A stand-out new edition of the award-winning first novel in the globally bestselling Chaos Walking trilogy.

Prentisstown isn’t like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts in a constant, overwhelming Noise. There is no privacy. There are no secrets. Then Todd Hewitt unexpectedly stumbles on a spot of complete silence. Which is impossible. And now he’s going to have to run…

To celebrate the upcoming release of Piper at the Gates of Dusk, a new novel in the iconic world of Chaos Walking, in April 2026, this new edition features a fresh jacket, sprayed edges and an additional short story: The New World.

"Ness doesn’t just tell stories – he illuminates the human heart." – Cassandra Clare

"A masterpiece of speculative fiction" – Neal Shusterman

"A touchstone for powerful young adult literature. Inventive, gut-wrenching, and all-consuming, this is an unforgettable coming-of-age reading experience.” – Chloe Gong

“An epic journey through both a science-fiction world of extraordinary imagination and an emotional landscape of gripping intensity.” – Adrian Tchaikovsky

“Intelligent, compelling and utterly devastating, Chaos Walking is one of the seminal YA series of this century.” – Juno Dawson

Winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and the Booktrust Teenage Prize.

Prizes

Winner of Book Bloggers UK YA Award 2014 (UK),Long-listed for Cybils Award, Fantasy and Science Young Adult Fiction 2008 (United States),Winner of BookTrust Teenage Prize 2008 (UK),Winner of James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award 2009 (United States),Winner of The Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize 2008 (UK),Winner of Vermont Green Mountain Book Award 2012 (United States),Winner of Virginia Readers’ Choice Award 2011 (United States),Short-listed for Branford Boase Award 2009 (UK),Short-listed for The Carnegie Medal 2008 (UK),Long-listed for Arkansas Teen Book Award 2009 (United States)

The story, narrated sparkily and saltily by its hero Todd, unpeels Prentisstown's dark secrets like the layers of a very rotten onion. Ness, an acclaimed author of adult fiction as well, moves things along at a breakneck pace, and Todd's world is filled with memorable characters, foul villains. * Financial Times *
An impossibly good novel. It is at once endearing yet unsentimental; compassionate yet damning; exhaustingly exhilarating and yet tempered by a staid and considered emotivity. Written in the first-person present tense in an unapologetically impudent manner, this novel captures exceptionally the brash bravado and the underlying insecurities that actively teem inside the minds and explode in the actions of boys on their path to manhood. * www.inthenews.co.uk *
THERE HAVE BEEN SEVERAL excellent debuts in recent months and perhaps the most impressive is Patrick Ness's The Knife of Never Letting Go. It's the story of Todd, the last boy in a community of men. In Prentisstown, the Noise virus has left men with the ability to hear each other's thoughts, those of animals too. The idea may send shivers up the spine, but how different is it to the constant intrusion of e-mails, texts, advertisements and CCTV we already suffer? When Todd finds a lone girl in the marshes he realises they have to escape, which isn't easy when your hunters can hear your every thought. Written in Todd's characteristic vernacular and brimming over with ideas about adolescence, faith and free will, this is intelligent, immersive storytelling. -- Keith Gray * The Scotsman *
A book like no other. It's one of the most gripping, fantastical reads around. -- Camilla de la Bedoyere * Sunday Express *
Darkly imagined and brilliantly created, the painful dystopian setting of a world full of noise in which all thoughts can be heard as if spoken is the background to this tense coming of age story. * The Guardian *

Patrick Ness is the award-winning and bestselling author of A Monster Calls, More Than This, The Rest of Us Just Live Here and Release as well as the legendary Chaos Walking trilogy. The first book in his middle grade series, Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody, was shortlisted for the Nero Awards. John Green has described him as "an insanely beautiful writer". He has won every major prize in children's fiction, including the Carnegie Medal for Writing twice. He has written the screenplay for the film of A Monster Calls and the BBC Dr Who spin-off, Class. He lives in London.