It's a fine story which presents a serious them in a new way. I am another who is not so keen on dystopias. It's not that I need a happy ending -- that I can dispense with -- but if I want unrelenting grind and grimness, I'll read Dostoyevsky, who at least had a sense of faith running through his books. There needs to be a thin line of hope somewhere.
Oh, good example, yes. But Dostoyevsky balances the powerful emotions and insights so well. I feel a sense of reward when I read his books, as if a thunderstorm has washed the smog away, and leaves me appreciating the rain washed world, even with the storm debris.
Yes: he leaves the chance that the characters will grow, or learn, or be able to make changes, however small. And, as you say, the strength of his characterisation...
I was going to write an adventure where the parents have a secret magic life, but there were two things that killed it: one, that great-idea-but-horrid-execution film came out with Arnie and Jame Lee Curtis, and second . . . if parents had access to a magic world, why the hell would they stick with middle class mundanity here, and not share the multiverse with the kids?
Another possibility is to have the parents' secret magical life be a fantasy (in the psychological sense) of the children. Calvin & Hobbes touched on this idea once or twice.
It bugs me when people criticize a work because of its "YA-ish sensibilities." They're often far too grown up to be able to imagine the wonders and fears and joys of youth.
I wonder sometimes if some adults lose that sense of play that is such a powerful part of childhood (that is, in children who are lucky enough not to have to struggle to survive). Literature (it seems to me) arose out of storytelling for its power to pique and surprise, not just to shake an admonitory finger. But humans are such complex creatures, and that is reflected in their entertainment, [she said inanely].
Well, I loved the story. And I don't know how people can talk about YA-ish sensibilities, as though there were still only one way to write YA. As far as I can see, the dominant ethos in today's YA fiction would have made the parents clueless, careless, or toxic: they would have locked the kids up, tortured them to make them tell about their travels, then burned the wand anyway. (and if a little rape or incest could be hinted at, so much the better) I like yours better.
It is sort of YA but that's not a problem at all for me. It was also very a very realistic view of parents caught between keeping their kids safe and letting them try their wings (and very nice that it was almost literal wings...)
Count me in on that too -- I want my fiction to leave me feeling like at least the price was worth it. As a historian, I read far too much unrelentingly grim non-fiction, mostly because I've done so many articles on some of the worst parts of the century just gone by, of tyranny and the abuse of power, in which now and then justice was accomplished by purest of accident, and even then often sacrificing innocents in the process. And even when the victims are still alive, I'm often tormented by knowing that trying to help them might well make their situations worse instead of better, if somebody decided I was being a meddlesome busybody and took offense, and then took it out on the very person I was hoping to help.
I'm a history teacher, so I don't do research, but my mother was one of the refugees from East Prussia during Wold War 2 (she was 13), so even in our family we have impressions of the war (my maternal grandfather never came back and her grandparents all died during the trek west). And from all I've read about particular dark sides of history, we so rarely learn from what happened before...
As a German I'm very wary of offending anyone of Jewish descent, the fact that my father is from Damascus (Syria) doesn't help with me feeling awkward.
In short: I don't read recent non-fiction history unless I am forced to. My interest has always been the middle ages and renaissance - dark enough at that!
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I am another who is not so keen on dystopias. It's not that I need a happy ending -- that I can dispense with -- but if I want unrelenting grind and grimness, I'll read Dostoyevsky, who at least had a sense of faith running through his books. There needs to be a thin line of hope somewhere.
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I was going to write an adventure where the parents have a secret magic life, but there were two things that killed it: one, that great-idea-but-horrid-execution film came out with Arnie and Jame Lee Curtis, and second . . . if parents had access to a magic world, why the hell would they stick with middle class mundanity here, and not share the multiverse with the kids?
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As far as I can see, the dominant ethos in today's YA fiction would have made the parents clueless, careless, or toxic: they would have locked the kids up, tortured them to make them tell about their travels, then burned the wand anyway.
(and if a little rape or incest could be hinted at, so much the better)
I like yours better.
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Well, there's a place for all types of stories. But that type is just not for me.
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THISS!!!!
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As a German I'm very wary of offending anyone of Jewish descent, the fact that my father is from Damascus (Syria) doesn't help with me feeling awkward.
In short: I don't read recent non-fiction history unless I am forced to. My interest has always been the middle ages and renaissance - dark enough at that!
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