Fans of Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking series are in for a thrilling surprise. Walker Books director Denise Johnstone-Burt and Susan van Metre of Walker US have acquired world English and Chinese rights for the New World trilogy by Patrick Ness, a new series set in the world of Ness’s bestselling Chaos Walking. Piper at the Gates of Dusk is set to publish in hardcover in the U.S. and U.K. in spring 2026, 15 years after the last Chaos Walking novel came out. Michelle Kass at Michelle Kass Associates did the deal.
Piper at the Gates of Dusk opens with a young narrator with a deep sense of foreboding. Roughly 20 years after the end of Monsters of Men (although, Ness says, time doesn’t move in exactly the same way it does in our world), the fragile sense of security in New World that was achieved by a previous generation now feels very much at risk from a hostile force encroaching from the vast reaches of space. The narrator’s parents, Todd and Viola from the Chaos Walking series, are a presence in this new trilogy, but the future lies in the hands of the youth. The story wrestles with questions of forgiveness and moral ambiguity. Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? What happens when it’s not possible to reduce everyone to an enemy or a friend? And how do you live with those who once oppressed you?
Ness had not intended to return to the Chaos Walking world once the trilogy was finished. “I like a trilogy that ends,” he told PW. “To me, the story was done. I always want to be absolutely sure I’m never repeating myself.” But the seed of a new story began to take root as he pondered big questions. The series was in part inspired by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, an initiative that emerged after apartheid to help the country come to terms with its past in order to move into the future. This kind of painful reckoning was rich with potential for exploration. As the story grew, a character emerged. Ness realized he was Todd and Viola’s son. “My approach was that if I got an idea and it became irresistible to write, then I wouldn’t rule it out,” he said. “To my astonishment, that’s what happened.”
The first book in the original trilogy, The Knife of Never Letting Go, was released in 2008 and embraced by readers who were experiencing a world with a particular set of issues. Since then, the world “has only gotten noisier,” Ness said. Editor van Metre said that the new trilogy is “a timely gift,” for both long-time fans of Ness’s work and a new generation of readers. While fans will find themselves in a familiar world, it’s not necessary to have read the Chaos Walking trilogy in order to understand or appreciate the new one, Ness said.
“When I acquired the Chaos Walking trilogy 18 years ago,” Johnstone-Burt said, “I knew I was in the hands of a brilliant writer, calling the upcoming trilogy “beyond exciting.”
The Chaos Walking books have sold more than three million copies worldwide and have been published in more than 30 languages. The Knife of Never Letting Go won the Guardian Fiction Prize, and the second book, The Ask and the Answer, won the Costa Book Award. The final book in the trilogy, Monsters of Men, won the Carnegie Medal. The first book was made into the 2021 film Chaos Walking, starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley.
In 2012, Ness’s sixth book, A Monster Calls, became the first book ever to win both the Carnegie Medal and the Kate Greenaway Medal. A Monster Calls was made into a stage production at London’s Old Vic Theatre in 2018. Ness’s most recent book, the middle grade novel Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody, illustrated by Tim Miller, was released earlier this month, centering on a trio of monitor lizards assigned by their principal as hall monitors. The pun on monitor lizards and opportunity to write comedically was “irresistible,” Ness said. The author is currently at work on the second book in the New World trilogy.
