Christopher Edge

About Author

Black Hole Cinema Club, Christopher Edge's latest novel, is a love story to movies. Dive into an immersive blockbuster experience!

Christopher grew up in Manchester where he spent most of his childhood in the local library dreaming up stories, but now lives in Gloucestershire where he spends most of his time in the local library dreaming up stories.

Before becoming a writer, he worked as an English teacher, editor and publisher – any job that let him keep a book close to hand. When not writing, he also works as a freelance publisher and education consultant and has written publications about encouraging children to read.

You can find him on Twitter as @edgechristopher

Interview

Black Hole Cinema Club (Nosy Crow)

March 2024

Christopher Edge's new movie-inspired book, Black Hole Cinema Club, is an immersive read that takes you on a thrilling series of adventures and through life-threatening perils and dilemmas.

When a group of friends meet to go to their favourite Black Hole Cinema Club, they suddenly find themselves inside the films they had expected to watch, where they are forced to confront unexpected dangers and to solve a series of puzzles - with the stakes becoming ever higher. Read a Chapter from Black Hole Cinema Club

Find out more from author Christopher Edge:

Q&A with Christopher Edge

Find out which film helped inspire Christopher Edge's Black Hole Cinema Club; who he'd want to direct a film of the book;
and which film he'd love to find himself living through!

1. What got you writing about science concepts for children, and why do you enjoy writing these kinds of stories?

Being an author is a great excuse to find out about the things that fascinate you. The Many Worlds of Albie Bright was the first story I wrote that had a scientific element to its plot as it concerned a boy travelling into parallel worlds in search of his mum, and was sparked by my reading about theories of quantum physics and the possibility of the parallel universes.

The science wasn't the thing that interested me necessarily - it was the story idea this sparked. I think science and stories are both trying to do the same thing - exploring the big ideas about who we are, why we're here and revealing the wonder that's out there - but for me, the story is always the thing.

2. Where do you go to find out the latest in scientific thinking - and how do you translate these ideas into stories for children?

The only thing I'm truly interested in is writing a great story that will keep readers turning the pages, but it's important to me that my stories are scientifically plausible as I think this adds to their realism. I don't have a background in science, so often, when I'm researching a book, I'm having to teach my non-scientific brain about the latest thinking around topics such as quantum gravity from actual scientists such as Carlo Rovelli.

The science only comes into the story where it's relevant to the plot and I think it's this fact that helps me to write about these ideas in ways that young readers can understand, as it's not a non-fiction book but a page-turning adventure. If my books help inspire children's interest in science that's a wonderful side effect, but my main aim is for them to reach the end of the story with their minds blown!

3. What inspired your new book, Black Hole Cinema Club - a love letter to cinemas and film, as well as an exploration of ideas about the universe and black holes.

I remember watching E.T. at the cinema when I was eight years old and feeling as though I was falling into the film when the movie began. I think it was the memory of this that gave me the idea for Black Hole Cinema Club, a place where you live the movies for real.

Like books, films transport us to different places and times, taking us to brand new worlds and letting us see the world through other people's eyes. When we step inside a cinema, we escape from the world, but so often the movies we watch show us heroes who are trying to save the world and they show us why it's a world worth saving, and it's these ideas that helped inspire Black Hole Cinema Club.

4. Can you tell us a little about Black Hole Cinema Club and what to expect from it?

With Black Hole Cinema Club, I wanted to write a story that captures the immersiveness of cinema. It's a story about five friends - Lucas, Ash, Finn, Maya and Caitlin - who meet at their local cinema, nicknamed the Black Hole.

They're there to watch a movie marathon - the Black Hole Cinema Club - but when a jet-black tidal wave comes crashing out of the cinema screen, it sweeps them into an epic adventure like no other. Secret hideouts. Prehistoric monsters. Lost cities. Impossible missions. Being the hero of your own film should feel like fun. But as the cliffhanger scenes they're pitched into become ever more perilous, Lucas and his friends start to wonder if these movies really are make believe…

5. How do you plot your books? Do you need to start with the ending and work backwards for books like this, as all the challenges faced by the team help them in their final challenge?

The twists and turns in my stories are always very carefully planned, so every movie that Lucas and his friends live through in Black Hole Cinema Club link to things that are revealed later in the story.

With Black Hole Cinema Club, I knew the opening and the ending of the story when I began to write, so for me the challenge was to keep on raising the stakes as the challenges faced in each film get bigger every time. Luckily, unlike a film director, I didn't have a budget I had to keep to, so you'll find some blockbuster special effects on the page as the action of each film reaches its climax!

6. Would you like Black Hole Cinema Club to be made into a movie? And if so, who would you like to direct it?

I'd love to see Black Hole Cinema Club on the big screen! It's difficult to pick just one director as there are so many different styles of movie packed inside the story, but two big influences are the films of Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan, so maybe they could collaborate on an adaptation of Black Hole Cinema Club!

7. Are there specific films you draw on for the adventures in the book? What film tropes did you enjoy playing with?

From spy movies to sci-fi films, jungle adventures to monster movies, I wanted to take the readers of Black Hole Cinema Club on a cinematic rollercoaster ride with action and excitement galore, cliffhanger scenes and surprises, and a homage or two to some of my favourite films.

If you've watched movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Jurassic Park you might spot a reference or two to famous scenes from these, but I was aware too that readers might not necessarily have seen these films, so I wanted to capture the essence of these movie genres.

For over a hundred years, movies have been the language of pop culture, so even if you've not watched Jaws you'll recognise its famous theme and I had a lot of fun giving a Black Hole Cinema Club twist to some blockbuster movie moments.

8. And if you could have an immersive film experience, like your characters, which film(s) would you choose to be in? Do you think this will be possible one day?

I'd love to programme my own Black Hole Cinema Club movie marathon featuring all the films that inspired the story, but I'm not sure if I'd be able make it through a 4Di experience like Lucas and his friends do in the story! With advances in virtual reality and a digital generation's desire for interactivity, I'm sure we'll see more immersive forms of cinema in the future, so if there's a chance I finally get to be Marty McFly in Back to the Future, count me in!

9. What kinds of school events are you planning for Black Hold Cinema Club?

I'm so excited about the immersive event I've got planned for Black Hole Cinema Club! I'll be taking audiences inside the Black Hole Cinema Club, setting them the challenge of rescuing Lucas, Ash, Caitlin, Maya and Finn from the films they're stranded in. They'll be puzzles, challenges and adventure and some secrets shared about the story, too. It's going to be a blockbuster event - so hold on to your popcorn!

10. What are you writing currently, and what kinds of ideas are you exploring in it? And when you're not writing, where is your 'go to' place to relax - the cinema?

I can't reveal anything about the new novel I'm working on at the moment, but I'm really enjoying writing it which is a good sign!

I love visiting the cinema, but I think my all-time favourite place to relax is sitting outside on a warm summer's night, watching the stars come out.

Dip into Christopher Edge's Escape Room (Nosy Crow, February 2022)

Christopher Edge's Escape Room explores some serious questions about how children can help shape the future of the world while taking the reader on an incredible 'escape room' adventure that keeps you guessing around every twist and corner.

Here, Christopher Edge tells us more about Escape Room, reads from the book and discusses some of the themes he covers in this book and his earlier titles:

About Author

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