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?

Hi guys!

You may have noticed that I’ve been quiet for the last month. That’s not because I suddenly developed a social life (ha!), but because I’ve undertaken a new enterprise with my droogie Sean. Today, we’re launching the Intergalactic Academy, a blog specializing in YA sci-fi. Today’s just an introductory post; we’re getting started in earnest on Monday, but head on over and check it out! And don’t forget to subscribe via RSS reader or Google Friend Connect. You know, if that’s your thing. No pressure or anything.

Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge

“All one needs for a novel is an intelligent young person and a city.”

I was at the end of my academic career when a professor decreed this in a graduate class—I knew then, from the instinctive revulsion I felt at the idea, and the knee-jerk litany I began to compose in my head of other necessary components needed for a novel (Plot! Characters! Conflict!), that I’d finally crossed the divide between commercial and literary writing.

In some ways, my tastes are still a bit literary: I like beautiful prose and thoughtful thematics. But I need more than an intelligent young person and a city to love a book. I need a story. And sadly, though Kelley Eskridge’s SFnal novel Solitaire offers a bit more than a smarty pants in a metropolis, it doesn’t offer much more than that, either.

It starts out promising enough. In an interesting subversion of the standard coming-of-age plot, Jackal Segura learns, at twenty-three years old, that she’s not nearly as special as she’d previously believed. Up to this point, she’s been told that she’s a Hope, a special figurehead for a new world government. But at the novel’s outset she learns that this was a lie, manufactured by the corporate citystate where she lives.

Eskridge begins to cobble together the story of Jackal’s life—the abusive mother, jealous of her daughter’s career opportunities; the group of close-knit peers; Snow, her lover, who seems to view Jackal with a sort of continual bemusement; Jackal’s corporate teachers and supervisors. But Jackal herself begins and ends the novel as a sort of passive, sullen cipher. I was often frustrated by her choices, but, worse, I never really understood them. I felt that Eskridge held the reader at arms’ length, a sensation made more severe by the lovely, but sometimes excruciating detailed scenic descriptors and the book’s glacial plodding plotting.

A third of the way into the book, the plot starts in earnest. Jackal is accused of a crime which she didn’t commit, but confesses to, anyway (again, I never really understood her motivations, even when they were spelled out for me), and is locked away in virtual confinement, a sort of VR form of torture meant to mimic solitary. The thirty pages or so that we spend with Jackal in VC were, perhaps, my favorite part of the novel, if only because Jackal eventually breaks free into a sort of people-less environment that reminded me quite a bit of the godmod dream level of Inception.

But then it’s over. And we still have two hundred pages to sort out, and they’re spent following Jackal through the intractable details of her daily life. And most of her days are spent hanging out in a bar alone, or not speaking to people on the street, or thinking about not speaking to people on the street, or feeling grumpy because she’s not sleeping well, or avoiding talking to her case manager, or . . . whatever.

I realize that this book is meant to be a treatise on solitude, a sort of reflection on the solitary lives we lead even when we’re surrounded by people. But deep down, I just found this all very boring. Jackal rejects contact with the very compellingly drawn characters of the novel’s first third, and until very near to the end of the book, fails to forge any new relationships. It’s not until the return of Snow, very late in the game, where the plot really develops in any meaningful way, and then it’s somewhat hastily thrown together and not always believable. In fact, by the novel’s conclusion, it was really only for my small fondness for Snow, as a character, and Snow and Jackal, as a couple (queer and young adult and utterly believable) that I kept reading. Otherwise, I would have likely given up much sooner.

Eskridge is a capable prose artist (she writes stuff like, “They slept tumbled together like socks in a drawer” [317], which is very nice), and I suspect that genre readers with more literary inclinations might actually enjoy Solitaire. But for me, a reader who needs more than “an intelligent young person and a city” to enjoy a book, it simply fell flat.

A review copy of this book was generously provided by the publisher and LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program.

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First review of the new year! Keep an eye out for an upcoming group post on The Interrobangs site for more discussion on Matched!
Matched by Ally Condie

Matched is yet another YA-hype magnet. Because of the seven-figure deal the novel netted author Allie Condie, it was almost impossible to go in without preconceptions (and I’m not generally one to avoid spoilers, anyway). I’d heard Condie read prettily-written snippets on NPR; I’d also perused reviews on GoodReads decrying it as a derivative spin on YA-dystopic classics like The Giver.

But the truth is a bit more complex than that. Its taken me a few weeks to mull over my reaction to Matched, the story of Cassia Reyes (don’t let the name fool you; she’s written white as toast), whose faith in her structured, near-future society is shaken when she discovers that her arranged marriage to her neighbor, Xander, was not as perfectly plotted as she thought. On the day following her MatchBanquet, a sort of dystopian prom where her future nuptials to Xander are announced publicly, Cassia finds that she may have been meant for someone else, another neighbor, the supposedly broodalicious loner Ky.

I was really impressed by the opening of the novel, despite my reservations. It’s in the first seventy pages or so that Condie’s prose really shines. Though stylistically sparse, her writing is surprisingly rich with sensory details. The Match Banquet was particularly well realized–you can practically feel the rough texture of the green dress she wears, and though the emotional relevance and richness flags a bit when we’re returned to her bland suburbs, Condie eventually works us up to a grandparent death scene that had me openly weeping. We’re talking poignant, emotionally accurate stuff. I was surprised, and had trouble understanding the level of haterade I’d encountered.

Then I read the rest of the novel, and began to understand.

It’s not that Matched is particularly bad–it is, in fact, not particularly anything. Though the dystopian world building here is far sounder and more seamless than the glaringly problematic world of the similar, upcoming Delirium by Lauren Oliver, they suffer from what is essentially the same problem: a chronic lack of passion.

Cassia is sweet, but bland. Her two potential matches, Xander, and Ky, are sweet, but bland, and quiet, but bland, respectively. Her parents are good people that I could hardly be roused to care about. The most compelling characters–Cassia’s grandfather, who bites it in the first hundred pages, and her younger brother, who hardly figures into the plot–aren’t quite well-drawn enough to feel real. The Society that rules Cassia’s world is never threatening enough to seem truly dangerous, and the supporting characters are essentially interchangeable. A few scant weeks after reading, I’d be hard-pressed to tell you why or how any of them belonged here.

There are hints of complexity, but these are introduced almost as an afterthought. Cassia has one friend who suffers from panic attacks, and whom her betrothed, Xander, treats with surprising sympathy. This sympathy is promising (my first thought is that there might have been a love relationship between the two), but is ultimately meaningless. There are suggestions that Xander and Ky may have shared a long history of friendly rivalry and perhaps just plain friendship–but this is insufficiently developed, too.

Rather than fleshing out these points of fascinating character conflict, Condie gives us, instead, a repetitive and plodding story. Cassia and Ky climb a mountain over and over again and exchange bland poetry and something akin to boring indie comics. They share chaste kisses and hold hands. Their affair has none of the heat of genuine teen love, or even the unfulfilled promise and pain that we got in, say, Twilight. This isn’t just passion put off for later. It’s a relationship that might as well be between asexuals.

Condie’s writing holds more potential than many YA writers who write books I didn’t care about: I know she’s capable of being affecting, and, though, yeah, her world is derivative, at least it’s not gratingly irritating. I can see picking up the second book, but if it remains as bland and inoffensive and just plain boring as this, I can’t imagine reading the series through to the end.

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