Music

Read a sample from Tom DeLonge's dystopian YA novel and cringe for days

by Jeremy Mersereau

Aside from Bitcoins, the currency of our times is definitely dystopian young adult fiction, and the world desperately needs more of it—especially when it’s written by people whose greatest prior literary contribution was penning Keats-worthy couplets like “Everything’s better when she’s around / I can’t wait til her parents go out of town.”

Former Blink-182 singer/guitarist Tom DeLonge is throwing his schoolboy hat into the YA ring with a new trilogy of novels, co-written with The Program author Suzanne Young, and you can read an excerpt right now, you lucky devil!

The first instalment, Poet Anderson…Of Nightmares, is out now. The novel deals with two teenage brothers whose parents have died in a plane crash, and is set in a world where “the chasm between dreams and reality sometimes disappears,” according to DeLonge. Move over, Gabriel García Márquez! Just in case you need some persuasion before purchasing what is surely War and Peace for the selfie set, Rolling Stone has published an exclusive excerpt from the book. We’ve extracted three of the most cringe-inducing passages below, with one fake one thrown to keep you on your toes. Can you spot the fake?

1. A group of soldiers were stalking through the dining room in his direction, their heavy boots clanking and the dishware rattling as they bumped tables unapologetically. Poet jumped up from his seat, terrified, until he realized they were wearing red armor—not black. These were Dream Walkers.

2. She sighed, and looked at him impatiently, reaching to adjust his tie. “Come now, Jarabec,” she whispered. “Remember that I know where you sleep.” “And I, you, Camille,” he said calmly. “Shall we take this to the Waking World?”

3. “They’re just dreamers,” Eye-patch said, pushing forward to stand in front of her, leaning against the table. “The Night Stalkers can’t get here—we’re not in the Dream World.

4. “The night will go on, my little windmill,” said Taravis, jacking into the Night Sphere. “This strange sick darkness… it comes creeping on so haunting every time,” replied Hoppeus, taking off his pants and cyber-jacket in preparation for the Nodelink, “but it beats being back at the Dude Ranch.”

If you guessed 4, congrats! You’re obviously got a keen eye for YA style, and should start shopping your novel about a plucky heroine pitted against a cold ruthless organization immediately.

If, for some reason, you feel the burning need for more DeLonge-derived prose, you can read the whole excerpt over at Rolling Stone, or pick up Poet Anderson…Of Nightmares wherever cultural detritus books are sold.