Scholastic Announces New Series That includes Many Authors, Online Game

Scholastic announced recently that their next multi-platform book series will be launching in Fall of 2012. Some of you may be familiar with The 39 Clues, the first type of this series, which exposes readers to different authors and an online tie-in as the story progresses.

This new series, called Infinity Ring, will be a middle-grade (8-12 year olds) series consisting of seven books. The first, to be written by The Maze Runner’s James Dashner is set to release in September of next year. Other authors slated to write the additional books are Carrie Ryan (The Forest of Hands and Teeth), Lisa McMann (The Wake series), Matt de la Pena (We Were Here), Matthew J. Kirby (Icefall), and Jennifer A. Nielsen (The Underworld Chronicles). Dashner will be writing the first and the last.

Here’s the summary of the series from Publisher’s Weekly: The series follows a pair of best friends—Dak and Sera—who discover a key that allows them to time travel and, per Scholastic, then embroils them “in a centuries-long secret war for the fate of mankind.”

They also had this to report about the online element: The ancillary game with the series, a Scholastic rep said, will not sell anything, but it will be a “fully realized virtual world” where readers can can interact with characters as well as explore historical themes touched upon in the novels, all in game format.

Sounds interesting, and with the massive success of The 39 Clues, I can see why they want to keep with this trend.