The book appears to mark something of a departure for Cline from the work in the sci-fi realm for which he’s best known. Yes, I was the editor of this book and perhaps biased, but I truly love this book and hope you love it as much as I do! Set for publication in April 2024, the book is described as a “mostly true tall tale” about a recently orphaned young girl named Opal B Flats, who forms an unexpected friendship with a music-loving colony of bats and helps them find a new home against all odds. His books have been published in over fifty countries and have spent more than 100 weeks on The New York Times Best Sellers list.

The publishing deal for The Bridge to Bat City was brokered by Cline's longtime representatives, manager/producing partner, Dan Farah, and literary agent Yfat Reiss Gendell. Bridge to Bat City' follows Steven Spielberg adapting Cline’s 2011 dystopian, sci-fi novel about a teen's quest to win control over a virtual universe.By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions.

Said Little, Brown Books’ Editor-in-Chief Alvina Ling, “In Bridge to Bat City, inspired by stories he would tell his kids at bedtime, Ernie Cline has crafted an enchanting tale that weaves together fact and fiction set against the incredible backdrop of 1980s Austin, filled with a vibrant cast of characters, rich music history, activism and environmentalism, and bats! Cline followed up his debut novel with 2015's Armada, and a sequel, Ready Player Two, released in 2020.

But just as the farm is starting to feel like home, the bats' cave is destroyed by a big mining company with its sights set on the farmland next. But with people afraid of the bats and determined to get rid of them, it’ll take a whole lot of courage to prove that this is where the bats—and Opal—belong.

Cline is otherwise best known for penning the 2015 sci-fi novel Armada, which follows another teenage gamer who discovers that the alien-invasion-themed game he’s been playing is actually a simulator to prepare humanity for a real-world invasion. His first novel, Ready Player One, was a New York Times and USA Today bestseller, appeared on numerous “best of the year” lists, and is set to be adapted into a motion picture by Warner Bros. If Opal and the bats can fit in anywhere, it's the nearby city of Austin, home to their favorite music and a host of wonderfully eccentric characters. His book deal was brokered by manager and producing partner Dan Farah and literary agent Yfat Reiss Gendell. If Opal and the bats can fit in anywhere, it’s the nearby city of Austin, home to their favorite music and a host of wonderfully eccentric characters.After losing her mother, 13-year-old Opal moves in with her uncle Roscoe on the family farm, and it’s there that she befriends a group of orphaned bats. Bridge to Bat City is the type of book I loved to read as a child; it’s a book about being an outsider—a weirdo, even! Now he's stepping into his hometown's history for his debut children's novel, Bridge to Bat City, announced this morning. This is an enchanting tale that weaves together fact and fiction set against the incredible backdrop of 1980s Austin, filled with a vibrant cast of characters, rich music history, activism and environmentalism, and bats! In the meantime, he busied himself as a star of Austin's slam poetry scene, collecting some of his verses into a chapbook, The Importance of Being Ernest, in 2001, However, it was his debut novel Ready Player One that made him a household name, and it was adapted by Steven Spielberg in 2018.

But with people afraid of the bats and determined to get rid of them, it’ll take a whole lot of courage to prove that this is where the bats — and Opal — belong. But just as the farm is starting to feel like home, the bats’ cave is destroyed by a big mining company that has its sights on the family’s land, as well. Cline earned his laurels as part of Austin's geek elite in the '90s with his buzzy script, Fanboys, which finally made it to the screen in 2009 in a version starring starring Jay Baruchel, Kristen Bell, Seth Rogen, and Danny Trejo.The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.