writermag.com • The Writer | 17It’d be funny, perhaps, if it weren’t all so on-the-
nose. Lu is writing for teenagers, yes. She’s writing
romantic epics and sci-fi thrillers for young read-
ers. But is her fiction really that far-fetched? In case
you haven’t been paying attention, those same kids
are the ones leading movements. They’re the ones
dealing with the breakneck speed of technological
evolution, of political disenfranchisement and cli-
mate change. Society is turning to teenagers – take
climate activist Greta Thunberg, who delivered a
furious U.N. speech last year, for instance – to
demand actual progress. Lu believes YA books can
help young readers understand the truth of the
world they’ll inherit, while also giving them the
hope and courage to envision a better one.
This spring, Lu will release The Kingdom of
Back, a plunge into historical fantasy. The book
will follow Nannerl Mozart, the real-life sister of
Wolfgang, whose musical talent overshadowed
his sister’s. In Lu’s book, Nannerl meets a mysteri-
ous stranger who offers the young prodigy the
chance to be remembered forever – if she’s willing
to accept the cost.
This isn’t Lu’s first time rifling through the past
for stories that resonate today; The Young Elites,
her second trilogy, also takes place in a historical
fantasy world. But this is Lu’s first time using real
people in a magical setting. And just as she pro-
motes a book set in 18th-century Europe, she’s also
got one eye on the future: Lu confirms that a film
adaptation of Legend is moving forward. A screen-
play is developed, and casting is in the works, but
there’s little other information available now. (She
jokes that her readers frequently learn tidbits
about the film before she does.)
Somehow, she doesn’t seem flustered by all the
back and forth, all the time-traveling and threads
between fiction and reality, all the shuffling sto-
ries. She doesn’t outline her work; she plots as
she goes. How she keeps track of it all in her
mind is incomprehensible. One clue might be
this: It’s all so breathtakingly important to her.
She knows her worlds will resonate with teens
because – past, present, or future – they aren’t
that different from ours.
So, sure, maybe it seems like she’s six years late
to finishing the Legend series. But ask any of her
readers, and they’ll tell you she’s right on time.Lauren Pucket t is an assistant and writer at Hearst Maga-
zines, where she works for brands including Harper’s Bazaar,
O, The Oprah Magazine, and Good Housekeeping. She is also
a book reviewer for Shelf Awareness. You can find her on
Twit ter @laurpucket t.began. The story showed her an interactive map of
the world, 100 years in the future, where unre-
strained climate change had plunged California
(and much of the rest of the planet) underwater.
Los Angeles – her home – was a giant lake.
She still remembers how the map looked so real.
In less than four months, Lu had her first
draft. The story she’d been dreaming about
formed itself from seemingly disparate chunks
of inspiration – Les Miserables and climate
change – so Jean Valjean became the young hero
and hunted criminal Daniel “Day” Wing, and
Inspector Javert became the powerful, conflicted
teenager June Iparis. The map of a ruined Earth
became the setting of Legend, a world where
America was yet again clashing in civil warfare
and Antarctica’s capital was one of the most
advanced cities on the globe.
The concept was a hit, going on to become a
trilogy that would sell more than 3 million cop-
ies. Today, after publishing two other series and
a stand-alone DC Comics book (Batman: Night-
crawler), Lu says the question she receives most
often from readers is: “What happens to Day
and June?” Even after finishing the series, her
audience still deeply cared about the characters
she created.
“I felt a responsibility to my readers, my first
readers,” Lu says. “They picked up my book when
no one knew who I was; they took a chance on an
author who had no track record...I felt like, for
them, I wanted to give them something that made
them feel good.”
Head in the game
Lu makes the argument that every one of her sto-
ries is inherently political. Sometimes it feels as if
we live in the world of her novels, just slotted a
few decades behind. In Warcross, Lu’s story of a
young hacker thrust into a video game world
where her bounty hunting skills land her at the
feet of a billionaire, citizens utilize a computer
chip embedded in their brains. This chip creates
a brain-computer interface that connects you to
the augmented reality and artificial intelligence
around you. After Lu sent the final draft of Wa r -
cross to her publisher, her editor informed her
that Elon Musk had created a company called
Neuralink, investing in – you guessed it – com-
puter chips for your brain. Lu had to laugh.
Rebel, as well, is something of a satire on the
modern gamification of human lives: Play the
game right, and you win points. Fail, and you’re
stuck in the Undercity.