The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking Book 1) Kindle Edition

I like to read books that have been made into movies. On the one hand, by watching the movie, you can quickly grasp if the story is good and thus have already a selection. On the other hand, I also like to compare them and consider the differences. I think there is even a YouTube channel doing exactly that. Mostly, but not always, a book will of course be much better than a movie it was made into. In what comes, I thus have not only to add a spoiler warning for the book, but also one for the movie.When I had watched the movie, I watched afterwards a review that criticized that the movie had too many plot points that were just mentioned but sometimes never used again, which just muddled the story. There is the noise, okay, then there are no women, okay, then one girl appears okay… then, women don’t have noise, well what’s then the sense of the noise, and then there are aliens, that never appear again, but why? Each of them keeps distracting from the story. In the book, there is more space to tell the story and so of course it is better. However, I’m not sure yet whether I can say it’s ok there. It’s a colonized planet so aliens will be more expected, and Todd also mentions several times that he keeps well clear of the river in order to avoid the crocs that live in it. So, when one attacks Aaron, it is not so much a surprise that adds nothing as it does in the movie when Todd is attacked.The one clear difference between movie and book is that animals have noise as well in the book and so here it becomes much clearer why it's called noise. The whole world becomes a very noisy place indeed and it thus makes sense to call it noise. When Viola arrives and she has no noise, in difference to the movie, it is not so that she becomes completely unnoticeable and that she can sneak up on people, but she is noticeable as well as she is a hole in all the noise. The noise will flow around her, like water around stones in a stream and so she cannot really hide because she has no noise. In that, the playing field is more even, people will feel her as a gap in the noise.In the movie review it is also stated that Viola's reason why she wants to contact her ship keeps on changing during the movie, which is confusing. First, it's to warn them, then it's to make sure they will land and not leave her behind. In the book, this issue is soon not an issue anymore. Viola mentions quite in the beginning that she wants to warn her ship, but it’s never discussed anymore. She and Todd are just busy running to Haven. On the other hand, in the book, Viola clearly stated that she was in an advance scouting mission, so it is also kind of clear that she has to report back.In the movie, it was clear that the men of Prentisstown were after Viola. Mayor Prentiss screams as much. In the book, this becomes not really clear until the end. It seems they're after Todd, Ben and Cillian were prepared to send him off before his birthday, the arrival of Viola just accelerated that. But Aaron is after Viola, and apparently wants to sacrifice her but what would Mayor Prentiss do with Todd? Only in the end it becomes clear what Aaron actually wanted, and Mayor Prentiss just wanted to conquer the whole planet. I’m not even sure in how much Aaron was charged to do or was even given permission by Mayor Prentiss. In the movie, Aaron is just part of Mayor Prentiss’ army, in the book, he seems to act completely on his own. Here, the movie seems to be more logical.Another big difference is that in the movie, Todd and Viola seemingly just have to make it to Farbranch, and everything that happens does so on the way to Farbranch. In the book, I had the feeling that they made it relatively easily to Farbranch but that was just the beginning of their journey. They remain being chased by the army of Mayor Prentiss and keep running from settlement to settlement after settlement. Here, I started to realize that the movie, by shortening the way just to Farbranch, might have done the story a favor. I started to get annoyed of Todd and Viola arriving at a settlement only just to have to run away again. Oh, and the army of Mayor Prentiss is in the movie also just a group of about twenty thugs or so.Connected with the last point, in the book, Todd and Viola have to arrive in Haven, whereas in the movie, after leaving Farbranch, they just find a derelict ship and contact Viola’s mother ship. It seems that in the movie, they had to wrap the story. In the book, contacting Viola’s ship is never mentioned again after the first time. It becomes a minor point that was mentioned once.Pretiss Jr.'s role in the book is much bigger. He becomes almost as important as Aaron himself. I had the feeling that in the movie, this was indicated but then he had nothing to do anymore. Aaron himself is in the book of course the main villain of the story, much more so than in the movie. On the other hand, Mayor Prentiss is only a minor figure in the book like a distant thread on the horizon. I have the feeling that he will be much more important in the sequel.Manchee's fates in the movie and book are the same, but he has a much longer story in the book. In the book, Todd complains about Manchee in the beginning, stating that he only received him as birthday present but never wanted him. They grow dependent on each other, Manchee showing Todd the way to Viola until in the end, Todd really cares deeply about the dog. His death therefore is more gut-wrenching in the book. Another point I have noticed in the book is that Aaron as well as Todd should have been dead for a while. I cannot believe that they both endure the injuries they’ve sustained. Moreover, Todd is in a typical state for a long time where I just expected him to pass out and wake up in a hospital. But he still had to save Viola and it became just unbelievable how long he kept dragging forward.And, of course, the biggest difference of them all, the story in the movie ends with Viola contacting her ship. In the book, it ruddy well doesn’t end, and the book just stops with a huge cliff-hanger… Now, I’ll have to go and read the second book in the series.

The Knife of Never Letting Go is the first book in The Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness. The series is set on a world colonized some time ago by settlers who met a few surprises upon their arrival. The biggest was the effect of a plague/virus, which caused all males (human and animal) to uncontrollably and constantly broadcast their thoughts so everyone hears what they were thinking. Because the thoughts couldn't be turned off or tuned out, the constant background became known as "The Noise." The second shock was that the planet held an intelligent native species the colonists call the Spackle. Between the ensuing war with the Spackle (won by the colonists), the social disruption caused by the Noise, and the general degradation of technology (often willful--the colonists wanted to get back to more basic, traditional living), life is rougher than perhaps planned. The series focuses on two young characters: Todd and Viola. Todd is an almost thirteen-year-old boy living a hardscrabble life in his small village Prentisstown. An orphan (his mother died, like all women, in the plague), he's the last boy in his village and is awaiting his birthday when he will go through the rite of passage making him a man. We meet him in the swamp near town, along with his dog Manchee, whose vocalized thoughts are mostly along the lines of "have to poo" and "squirrel!" much to Todd's dismay. He has a violent encounter with the town preacher Aaron who seems to have something against him, and then comes across a strange "empty space" in the Noise. Returning home through the village (a nicely structured method of introducing us not only to the setting but to several characters whose thoughts we overhear, as well as to a sense of underlying menace in town), Todd tells his adopted parents Cillian and Ben. Suddenly his world is turned upside down as they tell him he has to leave the village and soon Todd is running for his life chased by a town posse led by Mayor Prentiss and his sadistic son. On his way out of town, he comes across the source of the earlier "empty space"--a young woman who is a precursor to a new round of settlers. Her scout ship crashed, killing her parents, and she ends up running with Todd, the two of them hoping to reach the capital city where she can communicate with her fleet and Todd can learn the truth of Prentisstown and the world, since clearly most of what he grew up knowing was a lie. The pace of the book is pretty breakneck as Todd and Viola find only temporary safety place after place. It's pretty relentless and to be honest, a little more breathing space might have been nice, though the pace dragged me along pretty easily. I will say that one problem with the pace and cliffhanger upon cliffhanger episodic nature is that some of it is driven by the "Character Who Cannot Die," never a favorite plot device for me. I admit this became annoying and is one of the flaws that detracted quite a bit from the book. On the other hand, the slowly developing relationship between Todd and Viola is extremely well done. Predictable at its most basic (we pretty much know where it will end), it is complicated greatly, and made highly original, by the nature of the Noise. Not just the Noise itself but also the way it makes their relationship wholly unequal: Viola knows everything Todd is thinking but she is a closed book to him as are all women to men (a point made explicit by the metaphor of his mother's journal which he cannot read but she can). We see Todd groping toward an understanding of not just Viola but of the female, while she must learn the navigate the treacherous shoals of knowing so much and having so much disproportionate power. This is something the world as a whole has had to learn, and as they flee we get to see several examples of how individuals or social groupings have tried to do so--some with more success than others, to say the least. The idea of women as "other" is mirrored by the Spackle, whom we don't see much of in this book (they were allegedly exterminated in the war) but who will come to play a larger role in the later books. One does, however, play a huge role in this book and this comes in the context of the other major themes of the story--violence and masculinity, and the way the two are linked. I don't want to say too much about this due to spoilers, but Todd's ability/inability to kill is a major focus, as is the impact of killing (the title leads us down that path). This is handled I thought in vivid, moving fashion and was one of my favorite aspects of the novel. In general this is a series of large ideas, dealing at various times throughout the three books with gender, power, first contact colonization, slavery, racism. Sometimes more subtly than others, but I greatly enjoyed the depth Ness is reaching for. As mentioned, The Knife of Never Letting Go is not without its flaws. The too-tough-to-kill character is one (picture Michael Myers or Jason), the pace is at times another. Sometimes there is a fine line between incredibly moving and effective and out and out manipulation of the reader. This will hold true throughout the series, but it remained a highly effective reader book by book, extremely moving, and filled with a depth and level of thought that greatly enhanced the reading experience. I highly recommend it, and recommend as well you obtain it as a set as the books end on cliffhangers.

Simply Wow

I wish I had known this was a trilogy before I started reading it. I felt as though I was running all the way through this book and then got to the cliff hanger end. Arghhhhh! It is a great book.

Incredibly weird and fantastic.

Muy satisfecho con el producto y servicio

I’ve just finished to read it and I can’t wait for the next one. In the beginning I tought it was the same old fantasy and now I’m craZy for it. 🥰