Ness's first novel, The Crash of Hennington, was published in 2003[REF] and was followed soon after by his short story collection Topics About Which I Know Nothing, which was released in 2004 [REF].
Ness's first young adult novel was The Knife of Never Letting Go, which in 2008 was awarded the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, an annual book award judged by a panel of British children's writers [REF].