Awhile back, I had a teensy little rant about a SF/F crossover author who had read her first Holly Black novel and seemed ready to paint the rest of the genre by the one book she had read. I still maintain that essentially asking “is it all this bad” after reading one novel isn’t the best way to find out… But I digress.
The smart people at SF Signal’s Mind Meld have followed up on the author’s post by asking the question again: is YA SF/F too explicit?
You can bet I was reading along interestedly. Some good points were made by some great authors, and I was glad to see input from Kaza Kingsley, the author of the Erec Rex series (and a really nice lady — she was great about the Cybils) and then I read on down to… Gwenda Bond! The Bond Girl brings up the significant point that whenever someone starts bleating about ‘explicit’ in children’s literature? It’s about sex. It’s amazing how having Puritan forebearers really colors things, and it’s not even just people of a religious background who get squeamish on this point. Fascinating. A deeply interesting discussion. Go thither and put in your two cents.
Sorry, Leila, but I’m going to have to go for this without you: SFX is offering a chance for UK residents to win their own LIFE-SIZED Dalek. (Man, is this flat big enough for that much destructive potential??) Via SF Signal.
(Pssst! Canadian-born Author Preview: C.K.’s novel is available for pre-order!!! Woot!)
Coming Soon to a Blogosphere Near You:
Canadians, referred to in schoolbooks as “Our Neighbors to the North,” have been publishing fabulous literature for young adults since… well, since that Anne-with-an-‘e’ girl became famous in 1908. The likes of Tim Wynne-Jones, Wendy Orr, Martha Brooks and Kenneth Oppel are just a drop in the bucket of the tide and flood that is the YA and children’s writing tradition in Canada.
Two weeks from today, we’ll host another One Shot World Tour stop in O, Canada (The True North, Strong and Free!). (And yes. We had a Canadian youth pastor when I was a kid, so I ACTUALLY HAD TO SING O, CANADA. At least twice a year. LOUDLY. Or he’d make us do it again. Thank you, Ron Hyrchuk.) Stay tuned for the fabulousness on March 26, to be rounded up at Chasing Ray.
AUUUUUGH!! That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard!
Here’s what you should do. Win it, and give it to me!
Riiight.
That was the plan all along, Leila.
i clicked through to read the comments about explicit material in ya. am i the only one offended by farah mendohlson’s comment that there’s no real violence or real pain in ya outside of cory doctorow and skin hunger? she said all the other representations are tom-and-jerry-like cartoons. i think she needs to read more.
I’ll be very disappointed if you don’t win that Dalek.
Hooray for C.K.!
Anonymous: That was a… weird comment Farah Mendholson made, wasn’t it? I’m not feeling a lot of Tom & Jerry — cartoony violence wouldn’t necessarily appeal to the YA set. And while I don’t think it’s particularly necessary to YA to have violence or pain, it does seem rather dismissive — as if again someone is dismissing the emotions of young adults because they’re young. Again: bad idea.
Thanks for dropping by.
thanks for the response. i visit your site fairly often, but i don’t usually comment. i just thought mendholson’s comment was a slap at ya writers, not at ya’s themselves. as if we needed cory doctorow to show up and write a ya– to show us how real writiers do it. i just don’t understand how someone who considers themselves a reader can be so snotty about a genre other than their own.
but i may be mistaken in my reading. maybe she was just trying to say that that ya, in general is not as steeped in sex and violence as people think it is.
Anon: I guess Mendlesohn’s comment could have been read that way, but what it sounded like to me is that she denied the existence of both sex AND violence in YA… which is equally confusing. Although I take her point on ethics, I disagree that there is only romance and cartoon violence in YA SF/F. I’d like to know the titles of the 400 books she’s read!
Thanks so much, you guys!! And I look forward to your northern tour stop! Yay for your enthusiastic youth pastor, Tad (we hardly ever hear the national anthem sung loudly up here).
Oh, no! Not even at Oiler’s games?! Have to say people and our National Anthem don’t have much in terms of volume… or actual words going on either, but in their defense, yours is a bit easier to sing. No random high notes and all…