Life and the Future

Sorry for the silence the last few weeks, I got hit by a major case of life from many different directions. I'll be trying to post two reviews a day to catch up to the books I've read this year before it's next year. I've also got my annual top 10 posts coming at the end of the month as well as a connected giveaway, and I'm working on a ridonkulous Hunger Games Movie post, so there's going to be a lot of traffic for the rest of the month.

Also, I've been thinking a lot about this blog and what I want to change about it. I've always thought of this as a blog about reading YA fiction from an adult perspective. I think that YA has a lot of good books in it that should be read and enjoyed by adults, and I want to promote them so that adult sf/f fans can find good reads that will be engaging and interesting. I don't think I've made that point very clear on the blog, however, so I'm trying to figure out ways to change that.

I think I'm going to start with tags. I'm going to add an "adult recommended" as well as an "adult not recommended" and a "potential top 10" tag. I'm also going to try to categorize more books. Right now YA sci-fi especially is a categorical swamp of confusion. YA will not label a book sci-fi upon pain of death, so there are a lot of books that are only barely or not-at-all dystopian that get that label to avoid the dreaded "science" label. Adults, though, aren't as afraid of the label and, as fans of sf, they know the categories of sf and what they like. So I'll be trying to add breakdown tags that split sf into its subcategories and help fans to see that there is a large variety of sci-fi available in YA fiction, and maybe educate current YA fans in the process so they understand the different kinds of sci-fi and get a better understanding of the genre. I'll probably do the same for fantasy. I'll also be posting some educational stuff after the new year so that people who don't know the types of sci-fi can learn how all the new area tags describe a book's plot.

I'm also toying with posts about upcoming fiction so you can keep up with new releases and preorders, or some more interactive discussion posts to engage discussion on facets of books, book fandom, and reading styles. I don't know what I will have time for, though, so I'm still only in the thinking phase on this because I don't want to overload myself right away.

Finally, I want to know what you think? Do you like these ideas? Hate them? Know of a current book meme or posting style that you would like to see here? I'm open to suggestions, so feel free to comment with what you like or hate about this blog.

RIP Anne McCaffrey

Tor and other sources are reporting that Anne McCaffrey died yesterday (Monday). After I graduated high school I found her Acorna series. It was the first series I can remember waiting on books to be published for (before that I only had access to older stuff, so it was waiting on the library to get it in instead). She also wrote the incomparable Pern series, which made her the first woman to win a Hugo and the first woman to win a Nebula award. She's also won a Heinlein award, been named a SFWA Grand Master, and been inducted in to the SF Hall of Fame. She will be missed, but her great works will live on.

For Darkness Shows the Stars Cover Release

I don't usually post new cover releases, but I can't wait on this book and I think the image is so gorgeous! Visit Diana Peterfreund's Blog for an excerpt from the book as well!

Books I am Thankful For

Beth Revis is running an amazing giveaway. The prize is tons of books, and the entries are so inspiring! I know I'm supposed to write a post about the book I'm most thankful for, but I am thankful for three, so this is going to be a long entry :D

1. I am thankful for Over Sea Under Stone by Susan Cooper

 

My fourth grade teacher assigned this book in our English class, and my nine-year-old self was totally changed. It was a book I actually liked reading. I read ahead of the class. I re-read it. I couldn't put it down. I went on to read the rest of the series on my own. I learned to use the school library and checked out books for recreation. It started my life-long joy of reading, and I will always be thankful that it was assigned.

2. I am thankful for A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

 

In the second semester of fifth grade we got assigned this book. It was my first Sci-Fi ever. I was totally floored to find that people could have scientific adventures, not just magical ones! Not only that, but it wasn't boys having all the fun, but there was a girl, and she was a girl like me with glasses and bad hair and a geeky brain that did math and not popular stuff! I think this is the first book that I totally identified with, and I think that was very important for me loving the genre as a whole.

3. I am thankful for Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce

 

If I had to pick just one book to be thankful for this would be it. In Elementary school I devoured my school's library, but I hadn't figured out genre much (and I had a very limited selection) so I read a lot of contemporary fiction and classic literature meant for children. In seventh grade, however, I moved not only to middle school but to an entirely different school in an entirely different state. They had this book and reading it changed my life. I didn't have a lot of friends in my new school, but I had books. I also had a role model. Daine was a fighter, she endured a lot of hardship and overcame problems and she was a girl! It didn't take me long to discover other girl-lead books like Pierce's Alanna and Sherwood Smith. I made a new friend over a joint love of this book, and we are best friends to this day (and still share books both good and bad).  I also learned the agony of waiting for a series to come out because for the first time I had started a series that hadn't been completed by the author. I am now a lifetime fan of Tamora Pierce and her books have inspired me to endure my military career, push on through college, and entertained me when I needed a pick-me-up. I have multiple copies of all of her books because I can't stand the thought of not loaning them out to people who haven't read them, but it frightens me that I would not have them to read myself if I loaned them out (and now, thanks to a few great con visits I have the autographed set that WILL NOT BE TOUCHED because dude, books personalized to me by Tamora Pierce!).  I don't think I would be the costuming, sci-fi movie watching, con organizing fandom girl I am today if it wasn't for this book.  (No that's not me crying on my keyboard, it must be raining inside).

Feeds

Apparently I messed with my feedburner account a little too much because it started transferring the feed from this blog to the posts on my costuming blog. So if you've been getting some very strange posts for a book blog I apologize. You may also have been getting no posts, and if this is the case and you're interested you might want to come to my site and read the last few weeks' worth of posts, since I don't know how long this has been going on. So sorry for the inconvenience and I really hope it's fixed now!

Cybils Nominations

I'm still so torn over my Cybils Nomination for Sci-Fi/Fantasy Teen Category because there are still so many good books that haven't been nom'd yet! If you haven't made a nomination yet here are some suggestions to jog your memory:

The Demon Trapper's Daughter by Jana Oliver
Mermaid by Carolyn Turgeon
Rage by Jackie Morse Kessler
Outside In by Maria V. Snyder
12.21.12 by Killian McRae
Memento Nora by Angie Smibert
Sweetly by Jackson Pearce
The Boy from Ilysies by Pearl North

Challenges

I've added a few more challenges to my challenge page:

Thanks

Many Thanks to Leah at Smart Pop | BenBella Books for donating a copy of The Girl Who Was on Fire for my giveaway!



Everyone should look at their books and consider getting a couple. They are very thought provoking! I remember coming upon them when I did a paper on Battlestar Galactica for a film/TV class in college, and their essays were very helpful and made me think more critically. Here are some of the series they have analyzed:

Harry Potter
Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Series
Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy
Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series
Ellen Hopkins’ Crank and Glass
Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series
P.C. and Kristin Cast Vampyre Series

They've also got TV and Movie-centered books, so be sure to check them out!

Cybil Awards

I've been sitting on this for a few days, but since it was posted last night I think I'm free to announce that I've been chosen as a 2nd round judge for the Fantasy and Science Fiction Cybils! I'm really excited about the opportunity to have some serious analysis discussion of some very good books :D

Which, btw, you should go nominate so we have books to read :D Here's the post with the nomination info.

ARCs

The Nostalgic Librarian is giving away some ARCs, including a copy of Liar's Moon! I am really looking forward to this book, it would be great if someone from here won it!

http://nostalgiclibrarian.blogspot.com/2011/09/teen-arc-giveaway-handmade-vintagey.html

Events

I had a blast at Dragon*Con and the Decatur Book Festival, so I want to tell you about a new event where you can meet authors and hear them speak about writing, their books, and what inspires them:



Y'All Fest is a book event/festival for Young Adult authors in Charleston, SC. I'd really love to go, it's been 10 years since I've been to Charleston and I'd love to see the city again, especially if it also gives me the opportunity to see some amazing authors like Beth Revis, Carrie Ryan, Sarah Rees Brennan, Victoria Schwab, Saundra Mitchell, Diana Peterfreund, Caitlin Kittredge, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. I'm sure it will prove to be an amazing time!


The second thing I want to tell you about is the book blogger awards, the Cybils:



Nominations for books are coming soon. I am having such a hard time deciding what to nominate! I've also thrown my hat in the ring for judging the Sci-Fi and Fantasy category. I don't think I'll get it, my blog is so new and I've been neglectful of reviews lately, but maybe it will give me better chances next year :D


Speaking of reviews, I've added a new book list to the left side bar: waiting on review. I've read so many books this year that the reviews are piling up, but I can never motivate to finish editing and posting them. I'm gonna be more diligent about that for the next few weeks, and I may post a few one-paragraph quick reviews to get back on track.

Hunger Games Resources for Dragon*Con

I haven't been posting here much because I've been preparing for (and attending) WorldCon in Reno and Dragon*Con in Atlanta. At WorldCon I did costuming stuff, but at Dragon*Con I'm lucky enough to get to give a panel on The Hunger Games. I know it's a few days away, but here are the essays I'm using to study up for the panel:

Hunger Games Essay By Andie R.
Hunger Games Study Guide
The Hunger Games Symbolism, Imagery, & Allegory
Why 'The Hunger Games' isn't the new 'Twilight' by Tina Jordan
Hogwarts Professor: Thoughts for Serious Readers' Hunger Games category
'The Hunger Games': How reality TV explains the YA sensation by Darren Franich
Panem for Thought: A Hunger Games Discussion Comm on LJ
A Speculative Map of Panem by aimmyarrowshigh and badguys
A Complete Entymology of the Names in Panem by aimmyarrowshigh and badguys
Katniss Everdeen: A Heroine For the Ages by Emmy


Finally, the most awesome, a book that looks critically at themes in The Hunger Games series:


The Girl Who Was on Fire: Your Favorite Authors on Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games Trilogy Edited by Leah Wilson

In fact, I liked this book so much that for my first YASFF Book Giveaway I'm going to give away a copy!

Contest Rules:

1. Comment with your name (or pseudonym you'd like to use publicly).
2. I'll give an extra +1 chance of winning if you're a follower of my blog.
3. Winner will be announced on Tuesday, September 27th with a post in the blog. The winner has 72 hours to contact me at yasffblog(at)gmail(dot)com with their address or I reserve the right to choose another winner.
4. Contest is open only to residents of the US and Canada. Sorry international peeps, I hope to figure out international contests soon but not for this one.

That's it! I want to keep my first contest pretty simple, but I hope it tides you over until I can get out of the con costuming rush and back to writing book reviews!

Joplin Missouri

Although I live in upstate New York I have lots of family in Southeast Kansas and Southwest Missouri. On Friday I left New York to come visit them. On Sunday we had a big lunch at Cheddars in Joplin, Mo. My brother and his wife and three kids, other brother and his girlfriend, my mom, and my best friend. Afterward we went to JoAnn's to shop for fabric to make my four year old niece a pageant dress, then back to my brother's house and chatted for a while. It quickly got really dark, the power started to flicker, and when I opened the door trees were doing circles. We spent the next half hour trying to keep three children under the age of five in the back hallway without freaking them out. It was really loud and we lost power for a while, but it came back and we went back to watching tv.

Turns out we were lucky. A tornado was probably forming over the house and skipped us over. Lots of people weren't so lucky, though. The Jo Ann's where we shopped at a few hours earlier is completely gone. So is the high school and one of the two hospitals, as well as miles of houses and businesses. My brother quickly got called in to his job with the police department, and my sister in law responded to a call for nurses not long after that. They've told me a lot of stories, but they're all so heartbreaking I don't think I can post any here. What I can say, though, is that things are bad. Really bad. The water's not safe to drink and there's not enough of it to give pressure for the fire department to put out fires started by the storm. Hundreds of people have no homes. Many of them are injured, and enough are injured badly and the hospitals are running out of blood. There is debris everywhere and rescuers are still finding people in wreckage.

It always hits close when something like this happens. Right now I can say that if you want to donate money please contact the Red Cross. Better yet, if you can please donate blood this week. They really, really need blood at the blood banks. Also, since the high school is gone, I'm going to try and coordinate a book donation drive to get books to restock the high school library when it gets built again. It probably won't be for a few years, but I know that fiction from the library was the joy of my high school days, and I'd hate for some of these students to miss their opportunity because of this storm. I know I have some good-quality hardcovers that I can give to a good cause, and I bet some of the rest of you do, too. I'll post more on this when I get in touch with the high school librarian in the next month and get more info on what they need and when they might need it.

Break

Costume Con is coming up in two weeks, and I'm competing there, so I'll be scarce on here until it's over. Don't worry, though, I'll be back on May 6!

A Young Adult Hugo Award?

I know I'm resurrecting a months-old topic, but I'd like to post my view on a pervasive argument against a YA Hugo that I've seen. It has a few permutations: would a YA Hugo attract readers to other Hugo nominees that aren't YA? Would the adult Hugo voters nominate and award stuff that kids and teens want to read? Would a YA Hugo attract younger people to WorldCon? I think this is really all part of the same question: would implementing this category actually get younger people to pay positive attention to us?

My answer is a limited yes. I do think it would help younger people to pay more attention to the Hugos and to WorldCon. Why limited? Because of course it's not going to work on every YA reader who's bought a YA novel in the last year. Nor should it. We don't want all the readers who ever read YA fiction. We want the ones who like science fiction and fantasy. The ones with inquisitive minds who like the imaginative elements of the escapist fiction we find valuable. We want the ones who will grow up to read (and maybe write) novels that will resonate with the Hugo voters in other categories as well as YA book nominations. Yes, I know this eliminates most of the "Twilight-only" and trendy paranormal romance crowd who crave romance over the spec-fic packaging it's in (not that all paranormal romance fans are like this, but I feel that the trending ones have more of a tendency to this). I think that's an ok result. Romance books have their own awards. And, after all, while we would like *more* people, we don't want a singular fan base overwhelming the convention or the voting or changing the tone and atmosphere of the convention. But I do think that in every genre, including the paranormal romance one, there are books worth reading and awarding, and we shouldn't throw all the genre out because of our opinion on one or two popular examples.

As to the related question: would a YA Hugo get more kids to read books? I'll have to answer honestly: probably not. I do think, however, that it will appeal to kids like us. Thinking back to Jr. High and High School, though, my parents never agonized over getting me to read more. In fact, I was specifically told to read less (because SOME people think math class is inappropriate for reading :( Can you imagine!?!). My problem was always finding more stuff to read that was of the type I wanted. My choices in a pre-internet Kansas school and library system were incredibly limited, and even finding names of books to order on ILL was a hard thing. While I think the internet makes this easier, I would still think that a YA Hugo would assist in this matter. Knowing the names of five books a year that are guaranteed to be the type of fiction I liked would have made me feel incredibly happy because I wouldn't have felt so alone in liking the "weird stuff" (as my parents, peers, and librarians made me feel when I asked for sci-fi and fantasy). If it also encouraged librarians in smaller public and school libraries in the middle of Kansas to stock more sci-fi and fantasy it would be an incredible boon. Even if it is adults choosing books for children, it's also increasing the choices available to those children who like the stuff we like. I think that giving kids access to Sci-Fi at a young age can only be a good thing. Giving them access to varied kinds of GOOD Sci-Fi would be even better. As someone who read Battlefield Earth five summers in a row because it was the only Sci-Fi book on the shelf in the public library I certainly would have appreciated it. I think that if a Young Adult Hugo makes a Young Adult librarian pause and go "maybe I should get the Hugo winner instead of another copy of this victorian classic" then we have done what the Hugos should do: increase interest in good Science Fiction.

To the final question, "can adults pick out good YA books in an award system like the Hugos?" I say yes as well. Perhaps it is because I still read YA fiction to a great extent, but I don't think it is a reach for adults to judge YA fiction and find the stuff that is good. Good books resonate. Even as an adult they have the ability to make you remember how it felt to be a teenager going through similar difficult times. I also think it is something that would reach down to the readers, especially the readers who will grow up to be Hugo voters. Yes, we may not identify with the girl who lives to fall in love with a sparkly vampire, but I think that a well-written book about a vampire (sparkles or no) would appeal to adults as well as children. And I believe that the YA books that would appeal to the Hugo voters would be the ones that appeal to children and teens that are "one of us". The people we want to attract to the Hugos and to WorldCons in the future. The ones who can be running WorldCon in 2035 because they were attracted to the scene young. I would also argue that reading habits don't change that much over the years. Think back to what you read as a teenager. If you're a hard-core sci-fi fan I bet it was sci-fi. If you lean more towards fantasy I bet it was fantasy. However, I'd bet it wasn't Harlequin romances that developed your love of science fiction. Sure, themes you identify with the most may have changed from "experiences of a teenage boy" to "experiences of a middle-aged man", but I bet those themes were wrapped up in approximately the same package. If we're looking to attract readers who will want to enjoy the media in all the Hugo award categories then it makes sense to award the stuff that the adults like. In doing so we're self-selecting, and the readers who like what we select will understand that the Hugos are the books that mean something to them, so the people that vote on them might be people who will understand them and their loves.

February Famine, March Glut

Hmm, I swore I wrote out a well-reasoned and long explanation post at the beginning of the month warning everyone that this blog would be bare while I visited home and had iffy internet, but now I can't find it for the life of me. Perhaps it was all a dream?

Anyway, thanks for being patient with me. I've been traveling a lot (including one particularly grueling 36 hour train ride) so I've read quite a bunch, but my internet connection has been iffy enough that I haven't been able to post. I'm pretty certain of my connection for the time being, though, so I'll be posting reviews more frequently. I've decided to do one a day until I'm done with my backlog so that you are able to savor each and every one :D Friday will be another hellacious train ride (hopefully only the planned 24 hours instead of the extended 36), so there may not be an update then, but I'll be back on Saturday.

Across The Universe by Beth Revis Release Date

Across the Universe comes out today! Are you as excited as I am? I hope after you see some of the stuff they've done for this book then you will be!!!

First, take a look at the cool trailer:




Then check out this awesome video Beth did about the book:




You've also gotta go and take a look at the awesome Across the Universe website. It's an interactive version of the Godspeed, the ship from the book! Unfortunately you'll have to open Explorer or Chrome, I couldn't get it to work in Firefox at all, but the website is so worth it! Be sure and look at all the details on the farms. It's so strange-but-awesome to see a science fiction book put so much detail into agricultural science and the webs of lifeforms required to have a sustainable enclosed eco-system.

Need more? Here's some cool links to tide you over until you can run out to the bookstore:

Author Beth Revis' Website
Beth's Blog
Beth's Twitter
Penguin Books' Teen Readers Page
Penguin's Teen Twitter
Penguin's Teen Facebook
Across The Universe's Facebook


Convinced? Order the book from Indie Books!


Not Convinced? Well there's a 111-page excerpt up from now (11:11am EST) until 11:11pm EST tonight on io9.com. Go check it out here!