Analog Science Fiction and Fact - June 2013

THE REFERENCE LIBRARY Don Sakers
Much of the excitement in today’s publishing
world is happening in the field
of young adult fiction, also known as
teen fiction or simply YA. We have J.
K. Rowling to thank for this; the enormous
success of the Harry Potter books showed
publishers that YA represented a vast untapped
market, especially for fantasy and science
fiction.
Of course, science fiction for younger readers
is nothing new. The Tom Swift series, published
by the Stratemeyer Syndicate beginning
in 1910, were arguably the first science fiction
books aimed at younger readers. (In those
days, there was no real consciousness of
“teenager” as a separate developmental phase;
in general society, people were either children
or adults. According to most sources, it wasn’t
until after World War II that we began to think
of teens as different than children.)
In the prewar period, outside SF fandom, all
of science fiction was considered literature for
the young. Fans and writers who were adults
in that period often spoke of being belittled for
reading “that crazy Buck Rogers stuff.” The
Campbell revolution was the real beginning of
science fiction for adults, and it was nearly another
two decades before book publishers
took SF seriously as an adult market.
Throughout the late 1940s and into the early
1960s, many well-known SF authors wrote
what we now recognize as young adult SF (although
at the time they were called “juveniles.”)
The best known and most beloved are
Robert A. Heinlein and Andre Norton, but
there were numerous other examples. By then
the distinction between YA and adult SF was
well-established, and longtime readers have
endless fun arguing whether Podkayne of
Mars or Witch World fit into one category or
the other. (Not to keep you in suspense, the
answer is “both.”)
During the 1980s and most of the 1990s, YA
fiction was essentially undifferentiated by
genre; instead, it was dominated by temporary
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fads. There would be a bestseller about, say,
wilderness survival or death in the family, and
for a year or so every other book would be similar
. . . until the readers lost interest and moved
on to the next fad.
That changed in 1997 with the arrival of
Harry Potter. At first, Harry looked like just another
fad—the cry among booksellers and librarians
alike was “more books like Harry Potter.”
Yet soon, the realization dawned that what
many teens really wanted was imaginative,
speculative novels: fantasy and science fiction.
So what makes a novel a YA book? As a publishing
category, YA books are aimed at an audience
roughly 12-18 years old. However, recent
surveys estimate that more than half the
YA books published are read by older (sometimes
much older) readers.
It doesn’t have to do with sex or violence, either.
YA literature deals with all sorts of topics
once considered taboo.
YA books most often have protagonists under
21—but so do a lot of unquestionably adult
books. No one considers Alexei Panshin’s Rite
of Passage to be a YA book, for example, even
though its protagonist is under 15.
Putting on my librarian hat here, true YA literature
embodies the concerns of teenagers.
That covers everything from bedwetting and
complexion problems to questions of life,
death, and the meaning of the Universe. Yet it
also leaves out a lot. You’re unlikely to see a YA
book focusing on career anxiety, for instance.
In the typical YA novel, adult characters
tend to be ineffectual, villains, or missing altogether.
If there were competent adults around,
how could the teenage protagonists have an
active role in solving major problems? If the
staff of Hogwarts were fully responsible adults,
Harry and his young friends would never be
confronting the dangers they do—not without
the adults going to trial for criminal negligence.
Nowadays, though, there are two categories
of YA books being published. First are traditional
YA books with all the characteristics list-