SF Signal Podcast: YA Fiction

I had the pleasure of being part of SF Signal's 92nd podcast, talking about YA Fiction with fellow panelists: Ashley Crump, Jeff Patterson and Patrick Hester.  The questions we discussed were:

YA Fiction is taking the publishing world by storm but it's not just for Young Adults - people of all ages are enjoying what YA has to offer. Are you one of them?

• What are some examples of genre YA you've enjoyed reading?
• Is YA getting too dark?
• Is YA not dominated by dark stories?
• Is YA a bubble waiting to burst as some new thing takes the publishing world by storm?

Go on over and listen in.  Or, if you don't have time for that, here are some of the points I made.

1.There are 2 types of YA fiction, the kind that's specific to teens, their problems and ways of thinking and books that are written for anyone, but which happen to have teen protagonists.  If you're an adult, try to find the latter books as the former will make you want to argue with the characters about their choices and how in a few years they'll look back on this time and wish they'd chosen differently.

2. If you're avoiding YA literature because you think the writing quality won't be there, think again.  While some books are more simplistic, most are not.  If they were, do you think teens, who hate being talked down to, would read them?

3. As for YA being dark, would you rather kids learned stuff by doing it or by reading about it and deciding it's not for them?  Books afford the opportunity of learning from the mistakes of others.  And what's dark for 13 isn't necessarily dark for 17.  Parents need to be aware of what's out there and make educated decisions with regards to their own teen's development.  Each generation thinks the next is worse than their own.  The world has always contained dark corners.  That kids are exposed to it faster simply means they've got more tools to combat it (says the childless blogger).

Here are some reading suggestions if you want to try YA lit (some I mentioned on the podcast and some I didn't have time to mention).  They're listed here in no particular order.

Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins (I didn't mention this one on the podcast as it's well known.  But if you want to see darkness in teen fiction, as well as some fantastic characters and worldbuilding, start here.)
The Adoration of Jenna Fox - Mary Pearson (SF)
The Unidentified - Rae Mariz (dystopian)
Tankborn - Karen Sandler (SF)
The Declaration - Gemma Malloy (dystopian)
Mrs Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs (dark fantasy)
Knife of Never Letting Go - Patrick Ness (SF)
O.4 (British title) / Human.4 (US title) - Mike Lancaster (SF)
Leviathan - Scott Westerfeld (steampunk)
Eon - Alison Goodman (fantasy)
The Summoning - Kelley Armstrong (urban fantasy)

Orbit Books Starts a Podcast

From the Orbit site:

This week we’re thrilled to launch the Orbit podcast, hosted by Jack Womack. The first episode features a wide-ranging conversation with Joe Abercrombie, whose new book, THE HEROES, is out now. Subjects covered include: hand-to-hand combat,  warfare and film, gallows humor, death metal, the American Civil War,  and more. You can listen to the full episode below, or subscribe on itunes.

Here's a link to the first podcast.

Can You Judge a Book by its Cover?

This was the SF Signal podcast question of the week.  More specifically, whether covers are becoming more minimalistic.

I think when it comes to classic SF authors and stories the minimalistic covers are a way of showing that they have this status (like how Dickens and Austen have minimalistic covers now, in addition to the paintings, etc.) and making the books more palatable to non genre audiences who might otherwise avoid them.  Like how the Harry Potter books got 'adult covers' in addition to the playful kids editions.

Look at the covers above.  SF readers might pick the one that has SF elements, but people who 'don't read genre books' will read the versions with more simplistic covers.  The covers don't tell you anything about the book, which, depending on your point of view, can be a good or a bad thing.

Literary fiction with SF themes tend to get minimalistic covers.  The Road is white text on black, The Passage is a couple of trees.  The Year of the Flood gets a poppy.  It's a way of appealing to a wider audience by toning down the SF elements on the cover.  The Gone Away World was a horrible fluorescent green on fuzzy fluorescent pink (which I think failed, and given the trade paperback got white text on an orange background, so did the publisher).

With regards to covers themselves, back when I had a dearth of books to read, I used to walk up and down the aisles at the store looking for something that intrigued me.  Sometimes I'd find new books by reading the backs when shelving (a great way of learning what's available, and you'd be amazed at how many books you can remember and hand sell later by doing this... and how many books you'll end up reading that otherwise you'd never have heard of).  Other times I'd just pick something based on the cover.  I found some great books that way.  Like:

Dhampir by Barb and J. C. Hendee
Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko
Song of the Beast by Carol Berg

There have been some books where I hated the covers and loved the books.  Like:

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (I thought it was SF when it came in, because of the cityscape on the cover)
Everything written by Terry Pratchett with Josh Kirby's covers (I can't stand his artwork)

And others with good covers where I just couldn't get into the story for some reason. 

Everyone's taste is different, so the covers one person likes, another will despise. 

There's also a lot of copying going on.  When one cover takes off, others will start to look similar.  And there's almost cliches for covers.  Urban fantasy typically has a woman with a tattoo on the cover, back to the reader.  Or there's a man, often in a trench coat.  Switch up the cover treatment and you can confuse readers.  Living With Ghosts by Kari Sperring is traditional fantasy but the cover looks very urban fantasy. 

So while covers are important (I've had customers turn down great books because they didn't like the covers), what's really important is what's inside the cover.  I think most people nowadays will look at the cover, read the back and then read a page or two inside.  Still, if you've got a good cover, getting attention from browsers is that much easier. 

So, what books have you read because you liked the covers?  

What Was Your Gateway Genre Novel?

This was the question for the 20th SF Signal podcast. In other words, what books got us interested in reading science fiction and fantasy. As I still get a bit flustered doing these things I wanted to expand on my answer here a bit and clarity something I said in the podcast.

My gateway book was The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks. My brothers gave me the trilogy (Sword of Shannara, Elfstones of Shannara and Wishsong of Shannara) for Christmas one year because they liked fantasy and they wanted to read the books.

I was probably around 9 or 10 at the time and not at all interested in fantasy books. I'd read The Hobbit and liked it, but not enough to look for other books of the same style. And I remember reading a book when I was a fair bit younger than this called The Seventh Princess by Nick Sullivan. I enjoyed it (and hunted it down as an adult) but again, it didn't inspire me to read other fantasy books. I was also an indifferent reader at the time, preferring Christopher Pike to anything else. So the Brooks trilogy sat on my shelf.

I remember picking the first one up once and reading the back. The idea of a man without training in magic or swordmanship skills going against the most powerful evil in the land (and presumably winning) struck me as unrealistic. I tried a few pages and found it boring so I put it back down.

Finally, when I was 12 going on 13, I hit a rough patch in my life and needed some escapism. Maybe it was simply a matter of the right book at the right time, but I started The Sword of Shannara and pushed on past the still boring opening. Somehow, this time, about 20 pages in I got hooked. I couldn't put the book down. I read the 730 page novel (probably the largest I'd tried up to that point) in record time (I later clocked myself at 2 1/2 days - but that was when my reading skills were better).

I loved the book. The protagonist was real to me. His struggle to learn magic in the face of feeling like a useless appendage to the more experienced members of the group resonated with me. I liked the flowing descriptions. I liked Menion Leah - the comic relief who's there to prove that he can be more - and who, when faced with murdering someone in cold blood to help his friends, can't do it. I liked the philosophy and the recognition that everyone faces challenges. And that with help and perseverance those challenges can be overcome.

The book was full of difficult choices for the characters. There was action but there was also time for the characters to consider their actions and the consequences of those actions - both immediate and long term.

In the end, it was about a man who has to become a hero, despite a lack of ability and courage.

All of a sudden I was a voracious reader. I ripped through the rest of the trilogy and then moved onto my brothers' collections and when I'd exhausted those, the public library. Tolkein, Feist, Salvatore, Eddings, Weis & Hickman, McCaffrey, Greenwood, no one was safe. I spent the entire summer reading, and when I started highschool I branched out and found more and more authors. I've never looked back.

I've read The Sword of Shannara so often I can't read it anymore (as I know what's going to happen at every point). But I still have that copy (autographed) and it still inspires me. And someday I'll read it again and feel the magic I felt that first time.

In the meantime, it has opened the door for hundreds of other fantastic authors and stories. Oh, and I never found the opening boring again, even though I've read the book numerous times since.

So, what was your gateway genre novel?

SF Signal "Our Favourite Books" Podcast

The SF Signal Podcast #19 is the first live podcast I've done. I was a lot more relaxed than for the phone in. :)

Here were my 'best of 2010' books (and please note these aren't in ranked order, this is the order I spoke about them on the podcast):

For Fantasy:
Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay
Desert Spear by Peter Brett
Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

For Science Fiction:
The Dervish House by Ian McDonald
Veracity by Laura Bynum
State of Decay by James Knapp

For Teen SFF:
Mockinjay by Suzanne Collins (as that's the one in the series published this year. I loved the other 2 books in the series as well.)
Eon by Alison Goodman
The Scorch Trials by James Dashner
bonus: (ie not a 2010 publication) The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (I intend to read his 2010 release - the third in the series, Monsters of Men - before the year is out.)

I came out of the podcast with new books to look up, so go listen to what the other SF Signal bloggers have to recommend.

My First SF Signal Podcast

I'm a lot more comfortable writing than speaking, so I've hesitated about joining the SF Signal Podcast. But, as it was the special (US) Thanksgiving episode, I called in and gave my 2 cents. The question: What are you thankful for this year? What genre fiction (novels, stories, tv shows, movies) came out this year that you're thankful for? Click on the podcast logo to go to the site. You can hear my piece from 15:37 - 16:08. And if it sounds like I'm giving a book report for school, well...