children’s Novel” Award yesterday at the SCIBA 2009 Author’s Feast, for Hunger (from the Gone Series). The nominees and finalists for that category, as well as for every other category, have been posted up at the Official SCIBA Website. The picture for him receiving the reward (below), was posted by the SCIBA Facebook profile today, and a close up of the award was later uploaded by Michael via Twitpic as well (right).

A very big congrats to Michael Grant from us here at Hirac Delest, and from the rest of your fans as well!

In addition to all of this, Andrew Smith, the author for In the Path of Falling Objects, also wrote about the entire event on his blog (including his meet with Michael Grant, and the speech Michael later gave in the event). You can read it all here.

Sources: SCIBA Facebook Album, and Ghost Medicine: Blog of Andrew Smith.

A fan named moriath, from the Animorphs Livejournal Community, blogged about the recent NYC Barnes & Nobles Event that Michael Grant appeared at. (See our previous blog post). Along with him, there were also other YA authors such as Scott Westerfeld, Carrie Ryan, and James Dashner. Here’s a brief look at the blog post featuring Michael Grant’s part:

“Finally up was Michael Grant of Gone and Hunger as well as my beloved Animorphs series. I have to admit I felt extremely vindicated when, during the Q&A session, he brought up the “abrupt” ending of Animorphs (oh man is THAT an understatement!) and acknowledged, “Well, that didn’t work out well.” So he’s promised that he knows how the series is going to end (though not in detail as JK Rowling claimed to know the whole Harry Potter series – he kinda thinks she made that all up just to keep her editors from freaking out) and it won’t be abrupt like Animorphs.”

Source: Bookish Blather. October 16, 2009.
“Book Events: Post-Apocalyptic Teen Fiction panel, Barnes & Noble”.

Michael Grant (co-author/creator for Animorphs) updated his Facebook and Twitter this morning to inform the fans of his GONE series that he will be at the NYC Barnes and Nobles on October 15th at 7PM, with the first 20 people at the book signing to receive a flash drive with the opening chapters of the 3rd Gone book LIES, as well as to his new upcoming series, the MAGNIFICENT 12.

Along with him will also be Scott Westerfeld, who will be celebrating the release of his latest book LEVIATHAN (cover image on right). Scott Westerfeld, by chance, is also another one of my long-time favourite authors. A personal recommend from me to check out his UGLIES and MIDNIGHTERS series if you haven’t already!

Below is also a quote by Michael Grant from his blog:

Yes. I am still alive.

If you’d like proof, I will be at the BARNES and NOBLE at 86th and Lexington in New York City, October 15th, 7:00 PM.

I’ll be wearing black.

Also there: the great and powerful Scott Westerfeld! The lovely and vivacious (I assume) Carrie Ryan! And the, oh, let’s say the talented and translucent (look, I’m tired and I’m out of adjectives, okay?) James Dashner!

Never in the history of young adult literature has such a panel of luminaries assembled in one place. The sheer brilliance will astound you! It’s entirely possible that we will combine to form a singularity and suck not only you but the entire bookstore into a black hole. That’s right: we are just that deep.

But wait: there’s more! The first 20 people who show up and buy a book (one of mine, duh) for signing get a flash drive containing the first chapters of LIES and the first chapters of an entirely separate series, THE MAGNIFICENT 12.

Sweet Lord, can you imagine a more astounding offer? You can? Well, too bad because this is all the offer I have right now.

Come one, come all, and hear four YA authors bloviate, pontificate, and try to top each other in pandering to you, our devoted audience. Should be fun.

Michael Grant

So the short version:

Barnes & Nobles
86th and Lexington, New York
October 15th, 2009
7:00 PM

Got it? Good! Until next time!

SOURCES: stupidblogname.com; scottwesterfeld.com/blog