[Cid_Yama]

YOU may have missed it, in the face of the apparently inexhaustible appetite for paranormal romance involving vampires, fallen angels and werewolves, but in the past few years another very different genre has been quietly gathering strength in young adult literature.

That's the dystopian strand of speculative fiction, where a future is imagined that is dark and oppressive.

Even more surprisingly, though environmental degradation hovers in the background of many novels, relatively few focus directly on the apocalypse du jour, global warming and catastrophic climate change. Saci Lloyd's The Carbon Diaries 2015/2017, Exodus/Zenith by Julie Bertagna and, to some extent, Paolo Bacigalupi's prize-winning Ship Breaker are notable exceptions.

Most modern YA dystopian novels instead are focused on the issues of government or corporation control, surveillance and manipulation, and the timeless suspicion of a dastardly elite conspiracy working to keep the proles docile. Concerns about invasive technologies and deep fears about the ironing-out of human imperfection also fuel many novels, leading to some thought-provoking scenarios.

link

[Outcast_Searcher]

To me, this article looks like a weak excuse for an ad (as SO MANY supposedly credible periodicals are now doing blatantly -- just advertising and pretending it's an article). Either that, or it's written by someone hugely ignorant of science fiction history, and expecting its audience to be the same.

Dystopian - and I mean really DARK dystopian science fiction has been extremely popular, pretty much since the genre became known to the common man (say the late 50's).

Many of the biggies like:

Philip K. Dick
Kurt Vonnegut
Vernor Vinge
Robert Silverberg

spent a huge percentage of their time focusing on dystopian scenarios. I had to quit reading Vonnegut for a few years when I was in my 20's, he was so depressing.

And the trend continues: some of my modern favorites:

Charles Stross
Dan Simmons
Richard K. Morgan
Michael Z. Williams

you want dark stuff to dwell on -- these guys give it to you in droves.

I glanced at:

"The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature"

and the table of contents mentioned Huxley and Orwell -- which spawned lots of movies on dystopian subjects, of course.

Or try:

"The Way to Ground Zero"

lots of dwelling on the single dystopian topic of nuclear war. No shortage of material there!

....

If you're implying this as some new doom-inspiring proof of hard times, I think you need to look elsewhere...

[Sixstrings]

Saci Lloyd's The Carbon Diaries 2015/2017, Exodus/Zenith by Julie Bertagna and, to some extent, Paolo Bacigalupi's prize-winning Ship Breaker are notable exceptions.

Getting hard to find a good book to read anymore. Bookstores aren't what they used to be.. the selection has been cut way back. Places like Books a Million are on their last legs due to the tablet / kindle market. What they do have seems to be all geared to kids.

When I do find a good book to read it feels rushed, not polished. Bacigalupi's Windup Girl and Ship Breaker are both "award winning," yet I found Windup Girl needed another year's work -- should have been fleshed out more, twice as long. I read reviews of Ship Breaker that said it ought to have been a regular adult novel and twice as long.

I'm used to using a bookstore to find something to read, just not like it was in the old days though. I try Amazon.. use all the search options, filter best selling top rated but blah nothing looks good.

The eReader thing is bad for books I think.. poorer quality coming out now, short in length, lots of novellas -- invariably mindless "vampire" and "werewolf" stuff that makes the authors millionaires. So I dunno, sure it's good kids are reading but it seems like fiction reading itself is becoming a "young adult" thing but those kind of books are just pulp not any kind of substantial literature.

Anyhow back on topic.. I don't think this is an indication of youth consciousness to doomer issues, probably an extension of the vampire craze. Dark moody fiction can be good stuff, but thing is even with their vampires and whatnot all this young adult lit is very sanitized and watered down. Or outright silly melodrama like the Twilight stuff.

[Cid_Yama]

Outcast, had you read the actual article you would have found this:

Like the vampire-shapeshifter wave, this one is hardly new but ebbs and flows in a tidal cycle of popularity. And it has always followed the zeitgeist, reflecting and projecting the fears and concerns of the times.

In the 1960s, 70s and 80s, dominated by the threat of the nuclear holocaust, scenarios of dystopian YA novels mostly centred on post-nuclear war backgrounds where human beings reverted to pre-industrial levels, such as the great classic of the genre, Robert C. O'Brien's Z for Zachariah, or alien invasion and domination, such as John Christopher's seminal Tripods trilogy.

The end of the Cold War and the liberation of eastern Europe meant an ebb for the genre in the 90s, though there were still notable examples.

So your attack against the piece seems out of place. Why the strong emotion?

I am personally encouraged that there is a move towards more serious and thought provoking subject matter.

Perhaps, it is the anti-authoritarian take that displeases you?

[Sixstrings]

I am personally encouraged that there is a move towards more serious and thought provoking subject matter.

Literature loses though, when authors shift to the lucrative youth market. Reading reviews of Ship Breaker, many adult readers were disappointed this wasn't written as weighter adult novel. Darn it, why can't the young adults read real books.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Outcast, had you read the actual article you would have found this:

Like the vampire-shapeshifter wave, this one is hardly new but ebbs and flows in a tidal cycle of popularity. And it has always followed the zeitgeist, reflecting and projecting the fears and concerns of the times.

In the 1960s, 70s and 80s, dominated by the threat of the nuclear holocaust, scenarios of dystopian YA novels mostly centred on post-nuclear war backgrounds where human beings reverted to pre-industrial levels, such as the great classic of the genre, Robert C. O'Brien's Z for Zachariah, or alien invasion and domination, such as John Christopher's seminal Tripods trilogy.

The end of the Cold War and the liberation of eastern Europe meant an ebb for the genre in the 90s, though there were still notable examples.

So your attack against the piece seems out of place. Why the strong emotion?

I am personally encouraged that there is a move towards more serious and thought provoking subject matter.

Perhaps, it is the anti-authoritarian take that displeases you?

I stand correctly convicted of not reading the entire piece. I personally think vampire stories are silly, so when I hit the words vampire-shapeshifter ( )
I skipped down and missed the part you rightly accuse me of not reading.
(Shame on me and my anti-vampire bias).

What had displeased me was my (misplaced -- again, my bad for making the ASSumption) thinking that the part I read looked like a shallow article primarily aimed at pumping certain titles. I quit reading certain publications, like Business Week due to that exact behavior.

As a science fiction fan, I also tend to see favorite authors not get attribution for their ideas, and this tends to hit a nerve -- so again -- I let my emotions overcome my brain (enabling the behavior I criticize in others about financial discipline) -- so I guess I need to go stand in the corner for awhile, or at least read more carefully next time before criticizing.

If the titles mentioned are indeed serious and/or thought provoking -- then I wholeheartedly agree with your liking any move toward that!

[Revi]

Don't forget Octavia Butler's parables series. I think it's the best dystopian fiction ever. Everything goes wrong, the government is run by crazy people and people cope with it. It's a lot like living in Maine lately.

[DomusAlbion]

Don't forget Octavia Butler's parables series. I think it's the best dystopian fiction ever. Everything goes wrong, the government is run by crazy people and people cope with it. It's a lot like living in Maine lately.

Butler's stories are great and have a very real feel about them. As to the young reader and dystopian fiction, why not read about the dystopian reality that is emerging on every side of us.

[Cid_Yama]

It's sad when reality is more dystopian than fiction.

[Novus]

It's sad when reality is more dystopian than fiction.

Well isn't that the truth. There is more then enough dystopian non-fiction to satisfy people these days.