Carolyn's comments (member since Dec 09, 2008)

Carolyn's comments from the Building a SciFi/Fantasy Library group.

I stop in and visit the home page of Fantastic Fiction. The entire page is new releases, listed by author & grouped by genre, and a column on the right side of the page lists 'coming soon' releases by date. You can sort them by HC, pb or audio.

If I'm looking for something by a specific author, I just go to that author's page on FF.

Another book to look for is The Declaration - it is not nearly as good as Ender's Game, but its on par with the Uglies books.

Let us know what you think of it! = )

Definitely Ender's Game, as Greyweather suggested. If you like it, there are two series spun off from it.

I'd also recommend Little Brother.

I also think of Alas, Babylon! and the new Cormac McCarthy book The Road to be post-apocalyptic (but not dystopian), because they are both about survivors dealing with the aftermath of a catastrophe, but no real society has emerged at that point.

I highly recommend the fantasy/historical fiction mix in the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. Hefty doses of romance in there, it's the integral plot line in the entire series.

I'm with mlady - I shelve and rate both the individual books and the omnibus editions, mostly for the sake of comparison with other readers.

Jerin1701 wrote: "...such a great writress."

OK, I just have to respond to this - you mean writer or author, right? or did you mean writers in the plural?
There is no 'special' gendered term for female writers (thank goodness!)

Ryan wrote: "Marion Zimmer Bradley is one that immediately comes to mind. I fell in love when I read Mists of Avalon. How could you not?

Not sci-fi I know...."

Well, The Mists of Avalon is always worth mentioning, as far as I'm concerned. = )
MZB is one of my favorite authors - the entire Darkover series is great science fiction (some of it with a fantasy feel), although most of the rest of her writing is fantasy.

Kernos wrote: "Yes, but for us non-Librarians it seems a misnomer. To me a young adult is anyone under 40 and over 18.

Who decides when a book is characterized as YA (in librarian jargon) and on what basis? ..."

Ah Kernos, please don't speak for all non-Librarians. Those of us who are actually under 40 (although getting closer every day), don't really appreciate the 'wise old elder' patronizing tone.

"YA" in literature is not a new term, the concept was first introduced in the early 1800's and the modern usage in the 50's/60's.

YA in literature is defined as: Young-adult fiction (often abbreviated as YAdult fiction, or simply YA) is fiction written for, published for, or marketed to adolescents, roughly between the ages of 12 and 18. Source: Wikipedia

To be or not be YA, that is the question. = )
YA is a classification much in flux - many books are classified YA by their publisher, for marketing reasons, others are not marketed that way, but shelved in the YA section by librarians. Some are conceived of and written for that audience by the author. There is some movement to divide the 12-18 group into younger ('Juvenile' 11-14) and older (YA 15-18), but there is no hard and fast authority to make an arbitrary decision, that will have to evolve over time.

There are many controversies over what is considered 'acceptable' topics for YA, or what makes a book YA or adult. Basically, there is a lot of crossover in the latter (as you've noted in your list of books), and a difference in outlook in the former: should YA books continue to 'cushion' minors by shielding them from mention of terrible things and illegal activities, or should they be a venue for relevant (not gratuitous) exposure to them as a way to teach young adults, or for them to relate to such things happening in their own lives.

Jury's still out on all that, but please, don't fool yourself that teens reading Flowers for Algernon or
Speaker for the Dead "would not be understood by most YA, and require considerable maturity to really 'get'." They 'get' it all right, they just might 'get' a different take on it than you would. Not necessarily a bad thing, since as you stated, a truly good book is one that can be reread over time and offer different things to the reader each time.

I'd add some others in here:

While I love her Pern series, for a 'real' scifi feel, Anne McCaffrey's Brainship series can't be beat! Start with The Ship Who Sang It can promote some really good conversations about the <dis>abled.

A book of her short stories, Get Off the Unicorn is good, many of them are the precursor to all of her series - there's a dragon story, a telepath story, etc. Her Pegasus series and Rowan series are both good for YA, as is the Dragonsinger/Dragonsong pair of books set on Pern (no sex in these two at all).

Another excellent author is Julie E. Czerneda. A scientist herself, besides her Trade Pact and Web Shifters series (which I would also consider excellent YA introductions to SF), she has also written a series of books to introduce younger readers to science fiction. One is Orbiter, and there is a companion teacher guide Orbiter Teacher's Guide. There are a bunch of those, I think the series is called Tales from the Wonder Zone.

rebecca j wrote: "I consider all my paranormal books (romance or not) to be fantasy..."

I agree!

I'll second In the Garden of Iden - I loved the whole Company series by Kage Baker, but this one is especially good!

I'm looking forward to the new one coming out soon!

For Arthurian re-tellings, my favorites are:
MZB's The Mists of Avalon - if you love it, there are more to read in the 'series', but it was originally published as a stand-alone and does quite well at it.
Gillian Bradshaw's trilogy Down the Long Wind "Hawk of May", "Kingdom of Summer" and "In Winter's Shadow"
T.H. White's The Once and Future King
Mary Stewart's classic series beginning with Crystal Cave the Legend of Merlyn

I enjoyed that book as well, though I skipped the last 'writers craft' story, since I have no desire to be a writer myself.
Just re-read it last month, actually.

What did you think of the stories? I liked Bloodchild (though I really don't like the title of the story), and think the topic/setting/characters would have made a wonderful novel, don't you?
I was itching to know the whole backstory on how humans got into that situation, and how his family got into the 'favored' position they seemed to be in - the history of what happened with his father, etc...

I also really liked "The Evening, the Morning, and the Night" as well. Which was your favorite?

Another good book of hers is Fledgling - a very different (and non-horror) take on vampires.

Kindred is another good one, also a stand-alone. This one involves recurring time travel of a modern day woman back to her ancestor's past.

In my home library, I use just the category SF&F, I don't separate them out.

I understand what you mean. The big booksellers category name probably comes from the publishers, who are also trying to identify the market segment they are targeting.

I consider the Harry Potter books to be YA books, and there doesn't seem to be any subcategories under that header.

If you're browsing for a new SF book or series, I recommend any or all of the following sites (rather than the seller's dbs)for fun browsing:

http://www.scifan.com/ <--this one's whole purpose is to help readers find new scifi & fantasy authors - they also classify books into series and themes.

http://www.sfsite.com/ <-- lots of book reviews

http://www.sff.net/ <--this one lists books too, but I like it best for exploring author's homepages (some of them have short stories posted on their sites)

http://www2.ku.edu/~sfcenter/sflib.htm <-- full of SciFi library recommendations (espcially good for classics)

Epic Dystopias - The Big List - a blog by a fellow GoodReader, who has listed out a ton of dystopia-themed books
http://epicdystopia.blogspot.com/2007/11...

There is also the ever-useful Fantastic Fiction site: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/

Happy Browsing!

Kernos wrote: "Personally I do not think the intent of an artist is ever relevant to the meaning of a work of art, except perhaps to art historians.

My experience of a work is my experience..."

Well, I do think the intent of the writer does matter, but that is another topic thread entirely.

Bill, your statement that *your* experience of a work is your own is of course entirely correct, but, to bring this thread full circle, that very focus demonstrates that booksellers have an impossible task trying to separate the SF from the Fantasy on their shelves.

After all, just the few people participating in this thread don't agree on whether some basic texts are SF or Fantasy, how could you expect all booksellers to agree with your [singular:] perception? Or Robin's or Mary's or Joe's or Bob's or whomever's?

As for me and my house, we classify all the Pern books as Science Fiction. = )

Besides the ones listed above:

Jacqueline Carey
Robin Hobb
Tanya Huff
Gillian Bradshaw
Katharine Kerr
Ursula K. Le Guin
Diana Gabaldon
Barbara Hambly
Tamara Siler Jones
Trudi Canavan
C.J. Cherryh
Sharon Green
Katherine Kurtz
Mary Stewart
Judith Tarr
Jo Walton
Sheri S. Tepper
Michelle Sagara West
Jane Yolen

I know its been a while since the OP, but to continue this thread, there is a Dystopian fiction Group on GR - I'm sure there are plenty of suggestions for reading in there! http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1016...

I would also add the Holdfast Chronicles books by
Suzy McKee Charnas to your list.