Amblin Entertainment developing film version of THE FIRST FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST

Amblin Entertainment have picked up the film rights to the critically-acclaimed 2014 SF novel The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Claire North.

The novel, which won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and was an Arthur C. Clarke Award nominee, sees a man living the same life over and over again, gaining new knowledge with each lifetime which he can use to then change the course of history. Things are complicated when he meets a rival with the same power, resulting in a desperate struggle as they each try to stop the other being born.

The novel was a big mainstream crossover hit in the UK after it was featured on Richard and Judy's Book Club, our biggest TV book show. The author, whose real name is Catherine Webb, has since published a string of stand-alone books which ask similar questions about life, existence and identity: Touch (2015), The Gameshouse (2015), The Sudden Appearance of Hope (2016), The End of the Day (2017), 84K (2018) and The Pursuit of William Abbey (2019). As Kate Griffin she has also published the Matthew Swift/Magicals Anonymous urban fantasy series (2009-13) and under her own name she has published numerous YA novels, most notably the Horatio Lyle series (2006-10).

The film is apparently being (relatively) fast-tracked, with Wes Ball (the Maze Runner trilogy) already tapped to direct. Melissa Iqbal (Origin, The Nevers, Humans) is writing the script. Production starting, of course, depends on the duration of the current coronavirus pandemic.

When to Write: Debut Ages of Famous SF&F Authors

A few months ago, a fellow blogger announced they were writing their first novel via social media and were immediately criticised for being "too old" to start writing. This was a bizarre comment for several reasons, not least of which was that the person in question was really not that old at all, but also the idea that writing - a livelihood not dependent on fast reflexes or immense physical stamina, but one that benefits from life experience - should have any kind of appropriate age for it in the first place.
Still, I thought it would be interesting to take a snapshot of well-known SF&F authors and look at the ages they were when they debuted, and the results are surprisingly varied.

Coming in at the bottom end of the range is Catherine Webb, a British science fiction and fantasy author who has published critically-acclaimed work under her own name and under two pseudonyms: Kate Griffin and Claire North. Webb was 16 years old when she published her first novel, Mirror Dreams, 23 when she published A Madness of Angels (her first Matthew Swift urban fantasy novel) and 28 when she published arguably her best-known novel, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. She's only 32 now, with twenty novels under her belt in a career spanning sixteen years. More impressive is that Webb has attracted immense critical acclaim for her work, which is imaginative, thought-provoking, restless and constantly innovative.

Better-known, although considerably less artistically accomplished, is Christopher Paolini. His Inheritance series of fantasy novels began with Eragon, published when he was 19 years old.

Next up is that well-known young gun George R.R. Martin. His first published work was "The Hero", published in 1971 when Martin was 22 years old. His first novel, Dying of the Light, was published when he was 28, and he was 47 when his best-known novel, A Game of Thrones, was published.

Terry Pratchett got his novel-writing career off to an early start, publishing The Carpet People at the age of 23. However, he had long waits between his early books. His Discworld series kicked off with The Colour of Magic, published when he was 35.

China Mieville was 26 when he published his first novel, King Rat, but, overwhelmingly impressively, was only 27 when he published the massive, classic fantasy Perdido Street Station. He was still only 36 when The City and The City, one of his best-known novels, was published.

Robin Hobb aka Megan Lindholme was 27 when she published her first short story and 31 for her debut novel, Harpy's Flight. Her most famous novel (and debut as Robin Hobb), Assassin's Apprentice, was published when she was 43.

Arthur C. Clarke got into science fiction writing early, with numerous fanzine stories published in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but his first professional sale was "Loophole", published when he was 28. His first novel, Prelude to Space, was published when he was 33. However, his best-known novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey, was not published until he was 50, and his most acclaimed, Rendezvous with Rama, until he was 55.

Scott Lynch was 28 when he published The Lies of Locke Lamora, narrowly beating out Brandon Sanderson, who was 29 when he published Elantris.

Statistically, especially in SF&F, most debut authors are in their thirties when they start publishing. Falling in this bracket are Iain Banks (30 when he published The Wasp Factory, 33 when he published his first SF novel, Consider Phlebas); Robert Jordan (31 when he published The Fallon Blood and 41 when he published The Eye of the World); Joe Abercrombie (31 when he published The Blade Itself); Ursula K. Le Guin (31 for her first short story, 38 for A Wizard of Earthsea); Terry Brooks (33 for The Sword of Shannara); and Patrick Rothfuss (34 for The Name of the Wind).

For those starting publishing a bit later than the median, there's Raymond E. Feist, who published Magician when he was 37. Gene Wolfe was 39 when he published his first novel and 49 when he released his best-known novel, The Shadow of the Torturer, which opened his Book of the New Sun sequence.

Steven Erikson was 39 when he published his debut novel, This River Awakes, and 40 when he released his first Malazan novel, Gardens of the Moon. 

J.R.R. Tolkien was 44 when he published his first novel, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, and 62 when he began publishing its sequel, The Lord of the Rings.

Terry Goodkind was 46 when he published his debut novel, Wizards' First Rule.

David Eddings was an impressive 50 years old when he published Pawn of Prophecy, beginning The Belgariad.

Richard Adams was 52 when he published his debut novel, Watership Down.

Outside of SF, there are a lot of examples of famous writers who got going in middle age or later. Raymond Chandler was 45 when he published his first story and 51 when he published The Big Sleep. George Eliot aka Mary Evans was 40 when she published her first novel, but 55 when she released her masterwork, Middlemarch. Frank McCourt was 66 when he published his debut novel, Angela's Ashes, which won the Pulitzer Prize. 

The conclusion to be drawn from this is that there is no good or bad time to start writing. If you have talent and skill and good judgement, that will become apparent if you're 16 or 76.

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The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

Harry August has a pretty ordinary life. He is born in Berwick-upon-Tweed in 1919 and dies in a hospital in Newcastle in 1989. In the meantime he has different jobs, various relationships and tries to move on from his difficult family life. But when he dies he finds himself as a child again, regaining his memories of his prior life. This happens again. And again.

Harry is an Ouroboran, destined to live his life again and again. He is one of hundreds, and through the overlapping lifespans of Ouroborans it is possible to send and receive messages from the distant past and distant future. But, in Harry's eleventh life, the messages from the future start changing: the world is ending, and it is accelerating. When Harry's fellow Ouroborans start permanently dying (by someone assassinating their parents before they conceived) or having their memories wiped, and amazing technology appears decades early, he realises that one of their number has betrayed them and is using their power for their own ends, with destructive consequences for humanity.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August was released in 2014 and won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, as well as being nominated for the Arthur C. Clark Award. It gained surprising widespread prominence after being featured on the UK's biggest TV book show. It is written by Catherine Webb under the pseudonym Claire North, which she uses to explore protagonists with unusual abilities (The Sudden Appearance of Hope is in a similar vein).

Webb is a constantly intriguing and interesting author, shifting genres and prose styles with enviable ease as she explores different ideas and characters. At her best, she comes across as a restless, far more prolific and slightly less repetitive (but also somewhat more wordy) Christopher Priest, with her books dwelling on themes such as identity and motivation amongst shifting realities and points of view.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August may be her finest novel to date. The central premise is incredibly strong and it deals with the existential questions surrounding the idea in surprising depth and with logic. Questions are raised such as if the Ouroborans are living in the same world, changing it each time they live through it, or if they are skipping from one timeline to another, and the moral consequences of that for the timelines they leave behind upon death. The overlapping lifespans of different Ouroborans allow them to bring back knowledge from the distant future (since an Ouroboran born in say 1984 dies in the late 21st Century, is reborn, reveals that information to another one who was born in 1925, who can pass it back in their next life etc) and this raises moral quandaries about if they should hoard their knowledge or try to improve humanity's lot.

This latter question consumes much of the novel, especially when it becomes clear that trying to change things often results in far worse consequences. But the dry time travel shenanigans are contrasted against Harry's characterisation, especially the trauma he carries from his first life and his intriguing relationship with a sometimes-nemesis Vincent. The path of the Ouroboran can be a lonely, frustrating one and Harry's dislike of Vincent for his relaxed morality is tempered with respect for his intelligence and just the company of a fellow travel on a journey through their looping lives. This relationship forms the core of the novel and is developed with relish by the author.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (*****) is a smart and thoughtful reflection on life, love, loss, identity, science and the end of the world. It is available now in the UK and USA.

The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North

No-one can remember Hope Arden. A minute after taking their eyes off her, she vanishes from people's memories. Photographs can be taken, text messages read, but the very fact of her existence simply cannot be retained by the human brain. Unable to get a job (her bosses forget about her the second she leaves the premises) or hold down any kind of meaningful human relationship, Hope turns to crime to survive. What was supposed to be just one more diamond job in Dubai goes south thanks to a disturbing new lifestyle app. A woman dies and Hope suddenly discovers a cause, something to fight and die for, but a battle even her extraordinary advantage may not be able to help her win.

The Sudden Appearance of Hope is the fourth of five works by Catherine Webb published under the name of Claire North. These five works are thematically linked by each character in these works having some kind of special ability, usually providing great advantages but also tragic disadvantages, and a situation they have to deal with. It's thought-provoking, interesting stuff, written with a literary bent thanks to her superior ear for language and a great eye for character.

Webb may be better known to SFF fans under her other pen-name, Kate Griffin, under which she wrote the splendid Matthew Swift urban fantasy series, as well as the YA material she publishes under her own name. She's now chalked up seventeen novels under her three pen names, giving her works a sense of confidence that comes from experience. But she's also a restless author, constantly moving between ideas and embracing new concepts (hence why the Matthew Swift series wrapped up after just four books rather than being strung out for twenty). The Claire North books - given a bolster by The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August being chosen for a TV book club in the UK and taking off as a result - seem to be her way of fully engaging with an adult readership and also experimenting in ideas and literary styles between books.

The Sudden Appearance of Hope is an aptly-named book: for me it came out of nowhere and staked a serious claim to being one of the best genre novels of recent years. The premise is simple: no-one can remember Hope Arden. If she spends more than a minute out of their line of sight, they simply forget she existed. She can be caught on video or audio, but a minute after the viewer or listener switches the device off they forget her again. It makes forging any kind of relationship, from a friendship to a romance or a professional collaboration. difficult. The only way Hope can really survive is by forging a secret online identity as _why, which she uses on the darknet to fence stolen goods and arrange commissioned crimes or pick up falsified documents.

What could simply be a gimmicky special ability is instead folded into the book's over-arcing themes of identity, validation and how people desperately try to stand out in a world swamped in social media and superficiality. The storyline revolves around Perfection, an app which monitors users' habits and advises them if they are being "perfect" or not. It rewards people trying to be perfect with points, and at higher levels they gain rewards, from stays in posh hotels and spas to money off expensive beauty treatment and lifestyle courses. When people using the app find themselves getting dream jobs, meeting their perfect partners and improving their quality of life, it explodes in popularity. But Hope soon finds something sinister lurking behind the App, both in the people that made it and the people who use it regularly, something that ties in with the media's idea of what makes people perfect and what makes people people.

The result is a timely reflection and analysis of the world we live in. An app like Perfection isn't quite possible right now, but it's probably not too far off. Of course, the book takes the concept to its ultimate conclusion, bringing in body horror and invasive brain surgery. When Hope discovers a second person like herself who has been made memorable by the surgery, she suddenly finds herself fighting the urge to use it herself, to rejoin the human race at the expense of the things that make her unique.

The result is a book with a killer high concept, a fascinating and psychologically complex lead character and which uses its premise as a prim through which to examine the world around us, from vacuous media culture to spin doctors to lifestyle gurus and tabloid editors wielding more power than any elected political official, all told through some tremendously skilled prose.

There are moments where the pace stalls a little, where the movements between story and theme and characters don't jar quite as well as they should, and occasional moments where you find yourself questioning quite how Hope's abilities work (most of which, to be fair, the book answers quite well), but these issues are pretty limited.

The Sudden Appearance of Hope (****½) is a jet-setting novel about a jewel thief which metamorphoses into a beautifully-written taken on life in the 21st Century and on the meaning of identity. It is available now in the UK and USA.