SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion
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Why do we see the current flood of YA scifi and fantasy?
As a writer, I am looking at this from a somewhat different perspective -- wondering where these writers are coming from that go from nowhere to Hollywood in five minutes. I guess I'm seriously jealous.Mind you, I think that Collins wrote a good story with Hunger Games (I read the books before I saw the movie), and I certainly wouldn't put it in the "children's literature" category with Harry Potter.
I wasn't so thrilled with Veronica Roth's writing (Divergent); but neither of these fit my definition of "family" fare as far as the movies go. Both are high in the violence quotient, and Divergent in particular has serious sexual undertones (in the movies, not in the books) that appeal to over-hormoned teenagers, not grade-schoolers.
Hollywood follows the money, so blame the taste of moviegoers. I'd love to see a bunch of movies based on David Weber's Honorverse, but it isn't going to happen.
While there are many excellent YA sci-fi/fantasy books coming from the large publishers, there is equally a large number of excellent adult sci-fi/fantasy books to be found in the indie community.Why not broaden your reach to new authors? I have found some great indie fantasy books by looking outside the large publishers.
I think the toothlessness of big budget movies and the YA publishing trend are separate things that have aligned recently.PG and PG-13 films were increasingly taking home the lion's share of the box office, so that's what the studios switched to. But the movies which were making that big bank weren't R-rated films that were dumbed down, they were conceived as PG family fare. They still wanted their Die Hards and Jurassic Parks, they just took the blood and bad language out of them. That's where they went wrong.
There was the opposite trend in the 80s where they took movies that should have been PG and added gratuitous sex and violence because back then R-rated movies were the ones making the most money.
It's just like what they did back in the 70s after Jaws. Jaws has all the great elements necessary for a terrific movie: acting, directing, cinematography, music, editing, etc. The message Hollywood got was, "Audiences like it when fish eat people." So we were subjected to a decade of killer fish movies which were terrible.
It's the trend-following that is the problem, not the movies themselves. I don't think excellent movies like Gravity or The Artist needed to have R-rated content in order to be any better.
Of course, the squeamishness of current ratings boards (reflecting the conservative nature of society's gatekeepers) means that we get truly bizarre ratings where they're fine with people getting killed left and right but simply can't abide foul language. A lot of this came to a head during the release of The King's Speech where he repeatedly screams "Fuck!" as part of his therapy, so the US and UK ratings boards gave it an R rating. Yet Casino Royale, which features murders and a brutal torture scene, got a PG-13 rating. A truly WTF moment, literally.
The movie rating system is insane and has been insane as long as there has been a movie rating 'system.' For one, there is no actual system. Check out "This Movie Is Not Rated."
I really want to reply to this, but doing it in a non-condescending way is hard. (not toward contributors here, but toward the YA demographic).There's a lot of excellent novels being published for adults. I need to clarify "adult" because I do not mean explicit sex, I mean adult intellect and engagement. The difference from YA stuff is that these novels often don't get made into movies, because they're much more cerebral and harder to adapt. It's much simpler to create a 2 hour film based on Hunger Games. Just cut out all the fluffy bits, stick to the plot, and press play. Consider trying to create a film out of China Mieville's "The City & The City". So much of the action takes place in the character's mind, in the interplay between words and worlds, that it'd be very hard to adapt. So studios don't. They also consider "Who'd want to watch this?" And the answer is, a much smaller audience than the group that wants to see J Law shooting arrows and kissing boys.
Junk food sells, so junk food novels get promoted and adapted. Once in a blue moon, an ambitious director/producer will adapt a challenging book, almost always to instant acclaim. But it's just not the norm. The norm is average, and average people like average books and average stories.
I'm sorry, but what I'm getting out of the OP is that "if it doesn't have blood or incest, it's not worth an adult's time."Hunger Games is a bad book, with blood. It sells to *both* adult and YA markets, and so studios drool for it.
I'd be willing to bet that Fifty Shades is an even worse book. But it's marketed as adult, so it must be more valuable to the OP, right? :sarcasm:
If movies were made of good books, I might go to see them. I might go to see movie of The Martian. (Which btw has no bad guys, no incest, and is not cerebral.... hmm.... is it YA? :snort:)
Some YA books are good. Some YA books have plenty of sex, blood, drug use, etc. Those two categories don't correlate; they only overlap by coincidence, sometimes.
Thank you Kenneth for starting to define 'good' and 'bad.' But again, whether or not a book is tagged YA does not necessarily correlate, even with your definition that includes words like 'cerebral.'
Johan wrote: "I mean, it can't be because of the humongous piles of money publishers and movie studios make off franchises like The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, Twilight and other such "dark and edgy" yet poli..."Teenagers have more disposable income. They buy books and go to movies and have no bills to pay.
Hollywood is moving away from any and all movies that aren't considered "blockbusters." It's where the money is and they want money.
Adults have bills, children to care for, parents to care for, etc. We don't have as much time and/or money to hang out and watch all the latest movies. So we don't get as many movies made.
It's sad but true.
But I thank GOD that less work like GRRM will be in theaters. He may be popular but his (written) attitude towards women and sex leaves a lot to be desired. Let alone the grimness of it all. Hopefully this sort of "kill them all and let God sort them out" books will not make it into movies. Hopefully they will go the way of the dodo bird soon.
So, above is my response to the OP. I actually opened this thread to respond to the subject line, though.Golden Age classic SF has always been more akin to the stereotypical view of YA/ family-friendly. Williamson, Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, del Rey, Simak, Niven... pretty clean, and thought-provoking. Just something to bear in mind.
Cheryl wrote: "So, above is my response to the OP. I actually opened this thread to respond to the subject line, though.Golden Age classic SF has always been more akin to the stereotypical view of YA/ family-f..."
Some people will never see the value in YA because they don't believe that others can have a "correct" opinion that differs from their own.
Just to say what was done of the Edge of Tommorow was like what was done to Starship Troopers. It was almost a parody of the book it was based off of, and the ending of the actual book was a good bit more dark *and far far far better*. Not to say that All you need is Kill was a genius intellectual work...it wasn't. But they really made that movie far more generic then the book was and made Emily Blunt's character way less badass and got rid of the giant fuck off axe/halberd thing :/. They also completely changed the aliens...changed the way the time traveling worked, changed pretty much all the characters including the main character, and completely changed the ending.John wrote: "Hollywood follows the money, so blame the taste of moviegoers. I'd love to see a bunch of movies based on David Weber's Honorverse, but it isn't going to happen."
Your joking right...you know Honor of the Queen is in production now, and it's going to be mostly CGI shit for the spaceships so once they have that done it should be way cheaper to keep shovling out movies if it even does pretty decent.
Studio's just don't like to take risks, it's easy to take a risk on a book but on a movie that costs millions it cannot flop.
Many stories also don't translate well to the movie medium.
Aaron wrote: "Just to say what was done of the Edge of Tommorow was like what was done to Starship Troopers. It was almost a parody of the book it was based off of, and the ending of the actual book was a good ..."I have a copy but I've not read it yet.
But I didn't read this whole comment for fear of spoilers.
I do agree that Starship Troopers was a wonderful book. Moive? Not so much.
i did enjoy the Edge of Tomorrow movie for what it was: A Tom Cruise Flick.
Cheryl wrote: "Thank you Kenneth for starting to define 'good' and 'bad.' But again, whether or not a book is tagged YA does not necessarily correlate, even with your definition that includes words like 'cerebral.'"Yeah, that's fair. I have a personal distaste for YA, but it has produced some good, well-written stories for young adults to read.
"Adult" does not and should not always mean violence and sex. They don't, in and of themselves, elevate the level of content or its quality, and often detract from it if they are not purposefully driving some other force in the work.
Lots of great commentary here!To address the argument about YA, violence and swearing:
I don't know about you guys, but I like my novels to be realistic. Both the ones I read, and the ones I write.
And yes, I know we're talking about SFF here, but since you're in this Goodreads group you all know there are several ways to define "realistic".
Realism in novels is not One. Single. Bit. related to the amount of sex, bodily fluids, incest, beheadings, accidents or swearing portrayed.
But in the real world, bad things happen to good people. Why? They just do.
And when bad things happen to good people, the good people swear.
I hate to tell you this kids, but yes, even the good people swear. I know I do. You probably do too. We all do it in certain situations. We don't like it, but we do, because we can't help ourselves. If WE can't stop ourselves swearing when we hit our thumb with a hammer, then why on Earth should a character in a book be able to bite her tongue and just grumble indistinctly when she does it? Pretending that literary characters don't swear because we want to sell our novels to as wide an audience as possible, for me, takes away all pretence at realism.
It's not the bad language per se that makes a novel good, but I believe an author who is honest enough to acknowledge that's the way people speak in certain situations makes the story more believable, and thus, in my humble opinion, better.
Besides, kids swear like dock workers these days. They won't be offended by an F-word in a novel.
Some people don't like dark and scary books. No worries. We all have a choice in what we read or watch at the cinema.
But if we knowingly avoid all disturbing things, be it the news, George RR Martin, horror movies or jello pudding, we ever so slightly abandon the world to the dark elements at play out there. Yes, I'm talking about ISIS in the middle east, the neo nazi resurgence in Europe, tribal slaughter in Africa and so forth and so on. Sticking our heads in the sand and pretending the world is full of unicorns and hobbits is not going to stop us sliding into another dark age of religious terror and super powers invading sovereign states at will.
I believe that together we CAN make the world a better place. But to do that, we can't go around sugar coating everything we consume.
I'm not so sure we're really doing it to protect the kids.
I have a feeling we may be doing it because we don't want to be reminded that the world is not a good place, and we all know we should stand up and do something about it.
But we go and read about unicorns instead.
Aaron wrote: "Just to say what was done of the Edge of Tommorow was like what was done to Starship Troopers. It was almost a parody of the book it was based off of, and the ending of the actual book was a good ..."I haven't actually read All You Need is Kill, so I can't compare that to Edge of Tomorrow, but I suspect you are correct :-)
As for the Starship Troopers movie, I actually liked it.
The only thing it has in common with the book is the name of the main character and the basic premise, so they could have called it something else. But no one would have seen it.
But it's a good example of a movie that doesn't try until it gets blue in the face to be YA. Yes, there is gore, gratuitous nudity and lots of violence, but the thing that for me makes it an adult oriented movie is the political commentary. The fascist overtones are almost more prominent in the movie than in the book, albeit packaged in a more ironic wrapping.
Just goes to show what a strong (and possible deranged) director (who didn't actually read the book) can do when he gets free reins from the movie company. I bet they regretted that when they saw the final result :-)
Johan wrote: "Lots of great commentary here!To address the argument about YA, violence and swearing:
I don't know about you guys, but I like my novels to be realistic. Both the ones I read, and the ones I writ..."
This doesn't really make any sense to me.
There's a lack of cursing and etc in mainstream EVERYTHING. Not in an attempt to "protect teh kiddies" but because America doesn't get down like that. It makes the adults crazy with anger so it doesn't happen.
Even mainstream erotica is toned down. It is what it is. It has nothing to do with YA books or movies - it's how things work in America.
And sorry, I will never buy "but reality!" when it comes to science fiction and fantasy.
You want reality? Turn on the news. Go read the newspaper. But in SFF? Please. The whole idea of SFF is the lack of reality.
But the "but reality!" BS is the same thing I hear when men support the absurd amounts of sexism, racism and RAPE found in books like the ones written by GRRM. Shit, GRRM put a gang rape in a short story less than 50 pages. I. Will. Pass. On. That.
Cheryl wrote: "I'm sorry, but what I'm getting out of the OP is that "if it doesn't have blood or incest, it's not worth an adult's time.""Oops. It was not my intention of giving you the impression I believe adults are only interested in blood, incest and Fifty Shades of Whatever. Besides, I read a review of Fifty Shades from a lady who was a practising BDSM dominatrix, and she was disappointed the sex was so vanilla. So it's probably not a book for me ;-)
What I meant to say was that adults are old enough to decide for themselves if they want to read books or watch movies or listen to songs with bad stuff in them, and they are old enough to process those bad images and words and relate them to their own experiences and the world they live in.
But I feel there are fewer of those more adult oriented works coming out today because the lion's share of the media world seems preoccupied with pumping out stuff for young adults who only want to be entertained.
"It's where the money is and they want money", as MrsJoseph put it.
And that saddens me.
Johan wrote: "But I feel there are fewer of those more adult oriented works coming out today because the lion's share of the media world seems preoccupied with pumping out stuff for young adults who only want to be entertained. "I disagree with this speaking broadly of entertainment as a whole. If we're just talking about movies, then yes, there are far fewer movies being made these days and the franchises (especially the pre-sold ones with existing brand awareness) take center stage. As previously mentioned, the PG and PG-13 fare rules the box office currently.
Every year, though, we get big- and medium-budget SFF films which are original and not based on any pre-existing property. Regardless of what you thought of them, Gravity, Interstellar, Book of Eli, Daybreakers, Inception, Elysium, Battle: Los Angeles, Pacific Rim, Looper, etc., were original screenplays and show quite a lot of diversity. When you get to low-budget and indie flicks, the stories are even more varied.
In novels, though, there has never been an era with greater diversity and range of choices than today. So much so that it's actually difficult for good authors to rise above the background noise.
TV is really where the action is these days, though. It is replete with adult entertainment... by which I don't mean X-rated material. I assume kids watch things like The Walking Dead and Orphan Black, which are excellent SFF shows that take on adult themes and deal with the uncertainties of the world, albeit couched in fantastical terms, but I imagine most of the underlying intent of the stories goes completely over their heads, simply because they haven't experienced that aspect of life yet. There are some very grown-up concerns featured on shows like that. If you branch out to brilliant shows like Better Call Saul which is rife with moral gray areas, you'd be hard-pressed to find its equal.
This past season of The Walking Dead has really plumbed some of the vagaries of human behavior and it has presented viewers with numerous situations where there is no right or wrong answer, and sometimes the story hinges entirely on the precept of randomness. "Shit Happens" is practically the underlying theme of the show, with the zombies simply being a metaphor for cruel indifference of the universe towards humankind.
Ok, one thing ppl who claim they don't like YA are misunderstanding is that there's some really ugly 'reality' in it. It is *not* sanitized for the kiddies. Maybe when it's made into a movie it is. But the books, yeah, they're pretty mature.I know nothing about TV, but Trike's argument sure does convince me that, if you don't like PG13 movies, there are other sources of 'adult' entertainment.
MrsJoseph said: "Some people will never see the value in YA because they don't believe that others can have a "correct" opinion that differs from their own"I have to agree here. I read both YA and adult novels. I enjoy both types immensely and for very different reasons. I get very frustrated by this insistent belief that YA is somehow inferior. They're just different. I can enjoy Divergent and then turn around and read The Grapes of Wrath and get a much broader spectrum experience. Sticking with one genre is very narrow. I can understand not wanting to read YA, but I can't understand looking down on those who do.
Personally, what I don't like is how non-YA genre fiction is being pushed out of the stores by the YA genre fiction. I prefer to buy my books from local stores rather than online retailers, but the massive narrowing of selection available makes that difficult. Even though I read both YA and non-YA books it's hard not to be resentful of the sheer amount of YA being published as I look over the pitiful selection of genre fiction available in the stores outside of the Young Adult shelves.
Honestly?What bothers me are the Romance novels that use a Science Fiction or Fantasy setting, but aren't marketed as Romance novels.
I hate these with a passion, to be honest. But that's mostly because these books romanticise things that are not romantic at all, have nonsensical settings (hello YA dystopia, this is you) and characters who's only motivation is to have the other main character fall in love with them. Okay, that plot in itself is ok if you like that sort of thing, but authors usually attach the toxic theme of 'girl on girl hate' (apparently girls can't be friends in YA novels?), among other things that aren't alright.
Oh btw:
Some YA books ARE dumbed down. Of course not all of them because you can't generalize something like this.
I mean, authors like Le Guin even used a lot of adult themes in their YA books. Which is probably why some Earthsea fans are in a ridiculous denial about the last three books of the series. They probably have too many adult themes for their taste (I'd call death, griefing and healing after a grave injury adult themes because they sound less appealing for a younger audience).
I'd also like to say that YA is not a genre, but a category that tells you the target audience.
'Adult' does not equal 'sex and violence' in my opinion because things like grief, death, mental health, the understanding of how the universe around us works, job related stuff, are all adult themes that are often less appealing for younger people to read about.
Give me a book about adult themes any day but I can do without sexual content. Which means, GRRM's books aren't for me and I will never ever read any of them.
Foxwine wrote: "Personally, what I don't like is how non-YA genre fiction is being pushed out of the stores by the YA genre fiction. I prefer to buy my books from local stores rather than online retailers, but the..."Hear, hear!
That's exactly my point. I'm not saying there's no new "adult" (and just to be clear adult does NOT, I repeat NOT, need to be filled with sex and violence) literature or movies coming out. Quite the opposite, but as Trike correctly observed above, the more adult oriented stuff is drowning in the flood of other books and movies that come out (with the majority being YA oriented).
If I walk into a regular book store here in Sweden all I will see on the shelves are Scandinavian crime and the YA SFF stuff. Good for people who like that kind of stuff. Bad for me.
We all have our different tastes and when one taste starts to expand at the cost of almost all others, we have a problem. Monopoly is never a good thing.
Sparrowlicious wrote: "Honestly?What bothers me are the Romance novels that use a Science Fiction or Fantasy setting, but aren't marketed as Romance novels.
I hate these with a passion, to be honest. But that's mostly ..."
Oooh, please don't get me started on SFF romance... :-)
I can't tell you why there's such a flood(aside from the most likely guess that it's because it's selling better), but I sure am glad for the flood because I love me some YA SF & F.
Sarah wrote: "MrsJoseph said: "Some people will never see the value in YA because they don't believe that others can have a "correct" opinion that differs from their own"I have to agree here. I read both YA a..."
I am not looking down on people who read YA. I'm not saying it's inferior. What I'm saying is that it's not for me, and I want to be able to find literature and movies aimed at a more mature audience when I walk into a book store or a movieplex. I'm just saying I find that harder and harder these day.
Johan wrote: "If I walk into a regular book store here in Sweden all I will see on the shelves are Scandinavian crime and the YA SFF stuff. Good for people who like that kind of stuff. Bad for me."That's why god invented Science Fiction-bokhandeln ;D
I get Johan's gripe. I went through a similar thing with music and now can only find stuff I really like by digging it out online because a style of music I can't stand(but do not think is without merit) took over the mainstream.It's frustrating for sure. Even though I personally love YA, I get it.
I do have to say, I'm in agreement with the folks saying they think people don't know what they're talking about when they refer to YA as watered down or sanitized for kiddies. I've read both YA and adult pretty widely, and oddly, as I get older, I'm veering more and more towards YA specifically because it tends to hit me harder emotionally.
I mean, to each their own, but my experience reading YA hasn't been a watered down product.
MrsJoseph wrote: "There's a lack of cursing and etc in mainstream EVERYTHING. Not in an attempt to "protect teh kiddies" but because America doesn't get down like that. It makes the adults crazy with anger so it doesn't happen."
I think you just hit your head on the nail there, MrsJoseph.
The entertainment business of the world is controlled by the US, and the US lives by US regulations and US moral panic. That's fine if you live in the US and share those values.
But the rest of the world isn't as sensitive to bad language and justified nudity (though we're not as hot on gratuitous violence as the Yanks) and that, I believe, is the whole problem.
We over here are missing out on more mature entertainment because the US exports not only it's (mostly good and entertaining) novels and movies, but also it's moral values and foul language/nudity censorship.
I think the particular problem in Sweden isn't that YA is "taking over", but that book retailers only sell super popular book in order to be profitable.I mean, I get that 98% of Akademibokhandeln (the biggest book retail chain in Sweden) are books in Swedish, but it can even be hard to get a hold of classic Swedish authors such as Karin Boye or Selma Lagerlöf.
So yeah, I don't really blame the YA.
Trike wrote: "TV is really where the action is these days, though. It is replete with adult entertainment... by which I don't mean X-rated material. I assume kids watch things like The Walking Dead and Orphan Black, which are excellent SFF shows that take on adult themes"Yes, TV has some very good shows aimed at an older demographic. Shows like Justified, Breaking Bad, Orphan Black, American Horror Story, Walking Dead and others (I won't mention GoT because I will get flamed) are the light in the darkness.
I have great hopes for SyFy's take on James S.A. Corey's The Expanse. Keeping my fingers crossed!
Great discussion!But in the real world, bad things happen to good people. Why? They just do.
And when bad things happen to good people, the good people swear. Well...not always. If you grow up never swearing, you just don't. You say 'Aargghh!' or sometimes in extreme circumstances things like 'Crikey!' or 'Damn!' or just scream incoherently. I'm speaking from personal experience about this - swearing was forbidden in our family, so I never learnt to as a kid, or chose to as an adult.
I do realise that I'm probably in the minority here, but I do know a lot of people who speak just like me.
Johan has said: I want to be able to find literature and movies aimed at a more mature audience when I walk into a book store or a movieplex.
It depends on what you mean by 'mature.' If by mature you mean graphic, then I think you may have missed the mark. If you mean thought provoking and layered, then you'll find that in YA as well as in 'adult' literature.
One of the things I like most about YA literature is that it doesn't shy away from looking at the big themes - grey areas, life and death, ethics and morality.
But that aside, yes bad stuff can and does happen, and when we write or read about it, we can choose how explicit we'd like our experience to be. Sometimes a clever writer can imply something rather than explicitly describing it, to provide a heightened impact on the reader.
I'm sure the current propensity for YA SFF is partly due to the runaway success of things like 'The Hunger Games' - film makers and publishers often jump on the bandwagon of success in order to make a quick buck. Having said that, sometimes they're not particularly discriminating about which things they publish or convert to movies.
As an aside, I also detested the Starship Troopers movie. It ranks as one the worst book to movie adaptations in my list of all time disasters :)
Tommy wrote: "I can't tell you why there's such a flood(aside from the most likely guess that it's because it's selling better), but I sure am glad for the flood because I love me some YA SF & F."It's really just bandwagon-jumping, I think.
Johan's post about his local bookstore is typical. The ultra-horrible Girl with the Dragon Tattoo inexplicably sold millions of copies, so now every Scandanavian with a word processor is crapping out gritty crime books, and bookstores are stocking what's fashionable, often to the exclusion of other things.
This reminds me that I had a guest teacher in college some 30 years ago who actually blamed the Beatles for the similarity in pop music during the late 60s/early 70s. First of all, it wasn't as dreadfully similar as she was making it out to be, but secondly it wasn't the fault of the Beatles. They just happened to be popular so people wanted more and there were plenty of bands willing to emulate them. Sure, we got junk like Herman's Hermits, but we also discovered Cream and The Who.
I have a collection of music from the era of Motown and heyday of the Philly sound, and for every band like Smokey Robinson and the Miracles or the Five Stairsteps, there are 20 bands no one remembers because they just weren't any good. All they were doing is mimicking the truly talented.
I think this YA trend will be a similar situation. 30 years from now we'll recall the great books and the chaff will be forgotten.
And now, for your listening pleasure, I give you the Five Stairsteps. Please get up and groove around the room to work out the kinks.
http://youtu.be/yrotsEzgEpg
Alice wrote: "That's why god invented Science Fiction-bokhandeln ;D "Haha, I love Science Fiction-bokhandeln!
Pretty sure no god was involved in it's creation though. The people who run it are such dedicated fans of SFF I don't think they needed any help setting up shop :-)
Leonie wrote: "I do realise that I'm probably in the minority here, but I do know a lot of people who speak just like me.."I agree with you here. Personally I cuss like a sailor,a they say, but I work with people who don't. I have not heard them cuss in 15 years. Granted I haven't seen them out of work, but from what I know of them I'd wager they just don't cuss.
And even I, veteran cusser as I am, find myself either using random PG-13 alternatives or just mumbling incoherently in an attempt to not cuss in an attempt to be considerate to the non-cussers.
Ya ever notice how words sound silly the more often you user them?
Cuss cuss cuss cuss cuss cuss cuss
ETA: I like when authors cuss in the narrative. Like when they do something like, "He said something which his mother would've boxes his ears for." (And by like I mean it amuses me.)
I've mostly seen this in kids books. YA books do sometimes have cussing, even the dreaded F-bomb, though they sometimes prefer the tried and true Sci-fi tradition of making up words, like frell and frak.
colleen the contrarian ± (... never stop fighting) ± wrote: "Ya ever notice how words sound silly the more often you user them?Cuss cuss cuss cuss cuss cuss cuss"
Haha, yes, I notice that the whole time and start to wonder if some linguist somewhere is fooling with us. Some words just sound ridiculous when you think about them :-)
"Cuss" is definitely one of those.
Trike wrote: "First of all, it wasn't as dreadfully similar as she was making it out to be, but secondly it wasn't the fault of the Beatles."Exactly. There is definitely good YA coming out every now and then, as there is in other target areas. I'm not blaming Rowling, Collins or Roth. It's not their fault. They didn't start the flood. They wrote good(-ish) books that just happened to become popular.
I blame the large corporations that peddle the rip offs and mock busters in order to make a quick buck. At the expense of more carefully crafted work.
Yes, I have written a novel. It's called Under a Dark Sky.
Yes, it's pretty dark, people swear in it, and bad things happen to good people.
Yes, I've gotten many rejection letters from the major SFF publishing houses, all along the lines of "We liked what we read, but it's not what we're looking for at the moment." Am I the only one hearing the implied "It's not, you know, YA, like the kids with the money want" here?
Of course I'm just being jealous :-)
Younger people tend to read more than older. That's why YA is always going to be very popular.
Stephen wrote: "Younger people tend to read more than older. That's why YA is always going to be very popular."
I am not sure that I would agree with you on that. I'm 59 and an avid reader and I am surrounded by much younger people at work. Most would confide that they rarely read books, and I won't call that f.....g texting mania 'reading'.
I am not sure that I would agree with you on that. I'm 59 and an avid reader and I am surrounded by much younger people at work. Most would confide that they rarely read books, and I won't call that f.....g texting mania 'reading'.
I'm firmly with Johan on most of his posts, and it seems to be the minority opinion. But that's okay with me. Hear hear to realism!
Stephen wrote: "Younger people tend to read more than older. That's why YA is always going to be very popular."I'm not sure I agree with that.
Has there always been a good amount of YA books? I don't recall them in the 80s and early 90s, but then I didn't have kids then. Piers Anthony was writing YA farces, and there was Redwall. Tamora Pierce came along at some point, and Harry Potter in to 2000s. But I don't remember anything like Heinlein's Boy Scout books. Would you consider Ender's Game as YA?
I think the new generation of YA books are a good thing, as they encourage reading in a group that has many distractions.
Younger people just buy more stuff. Teens will spend all of their parents money for the latest and greatest whatever in order to be in trend/in style/popular/part of the crowd, etc.Adults do things like...use libraries. Check reviews. Work full time.
Teens do things like...spend all their parents money and squeal to everyone who will listen about how great something is.
I would NOT spend $200 for a pair of jeans. At least, not at this age. When I was a teen? If I could nag my parents in to it, I would have. But there are $200+ jeans everywhere.
Publishing is a business and movie making is a business. Businesses are trying to make the greatest profits - they don't care that there's a subset of adults who are unhappy. And the kiddies are happy so the wheels keep turning.
Soon enough a new trend will come out. A new book will surprise the masses and every writer will jump on that bandwagon - so they can make money.
BTW, a lot of Romance SFF has made its way to the general SFF sections because of Twilight. Which was not classified as romance when published (although it should have been). So there's that bandwagon again. 50 Shades of Grey is a Twilight P2P fanfic. And that's why people keep getting multiple shades of the same thing.
Follow the money.
MrsJoseph wrote: "Soon enough a new trend will come out. A new book will surprise the masses and every writer will jump on that bandwagon - so they can make money. "^ This.
There have always been, and will always be, bandwagons and trends.
But there can also be more than one trend at any given time. In Fantasy, at least, Grimdark is a thing. It might not be quite as prevalent as YA, but, then, YA has its own internal trends being, as has been pointed out, more an age-range than a genre. (Freaking love triangles are the bane of my existence.)
You could just as easily say "why do we see the current flood of UF/PNR" or "why do we see the current flood of Steampunk".
I don't read a lot of sci-fi so I can't speak to the current trends in that genre so much, but, in fantasy, there are definitely more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the OP of this thread.
colleen the contrarian ± (... never stop fighting) ± wrote: "You could just as easily say "why do we see the current flood of UF/PNR" or "why do we see the current flood of Steampunk"."Agreed.
Why do we see so much Grimdark?
MrsJoseph wrote: "colleen the contrarian ± (... never stop fighting) ± wrote: "You could just as easily say "why do we see the current flood of UF/PNR" or "why do we see the current flood of Steampunk"."Agreed.
..."
Why was all sci-fi in the 70s about how science was going to kill everyone. The 80s were all about cop movies and crime. The 50s had a zillion things about nuclear weapons.
Right now is all grimdark because that's what people are afraid of in the world they see a lack of morale characters in the real world and so they want to see stuff that explores people without morales or shady morales. UF/PNR are normally connected to secret societies and conspiracies and what not. Dystopian are becoming a craze because people are more afraid of what their government could become right now. Now this isn't the whole story popularity follows popularity but trends in entertainment due tend to mirror real life.
MrsJoseph wrote: "Agreed.Why do we see so much Grimdark? "
I blame GRRM. Even his initials spell grim... ;)
I think the "Grimdark" (which is a stupid moniker, by the way) is a knee-jerk reaction to all the happy flowery triviality of the YA trend. It's the other side of the coin. However, I don't find that it represents realism any better than YA does. It's often gratuitous and overshadows/masks issues with the plot.
According to TV Tropes - though I don't know how reliable it is - the Darker and Edgier trope was extremely popular in comics as a reaction to the Silver Age comics, and that goes back to the 1970s and 80s, at least, a much earlier development than the recent rise of YA popularity.I would also point out that your continued generalization of YA as "happy flowery triviality" doesn't begin to scratch the surface, but you're clearly uninterested in listening to anyone on that point and would rather just continue to repeat the same unfounded assertions.
Regardless, I, personally, like the term Grimdark 'cause it's funny, and will happily continue to use it since I don't give a flying fuck that you think it's stupid. :D
Yeah, I'm unwilling to listen to apologetics. YA may deal with adult issues like terminal cancer and such, but always from the perspective of a teen. If it's not from the perspective of a "young adult" then it is mis-classified as YA. I think "Grimdark" is stupid because it's a meme-level amalgamation that is constantly being mis-applied to anything that doesn't have a happy ending. I am totally onboard with criticizing works that are plain and simple gratuitous nonsense. I am not at all pleased in the current meta of slapping new and trendy hash-tags on members of old genres. This isn't a personal dig, I'm speaking generally.
Kenneth wrote: "Yeah, I'm unwilling to listen to apologetics. YA may deal with adult issues like terminal cancer and such, but always from the perspective of a teen. "And teen perspectives mean happy flowery triviality? Um, ok hokey...
"I think "Grimdark" is stupid because it's a meme-level amalgamation that is constantly being mis-applied to anything that doesn't have a happy ending."
Lots of things get misapplied. I think most of what gets called Steampunk isn't, but I don't hate the term because people don't know how to use it. That's just silly.
"I am not at all pleased in the current meta of slapping new and trendy hash-tags on members of old genres."
I'm truly sorry that the kids are playing on your lawn.
SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
Deerskin (other topics)The Darkangel (other topics)
Magic's Pawn (other topics)
Deerskin (other topics)
Magic's Pawn (other topics)
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Can it?
I'm not saying kids should stop reading Harry Potter and going to see the next Hunger Games movie. On the contrary. I think that's a great way to get a new generation interested in the genres that we all love.
What I'm fuming about is the way it effectively blocks any SF/fantasy aimed at an adult audience.
All the money, they think, is now in family entertainment.
Take the rather good movie Edge of Tomorrow, for example.
It's basically a very gritty and darkly humorous story about the struggle for the survival of the human race, with a time travel twist. Yet there is no blood in the entire film. I mean none.
Zilch. Zip. Nada.
When Tom Cruise goes to check Emily Blunt's bandaged wound, they cut right before we get to see her little scrape. And yes, you guessed it. The movie had a US PG-13 rating. Here in Sweden it got an 11 rating, meaning kids eleven years old could go and see it on their own. Kids seven years old could see it with their parents.
Meaning there could be no really scary parts throughout the entire movie. You never felt this was "for real".
I still enjoyed the movie, but I felt it could have been so much better with a higher age rating.
But with an R-rating they wouldn't have sold nearly as many tickets. And selling tickets/books/comics/toys is all that matters today.
By the way, did you know that the Star Wars toys have made more money than ALL the movies, the DVDs and the books combined?
Meaning all we ever get is a lot of family oriented, not too scary, not too funny, not too politically savvy, never too controversial, grey sludge drivel. And this is only getting worse by the day.
In a way I understand the publishers and movie studios. Whenever they try to do something more mature, it bombs at the box office.
Apart from Game of Thrones, of course. But the thing about Game of Thrones is that it began building a fan base almost twenty years ago, well before this current YA trend.
Do you think GRRM could have sold his gory, sexist, incestuous, backstabbing brilliant manuscript to a major publisher today, when all they're looking for is the next Hunger Games? I'm not so sure. And the world would have been a sadder place.
So, please, stop giving your kids ALL your time and money.
Keep some for yourselves.
Show the publishers and movie studios that entertainment for an adult audience is still a viable option.
Let's stop the entertainment business becoming a kids only area.
OK, rant over.
What do YOU think?
//Johan