To celebrate the midnight release of Stephenie Meyer’s new novella, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, Border’s is giving away a bookplate signed by Stephenie Meyer. Here is some of the information from the Border’s website.

Sweepstakes begins on June 4, 2010 at 10:00pm and ends on June 4, 2010 at 11:59pm. Enter to win by completing official entry forms located at your local participating Borders location and dropping them in the designated in-store drop box. Contact your local Borders store to determine if such store is participating.

There is also a list of the stores who are having midnight release parties for the Bree Tanner novella June 4, 2010. Go to Border’s for more details on the giveaways and the stores having parties.

TSTPodcast

MTV picked five books they think could live up to the hype to be your next book addiction. Do you agree? What other books would you suggest?

They say something in the article that  puzzles me -  “But the June 5 release of Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” spin-off novella “The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner” marks the end of an era.”   Are they saying there will be no more Twilight Saga books, no Midnight Sun?

“I Am Number Four”

What It’s About: A group of young aliens land on Earth after their own planet is destroyed, secretly integrating themselves into society where they slowly learn they’re developing powers. When those responsible for blowing up their planet track them down and begin killing them in sequential order, our hero John Smith (otherwise known as Number Four) vows to dish vengeance on the bad guys, all while juggling a hot and heavy love triangle involving his fellow extraterrestrial Sarah (Number Six) and a human girl.

What Could Make It the Next “Twilight”: The book by “Pitacus Lore” (the pseudonym of James Frey and Jobie Hughes) doesn’t hit shelves until August 17, but that didn’t stop Steven Spielberg, Michael Bay and the creators of “Smallville” from teaming up to produce a big-budget film that’s set for a 2011 release. Alex Pettyfer of “Beastly” and Dianna Agron from “Glee” are among the stars already attached. That alone could help the book shoot to the top of the pile, but at its heart the title is about one young man and his quest discover himself, get the girl and take down the enemy.

“The Passage”

What It’s About: A government weapons project goes awry, turning much of the population into blood-sucking vampires. The book follows the story of Amy, a young survivor who remains mostly unaffected by the virus and may be the key to saving the human race. Interestingly, the tale shifts between two time periods, jumping 100 years into the future, when Amy is still alive (cue spooky music).

What Could Make It the Next “Twilight”: Author Justin Cronin developed his book, which come out on June 8, while listening to his 13-year-old daughter obsess over Stephenie Meyer. Like the “Twilight” series, the story revolves around a special girl. Director Ridley Scott (”Gladiator,” “Blade Runner”) apparently agrees and has optioned the book to develop into a feature film.

“The Hunger Games”

What It’s About: In a oppressive country called Panem, every year, two children from each of 12 districts are sent to compete in a televised arena battle to the death. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen has the advantage of archery skills and something-more-than-friendship with fellow District 12 tribute Peeta.

What Could Make It the Next “Twilight”: Suzanne Collins’ trilogy (third book, “Mockingjay,” is out August 24) has created a fierce, selfless heroine, a tragic love triangle and a frightening dystopian future that’s captured adults and teens alike. There aren’t any vampires in sight, but fans’ enthusiasm for these books is growing mighty feverish. Lionsgate is slated to begin filming a movie adaptation in early 2011.

“Vampire Academy”

What It’s About: Imagine Hogwarts, but more deadly and with sexy vampires instead of wussy wizards. “Vampire Academy” follows the adventures of Rose Hathaway, a half-vampire student of the boarding school who is training to become her best friend’s bodyguard. Though she’s often battling evil vampires, the series is not without a heaping of romance here and there.

What Could Make It the Next “Twilight”: When we covered the “Vampire Academy” books last year, we called Richelle Mead’s series the “perfect antidote” to frustrations over Bella often playing the victim. In this series, we get a strong female character who’s more liable to kick someone else’s ass on her own, rather than relying on any strapping hunks to do it for her. And as of today, the latest book in the franchise, “Spirit Bound,” has hit #1 on the best-seller charts.

“Beautiful Darkness” and “Beautiful Creatures”

What It’s About: The series by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, the book is told from the point-of-view of a high school student in the deep South who meets the girl of his dreams (literally). A tale of good versus evil, we follow the couple as the girl must choose between the dark side and the light side of her magical powers before her 16th birthday. “Beautiful Darkness” is out on October 12.

What Could Make It the Next “Twilight”: Like “Twilight,” teenage angst is mixed with Gothic charm, dark secrets and choices to be made. The book is heavy on the romance aspect as it follows two young lovers and the feverous attempt by the boy to sway his girlfriend to the more righteous path.

PS. I like Vampire Academy. I just got the newest book…..

UK Twilight fans, here is your chance to be the spokesperson for the Saga (and win some cool stuff), thanks to Waterstones:

To celebrate the launch of Stephenie Meyer’s new Twilight saga novella, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, we want to find the nation’s most enthusiastic, fun fan to represent the Twilight generation when the first copies of the book arrive at Europe’s largest bookshop, Waterstone’s Piccadilly.

Twilight fans love to talk about the books, the characters, the romance, the mystery and everything else contained in the four books of the Twilight saga: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn. But how would you sum up what’s contained in those hundreds of pages for someone who’s never read the books? In a minute. On camera.

We want to see you reduce the entire Twilight saga to just 60 seconds of inspired enthusiasm, passion and imagination. The rules are simple – simply film yourself explaining the entire Twilight saga in 60 seconds or less, post your film on YouTube – with the tagline “My Twilight in 60 secs” – and add the link to our Facebook page: facebook.com/waterstones, so we can judge the best.

Use your camera, your mobile phone, your camcorder – whatever you like.

We’ll choose one winner (UK only) to be our ’spokesfan’ on Friday 4th June. The lucky winner will also be able to bring along up to 2 friends (plus a responsible adult if under 18), stay in a top London hotel, get loads of Twilight saga goodies, plus £500 spending money and have the first copies of The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner delivered to their hotel room door at the official publication time of 5.05am on Saturday 5th June.

Click here for details

Waterstones via TwilightTreasury

On June 7th (which also happens to be my 27th birthday) Stephenie Meyer will be giving “The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner” away for free. Yes, you heard me. FREE!!!

Here is an adorable little countdown clock for “The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner”,  S. Meyer’s new story, due out on June 5th. You can learn more about Bree on Stephenie Meyer’s website.

Melissa Rosenberg says in this ReelzChannel video that one of Stephenie Meyer’s favorite chapters in all of the Twilight Saga is the “Tent Scene”. What is yours?

Jodelle Ferland gives and interview to Canada’s Urban Rush about Twilight Eclipse, and about her role of Bree Tanner. Lots of discussion going around about making “The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner” into a movie. Jodelle said she’d love to play Bree in it.

“I was allowed to read it because obviously I was playing Bree Tanner so they wanted me to have sort of a background for me to be able to play her better,” Jodelle explained. It sounds similar to when Robert Pattinson was allowed to read an unfinished copy of “Midnight Sun” — “Twilight” told from Edward Cullen’s perspective — before the filming of the first movie.

However, because of the leaked versions of “Midnight Sun” that made their way to the Internet during that time, Jodelle had very strict restrictions when it came to reading “Short Second Life.”

“I was allowed to read the story, but I had to actually go to set to read it. I couldn’t have a copy because they have to be careful. I had to sit in a trailer with somebody there with me at all times because people can take pictures or whatever they want,” Jodelle said.

She explained the circumstances surrounding the humorous photo that shows her sitting next to a bucket filled with the ashes of her copy of the novella.

“After I read the story, we were supposed to destroy it, get rid of it, but, since we were filming on location, we didn’t really have a shredder or anything. We didn’t exactly know what to do and then it kind of came to us: well, we can just burn it,” she said. “We put it in a bucket and we burnt it and threw a match in there. It was actually kind of hard. It took forever to burn.”

Jodelle, as well as Bryce Dallas Howard, Xavier Samuel, director David Slade and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg all were allowed to read a copy of “Short Second Life” before filming began. It made it all the more impressive that the novella was kept a secret until last week.

“I wasn’t even allowed to tell anyone about it before,” Jodelle said. “I already knew that it had been written, but I wasn’t sure exactly what was happening with it, like if it was coming out as its own book.”

As for whether Bree would end up getting her own movie as well, Jodelle said she would definitely interested. “That would be amazing. I don’t know exactly what their plans are but obviously if that happens I would totally do it,” she said.

HollywoodCrush

Speculation is running wild about the chance of more Twilight Saga films now that SM has announced the Bree Tanner novella. Interest in her other book series, The Host, is climbing with it. There is info today on the plans for filming that:

I can report some forward progress on the movie version of The Host, Meyer’s first adult novel which she optioned last fall to producers Nick Wechsler and Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz–the trio behind the terrific screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Steve Schwartz tells me that Andrew Niccol is working on the third draft of a screenplay which he’s writing in close consultation with the author. The Australian-born Niccol was once the hottest screenwriter in town after his groundbreaking script The Truman Show, and he has followed by writing visionary films like Gattaca and most The City That Sailed—the latter is a project that Will Smith has been attached to for more than a year. Still, Niccol wouldn’t qualify as the hottest director in town and would normally get overlooked for such a plum project. He originally wrote The City That Sailed as a directing vehicle. But Smith, who’d play a New York-based father with a London-based daughter who misses him so much that it causes her seaside town to break away and float toward Gotham, brought on his I Am Legend director Francis Lawrence, until the filmmaker jumped to direct Robert Pattinson, Reese Witherspoon and Christoph Waltz in Water for Elephants for Fox 2000. Fox is now looking for another filmmaker.

Because the producers used their own money, they were not hostage to choosing the flavor of the moment, but rather the right guy. Schwartz said the search went like this: “We asked Stephenie what her favorite science fiction movies were, and one of them was Gattaca,” he sald. “We spent time with Andrew, listened to his vision, introduced Andrew to Stephenie and she responded. There is very good chemistry in this group. Stephenie is a very smart collaborator, and she had an intuitive strong hunch he would be the right guy. Based on the script we’ve seen, we think she was right. We’re thinking this will be shot in early 2011.” They haven’t gone out for production financing—they might put together a cast first and come to the table with a complete package. But Meyer is a viable brand because of Twilight, and based on the incessant inquiries by distributors, Schwartz doesn’t think they will have trouble. “We are budgeting right now,” he said.

The Host is a love story set in the near future, when the Earth has been overrun by benevolent alien parasites that call themselves “souls” and take over the consciousness of humans. The book is about a “soul” called Wanderer, which fuses with a dying woman named Melanie Stryder, bent on discovering the whereabouts of the last pocket of surviving humans. Wanderer, a veteran assimilator, struggles with the dogged determination of the woman to retain her identity and values.

Deadline via MTV

Update! I almost forgot maybe the BEST Carlisle fanfiction out there – Ithica is Gorges! Thanks to Stacie B. for reminding me about it. I recommended it on CBA back in December 2009.

“Ithaca is Gorges” is a beautiful rendition of New Moon from both Edward’s and Carlisle’s POV. It is revealing and moving and I admit to crying at least two times.

Ithaca is Gorges by Giselle-lx
Rated: T
Words: 131,139

Giselle has also made Ithaca available for download so you can read it off line or on a kindle, if you’d like. As usual, if you like the story, please thank the author. They receive nothing but reviews as pay so please pay them well.

Since we are talking about background stories or stories from other character’s POV’s,  you should know that there a over 130,000 fanfiction stories out there, many of which are in-canon (the stories which stay within the Twilight world as Stephenie Meyer’s has written it) that fill in gaps or add background to what our Stephenie Meyer has written.  Many of them are VERY well done. If you are unfamiliar with Twilight fanfiction, or fanfiction in general, please see CBA’s little crash course in it, called Fan Fiction 101.)

Here are just a sampling of some of the best  background stories of characters, missing information, and the books from other character’s POV’s:

This M-rated story has long been a favorite of mine.   If you want to know Jasper and Alice’s story, here it is.

You’ve Kept Me Waiting by Mandi1
Rated: M – Romance/Drama – Chapters: 43 – Words: 139,292

Seeing the future is one thing. Knowing how to get there is another. Alice knows that Jasper is the key to something better. If only she can get – and keep – him in her life. Alice and Jasper’s story. Reposted by request.

This is an old, old classic of Twilight fanfiction, written before New Moon, so also before the “stolen” chapters of Midnight Sun as well.

The Lion and the Lamb by Alphie
Rated: T  Romance/Supernatural – Chapters: 26 – Words: 109,530
A retelling of Twilight from Edward’s point of view. Now on permanent hiatus. Please read author’s note.

Here is the best background story I’ve found on Esme. I’m glad I finally found it and I hope you are too when you read it.

Everlasting Memories by Oxygen and Cucumbers
Rated: T -Romance/Hurt/Comfort – Chapters: 13 – Words: 15,781

Ever since she was born, growing up had never been easy for Esme. Escaping from her first husband to protect her unborn son – she ran. “How free life seemed, when a simple breath of air could take your problems away… if only for one deluded moment.

This is the best background story for Carlisle I have come across.

Waning Moon: Carlisle’s Story by Yborjen

Rated: T – Drama/Adventure – Chapters: 28 – Words: 155,383
Yborjen has  made Waning Moon available to download  for free through scribd,  so you can read it off line, also!

The epic story of Carlisle Cullen began in 17th century England. Follow Carlisle through the Old and New world as he meets friends and enemies on his journey toward his destiny as an inspiration to vampires everywhere. Love is eternal, but life is not.

This is an excellent story of Edward’s life, from his human time, green eyes,to his change, red eyes, and his life as a vampire, gold eyes, up to finding Bella. Told from Edward’s POV.  Classic.  This was taken off of fanfiction.net, so you must  register on Twilighted to read it,  but that is a safe thing to do and the story is worth the little bit of effort.  Another classic of Twilight fanfiction.

Green, Red, Gold by Segolily
Chapters: 47 – Words: 42,279 Rated: T

This is an example of a story that fills in missing information, in this case, how Isle Esme came to be.

How Esme Got Her Island by wmlaw
Rated: K+ – Romance – Chapters: 7 – Words: 11,262
Takes place prior to Twilight.

Two stories sharing New Moon and Eclipse from Alic’s POV

The Dark Side of Light by Nostalgicmiss

Eclipse through Alice’s Eyes. Alice’s soon-to-be-sister and best friend is finally joining the family in every way, what on earth could get in the way?

Rated: T -  Drama/Romance – Chapters: 22 – Words: 95,952

Darkest Night by Nostalgicmiss

Alice’s Version of New Moon, her voyage of Self Discovery and the vision that changed everything.

Rated: T – Drama/Romance – Chapters: 30 – Words: 95,838

Let me know if you read these or if you find any other great in-canon, background tales. This is by no means a comprehensive list!  CBA posts fanfiction recommendations every Monday, Wednesday and Friday! Don’t miss them.

Hot off the announcement of Bree’ Tanner’s backstory,  I know you all want to chime in on who you would like to know more about.  MTV listed their choices. I totally agree about Carlisle. Oh there are so many things I’d like to know so much more about, who knows where to begin!

Jasper Hale

Sure, we get his back story in “Eclipse,” but the man is the most tortured of all (yes, Edward, all) of the Cullen clan. Not only does he have the hardest time controlling his need for human blood, but we also are dying to read from his perspective how it feels to want to kill Bella every time she walks into the room without unconditional love holding him back. It would also be fun to see where he and Alice run off to at the end of “Breaking Dawn” from his perspective, because that was one of the biggest WTF?! moments of the series.

Jane

The Volturi only actually pop into the story a couple of times during the course of the “Saga,” but those few times are some of our favorites. We’d love to see the shenanigans the Volturi get themselves into over in Italy from their perspective, plus how they feel when they see the Edward/Bella dynamic for the first time. Plus it gives Dakota Fanning a chance to star in her own spin-off movie.

Jessica Stanley

We didn’t really start loving Jessica’s character until we saw Anna Kendrick’s portrayal of her in the films, but OME if she isn’t one of our favorite parts of the movies. Maybe Anna should be the one to pen this spin-off to incorporate some of her signature snark, but we would love to see Bella’s story through one of the humans’ point of view. Because, for anyone on the outside who doesn’t know something supernatural is going on, that has got to be one of the weirdest love stories to watch play out ever.

Quil Ateara

Except for the fact Jacob was miserable during the second section of “Breaking Dawn,” we liked how the story was told from a werewolf perspective. Though Quil might seem like the most uninteresting of the Quileute tribe at first glance, that’s kind of the point. Bella and Bree are both pretty bland on the surface, but that makes it easier for the reader to take up that consciousness on their own. Plus, Quil was one of the last to become a werewolf and isn’t bogged down with daddy drama like Seth and Leah Clearwater, which makes it easier to read his story and understand.

Carlisle Cullen

This wouldn’t be a spin-off, this would be an epic. Carlisle has one of the coolest storylines in the book, and it stretches back for a really long time. Some of his storyline is told in the novels, but we have no issue reading 2,000 pages to see it all from his perspective. For some crazy reason, we don’t think you fans would have an issue either.