The SFSignal posted an article today about the lack of superheroes in YA by YA author KD McEntire:

Why is it that, with all this room for self-expression, with all this space for examining the nooks and crannies of the human (and non-human) condition alike, that you hardly ever see a single Young Adult title sporting a spandex-clad super human? Why are the epic battles that could be spun out between super-powered beings confined to the realm of sexy vampires and sultry witches? Do we really believe that the origin stories of your friendly neighborhood Captain Amazo and Doctor Dreadful are best only told in pretty pictures that can only give the reader a glimpse of the reasoning behind the character’s actions? [...]what gives? Why are there hardly any heroes of the super-persuasion bounding around the YA section?

I have to admit that I read that and saw red. This isn’t the first blog post I’ve seen bemoaning the supposedly fae-and-vamp-ridden world of genre lit for teens. In fact, it’s the second post the Signal’s published in the last month on the topic. October saw indie author Simon Haynes complaining that there’s no sci-fi out there for middle grade readers–though of course he defines sci-fi very narrowly:

I’ve been looking for distant future, realistic (even hard) science, with a bit of comedy to lighten things up. Not Jimmy Neutron, but Tintin’s Destination Moon/Explorers on the Moon or William F. Temple’s Martin Magnus Planet Rover – with young protagonists. Middle-grade for readers 9+, not YA and definitely not dystopian. Fun, entertaining and educational.

These authors aren’t alone, of course. I’ve heard stories–too many stories. Like the one about the YA-ignorant genre writer who, on a con panel, recommended Heinlein juveniles as the best SF works available for modern teens.

Heinlein juveniles. For modern teens.

These authors always have theories about why YA is the way that it is. Maybe teens don’t care about science anymore. Maybe Twilight warped their brains. There’s always a lot of blame placed on publishers, who supposedly think that sparkly vampire boys are the only things that sell.

But what these authors don’t seem to see is that they’re wrong about the state of genre YA. Dead wrong.

I'll say this much: the covers have improved since 2009.

I empathize with them somewhat, actually. Back in 2008 and 2009 when I first got into writing YA, I complained about the same thing. Where was all the sci-fi of yore?! Why weren’t teens reading Animorphs, like I did? Of course, back then the market was different. But even then, I have to admit that I was seeing the shelves through my own warped, limited view. By what measure were books like Alison Goodman’s Singing the Dogstar Blues, Anne Osterlund’s Academy 7, Nancy Farmer’s House of the Scorpion, or even the friggin’ Hunger Games not sci-fi?

And today the bookstore is brighter than ever for teen fans of science fiction. I know that for a fact thanks to the Intergalactic Academy–every month, Sean and I have to winnow down our review list to something manageable. We could easily post twice the number of reviews and still have ARCs left over. Sure, the genre looks different than it did back in Heinlein’s day. I’d venture to guess that this has more to do with the fact that we as a society have mightily changed. Without the space race, and the limitless optimism of the ’50s, most sci-fi’s taken a darker turn, not just YA. But it doesn’t mean that what YA authors are writing–and what YA readers are inhaling–isn’t science fiction.

For the MG science fiction fan, contrary to what Mr. Haynes writes, there’s Circus Galacticus by Deva Fagan, Jacob Wonderbar and the Cosmic Space Kapow by Nathan Bransford, The Boy at the End of the World by Greg van Eekhout, and Stuck on Earth by David Klass, for a start. And that’s ignoring the host of dystopian and poc-apocalyptic titles which–yes, really–are still science fiction.

For YA readers who want some superhero action, there’s Hero by Mike Lupica (not to be confused with the also appropriate Hero by Perry Moore), The Rise of Renegade X by Chelsea Campbell, The Lab by Jack Heath, Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi and the Quantum Prophesy books by Michael Carroll. Of course, fans of action-packed YA have plenty to choose from these days, from Veronica Roth’s Divergent to Marie Lu’s Legend to, of course, the Hunger Games (significant, I think, is that all three of these last series have cross-gender appeal, but are written by women and feature strong female protagonists. So much for girls not getting into the action game!).

Those who complain about how all YA sci-fi is cookie-cutter dystopians do so at the risk of ignoring popular YA space operas: the recently concluded Seed Trilogy by Pamela Sargent, Beth Revis’ best-selling Across the Universe, Amy Kathleen Ryan’s Glow. We’ve even got sociological sci-fi in YA, in the form of Karen Sandler’s Tankborn.

And that’s just scratching the surface of what’s out there–not to mention what’s to come. For SF fans, the YA lists of most publishers for 2012 and 2013 look promising, indeed.

I’m not going to pretend that genre YA is perfect–these titles could always use more press to get them into the hands of the readers who want them. So instead of wasting our breath complaining about a non-existent lack, how about we do what we can to help, by reading all the really great science fiction that’s already out there, and talking it up to the teens who will love it?

Up at the Book Lantern blog, I have a guest post that answers the immortal question, “Should I get an MFA?”

There were good things about my time spent in my MFA program. I had a fairly relaxed schedule, wrote quite a bit, and made many good friends there. My professors were caring and dedicated and always well-intentioned. And I had the opportunity to take other classes at the University, including critical coursework in young adult literature and science fiction.

But I can’t deny the conflict I felt as I became increasingly dedicated to both YA and genre, as I spent my  summers trying to learn how to write speculative fiction even as I was told that I wouldn’t be able to take fiction workshops unless I refrained from embracing these speculative elements in my workshopped writing.

I should probably note here that I’m talking fairly broadly about MFA programs here; I know that there are a small number of programs focused specifically on writing for children (Hollins is one) and at least one writing program (an MPW, if I recall correctly, at a school whose name has escaped me) focused on commercial writing including genre writing. But from everything I know about MFAs, these are the exceptions, rather than the rule, and so it feels fair to give writers interested in writing YA a head’s up that this may not be the path they’re looking for.

I have a post up on the Interroblog today on emotional realism in genre YA.

I was reading the fortieth-anniversary edition of John Donovan’s woefully little-known young adult classic I’ll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip last. If you’re not familiar with this title (and you might not be; it was out of print for twenty years!), it was the first “gay” young adult fiction ever published, way back in 1969.

But to call it merely the first gay YA novel would be to sell it short, because I’ll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip is, in fact, a searing novel about grief and dogs and crazy moms and New York City, all told through the voice of a thirteen-year-old boy who is somewhat of a mini-Holden Caulfield, in terms of voice, if not wangst. One of the accompanying essays at the back of my e-book discussed the role Donovan’s novel–along with Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy and SE Hinton’s The Outsiders–played in the shift from saccharine children’s literature that seemed to exist in a sort of escapist fairyland to realistic books that more accurately depicted the lives of children and adolescents.

To read the whole post, go here. Review of Donovan’s book is forthcoming (spoiler: it was amazing).

Hi, guys! I’m editing.

If you're anything like me, you will zoom in on this image to try and read the text. Because you are nosy. 'scool.

I just looked at the clock and realized it was almost midnight and I hadn’t written a blog post yet. I could write about slashing and burning my book, but that’s boring. Really–talking about editing? Snooze. What works for me isn’t likely to work for you, anyway.

But I was just listening in a bit to someone’s twitter conversation, and it seemed to be ripe fodder for a post, because it’s something that’s been on my mind a lot. They were talking about Across the Universe by Beth Revis, and how they think it’s not really sci-fi.

Hmm.

I’ve encountered this sort of argument before, but it seems to be a recent one in YA. I’m used to arguing genre with literary types, who want to proclaim that any book that’s good couldn’t possibly be science fiction, even if it has, like, talking squids in space. But this argument is different. It’s not precisely the same sort of qualitative argument–these parties are likely to argue, in fact, that certain YA genre books are not, in fact, science fiction because they don’t think they’re particularly good science fiction.

I’ve heard arguments that those writing YA dystopian novels are just opportunistic phonies riding a trend wave toward fame. They think it’s clear that the writers in question Have Not Done Their Research because they can find world building flaws or because they’ve seen certain tropes before. And I’ll admit, I’ve been annoyed by the shoddy world building in certain books, or found aspects implausible (I’m looking at you, Delirium). I even kinda didn’t like some of these books.

But I’m still fine with calling them sci-fi.

Because of these aforementioned arguments with literary types about genre, I generally subscribe to what I like to call the “Calling a Utopia a Utopia” system of labeling sci-fi. Basically, if a work has any of the tropes commonly recognized as science fictional, it’s sci-fi. Aliens? Sci-fi. Spaceships? Sci-fi. Genetic engineering? Sci-fi. Apocalypses? Sci-fi.

I think this works two ways: it avoids weasely arguments that only define as science fictional works that suck, and it brings genre definitions more in line with the common sense way that most readers–both mainstream, and genre–actually interact with books and television. Because, you know, when my mom says she loves sci-fi she doesn’t mean only hard sci-fi where every aspect of the world building is perfectly considered (in fact, she mostly means B-movies on the SyFy channel), and when my friend says she hates it, she mostly means Star Trek leaves her cold.

Anyway, the reason this all troubles me, and quite a bit, at times, is that I’m a big sci-fi nerd. I’ve been searching for YA science fiction for years, and mostly came up completely empty until recently. And so, while I haven’t loved every sci-fi or dystopian release, I’ve been really happy to see some sort of push in publishing for the type of books that I love. For the first time, there might be room at the cool kids’ table for a dork like me.

And this dork isn’t a terribly huge hard SF fan. In fact, I really wonder if the soft science fiction that I’ve been reading since I was twelve–Katie Waitman or Megan Lindholm or Anne McCaffrey or Elizabeth Moon or Sherri S. Tepper–would pass muster with a lot of these objectors if these writers didn’t have tradition on their side. Because some of their world building is occasionally holey. Because sometimes the SF is used as atmospheric window dressing for a character-driven story. Because sometimes their books are a bit cliche, like psychic soulmates and effortless FTL travel and stuff

We have a term for this guys. It’s not “not science fiction.” It’s soft sci-fi (and it’s awesome).

Of course this is personal, too. I’ll tell you: I’ve done my homework. I always bristle when people are ignorant about the genre they’re writing in, but I’ve read every piece of YA space opera I’ve been able to get my hands on. I have an adolescence spent reading Frederick Pohl and a young adulthood spent reading Octavia Butler behind me. But the science fiction in Daughter of Earth isn’t perfect (though I’ve worked hard to make it work), and I can’t really pretend that I coined the term generation ship or anything like that. And I worry that my credentials are going to be held up to the light and judged and, feh, you know what? I love stuff like Alien Nation and Star Trek even when they are filled with rubber forehead aliens, because they thrill me. I just love all that spacey, alienish stuff.

And I don’t feel like I’m in any position to judge whether another speculative author deserves to sit with me under a genre umbrella or not (even if I might not like particular books etc. etc.). I’m just glad, really glad, that people are reading and writing books in the genre that I care about–and honestly, if you love sci-fi, I think you should be, too. Because even if the sci-fi books that are out now aren’t working for you, they represent a shift in publishing, a shift toward an environment where young adult sci-fi has a chance to find an audience for once, and that creates the possibility of harder SF being accepted, too, whereas once it was all sparkly vampires. It’s an exciting time to be a nerd.

I guess what I’m saying is, viva la (imperfect, implausible) spaceships.