YA sf = Dystopia?

[rachelmanija]

I found a fascinating blog entry by Rahul Kanakia, the guy who wrote the bedbugs-and-squatters story, with a gay teenage Indian hero (yay!), for Diverse Energies. (I see elsewhere on the site that "I'm currently shopping a gay-themed YA novel -- set in a dystopian Washington, D.C. -- to agents." I hope it sells. Depressing or not, I would read it

Comments

[telophase]

ISTR from my middle-school days in the 80s, most anything labeled science fiction that you had to read in school was depressing or dystopic in some way or the other. I think the only non-depressing SF that we read was Asimov's novelisation of Fantastic Voyage. (I mean, really: "Flowers for Algernon," "All Summer in a Day," some story about organlegging whose title and author I don't remember. Etc.)

In other words: I don't think this is necessarily a new phenomenon, but perhaps a result of what adults think is worthwhile for kids to read.

[rachelmanija]

I cannot tell you the name of the organlegging story, because I recall reading at least three of them at that same time.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[fadethecat]

Oo, I remember when I hit a whole sequence of organlegging stories while trying to read through the scifi of my high school library. It was so bewildering I kept wondering if it was all by the same author under different names, because, well... Andre Norton! Heinlein juveniles! Exciting adventures in space and--SUDDEN ORGANLEGGING EVERYWHERE.

It confused me.

[marzipan_pig]

WTF is organlegging?!

[estara]

Really, you need to read And All the Stars for a nice change^^. SF and apocalypse and YA and not dystopia. And Sartorias has already enjoyed the first three chapters, how's that for another enticement - of course I hope she'll enjoy the rest, too, heh.

[rachelmanija]

It's on my Kindle!

[estara]

[takumashii]

I have been thinking for a long time about how to write space adventurey YA science fiction, because it seems really difficult to make up science fictional situations where fifteen- or sixteen-year-olds have any believable agency without it being a Wesley Crusher kind of thing. So much adult science fiction is rooted in scientific, military, or government contexts where it seems like you're unlikely to get anything done until you're at least forty years old!

I haven't read the Beth Revis books, but I've heard good things about those -- and I'm looking forward to Phoebe North's book Starglass which is coming out next year.

(I am working on something about a girl and her sentient, organic generation ship. Because if there's one thing that's more fun than science fiction, it's girl-and-her-pet stories. As long as the pet doesn't die at the end.)

[rachelmanija]

Interesting issue - I hadn't thought of that. Perhaps a society in which social norms shifted toward giving teens more agency, so that it isn't unusual for them to have jobs, rights, etc.

[tool_of_satan]

It also depends on how routine it is to spend time in space in the society. In any realistic near-future scenario it will be very rare and expensive, and therefore not something teens will get to do at all (unless Richard Branson or someone actually gets spaceflight for incredibly rich people launched, and some rich person brings their teen children along - but I am not dying to read this, personally

[ethelmay]

Yeah, you had Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine and, uh, that was about it.

[buymeaclue]

As far as my own personal tastes go, the future of my YA sf reading looks dystopian indeed.

Your dystopia is my u-! We should write a book about it!

[rikibeth]

In fact, the prevalence of dystopias is why I don't tend to read YA SF. I actively avoid dystopias. At this point in my life, I need hope.