What would you like to see in YA?

Melanie Nilles

Melanie Nilles

SFF Writer
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Just curious, since I've been enjoying YA more than "adult" SFF lately. I'd like to see more SFF YA stories of a longer plot, like the HP (which has good single-story and overall plots) and Eragon (I'll keep my opinions to myself on that) type stories. Fun, clear characters like JKR writes are easy to follow too. But I don't like anything without some sort of SFF element.

Any other ideas out there?
 
I would like to see more Irony, and a greater depth of irony to stories.

I think younger readers can handle it.

I mean, well when I was that age (10 years old?) , I was fascinated by shows such as The Twilight Zone. A show steeped in fantastic and deep concepts. Not just the shows even our toys were full of ironic humor, MAD magazine ( which looking back now compared to stuff I see now, even the present Mad Magazine are pale examples of irony) Wacky packages, all had intelligent irony.

Irony, just one example:
In the Twilight Zone sometimes a protagonist would fight for what they wanted only to realize it was the wrong thing.

If a story is simple :

" Our hero, who is GOOD!, juants off to fight our villain , who is EVIL!, some events take place, hero gets the girl, Hero defeats the enemy, Yay, the end"

I just don't see the merit in it. In fact think this sort of story above is poisonous to kids and adults alike. I mention this because I just rented an awful movie based on a YA book (called Eragon) where the plot synopsis was what you see above. After seeing the movie, I felt poisoned like I ate all the frosting off of a cake. If this is the sort of story young people are reading these days I'm going to be concerned.

This might a generational thing as well. I am a cold war baby. Mutually Assured Destruction as a means towards peace, you cant get much more ironic than that. This might be why the shows and stories and toys I was raised on had more depth then what I see now.
 
Maximum Ride series by James Patterson (my daughter reads)

Song of the Lioness series by Tamora Pierce (I've heard they are decent, but haven't read them myself)

Phil Pullman's Dark Materials - Golden Compass is #1(my daughter loves these books, but I tried to read the first w/o success - just not my thing)

Libba Bray's The Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels (I recommend these for some good readin')

Chris Wooding's Broken Sky

The Bartemaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh is always good

There are so many.....but this list ought to get ya started :cool:


edit - Oh - and Heinlein's YA novels!
 
Milk said:
"Our hero, who is GOOD!, juants off to fight our villain , who is EVIL!, some events take place, hero gets the girl, Hero defeats the enemy, Yay, the end"

I just don't see the merit in it. In fact think this sort of story above is poisonous to kids and adults alike. I mention this because I just rented an awful movie based on a YA book (called Eragon) where the plot synopsis was what you see above. After seeing the movie, I felt poisoned like I ate all the frosting off of a cake. If this is the sort of story young people are reading these days I'm going to be concerned.
Click to expand...

I agree with you there. I heard so many BAD reviews of the movie that I won't even bother with it. Just seeing that the CGI guys put feathers on a dragon is a big clue. Granted, you can do anything you want to try to be original, but there are some things you just don't mess with.

I read the first two books. First book--good idea, if cliche and reminiscent of certain other popular stories. Second book--cut out about 2/3 of it and you might have a well-paced story (note that I did not say "good story").
 
Ok, I'm more with it today and can perhaps contribute answers that make sense instead of just randomingly listing books - hello - did I even read the first post yesterday?

As to what I would like to see more of in YA SFF, well...

I'm not a big fan of the simple, cliched books that get a lot of attention. The afore mentioned Eragon. Ok, kids and some adults enjoy it for the simple reason that it is easy-to-read fantasy requiring absolutely no thinking whatsoever, as everything is spelled out right there on the page. If it was written by an adult, I don't think it would've ever gotten picked up by a major publisher. It's too easy-to-read in my opinion. So easy in fact, that I could not get through it :)

I want to see books that make kids think. Take Lois Lowry's books for example. Her book The Giver is very Anthem (Ayn Rand) or Fahrenheit 451(Bradbury), all books with a message, a mature message that makes one think about where society may be headed - PC living at it's best may not be the end all way to happiness. And kids 'get it' when it is presented in well written prose. I think many authors make the mistake of thinking kids/teens don't deeply ponder over important issues.

It's a simple thing, but I would also like see more SFF with boy leads. It may be my imagination, I don't have numbers here to back it up or anything, but it seems that most of the books that are coming out now are girly types, and many boys have trouble reading and liking books with a girl protagonist. Girls seem better adjusted for reading almost any type of book, but boys still seems to suffer under societal pressure to be macho or something and read only 'boy books'. My 8 year old is already succombiing to the pressure. It would be an intersting study to see if this carries over into adult literature. Sure not, right?
 
I personally don't like the idea or the term "Young Adult" - I think it's mainly an marketeers ploy, it's patronising, and makes an unnecessary, artificial extra division between non-adult and adult books. I read SF and fantasy from an early age, and when I was growing up, the only divisions were "Childrens" and "Adult" books - and to be frank, most, if not all, of what is termed YA today, would have been firmly in the "Childrens" section back then.

Let's not try to direct reading - if young people want to read SF/F, surely they will soon pick out what they like, and gradually extend their appreciation of discovered authors, while trying new ones as they go along. Categorization is a slippery road at best - Rowling's books are supposed to be YA, but Lewis's Narnia books are filed as childrens - but have a much more adult theme. But there's no doubt in my mind which are the better written, characterized and enjoyable!
 
BookStop said:
It's a simple thing, but I would also like see more SFF with boy leads. It may be my imagination, I don't have numbers here to back it up or anything, but it seems that most of the books that are coming out now are girly types, and many boys have trouble reading and liking books with a girl protagonist. Girls seem better adjusted for reading almost any type of book, but boys still seems to suffer under societal pressure to be macho or something and read only 'boy books'. My 8 year old is already succombiing to the pressure. It would be an intersting study to see if this carries over into adult literature. Sure not, right?
Click to expand...

That's odd, because I always thought the more popular YA stories had male leading characters. I was under the impression that there weren't enough girl leads in the SFF books, but I'm not as widely read as some of the other members, so it may be a case of "I don't get out much"--not enough reading time in a week.
 
My Starvaganza series has the following:

City of Masks: main charcter a boy
City of Stars: main character a girl plus boy from first and other boys also important
City of Flowers:main character a boy, plus another boy, plus charcaters from two earlier books

City of Secrets (currently being finished - available next year) main character a boy plus others from earlier books (you get the picture)

City of Ships (not yet started): main character a boy ... etc. etc.

Am doing my best! And fra from simplistically.

Mary
 
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