Let Me Google That for You

Since I imagine readers of this blog and/or League books probably enjoy thinking about words, I thought I'd highlight a nifty tool: the Google books Ngram Viewer.

As you'd expect, Google likes data. They're pretty much tracking everything that can possibly be tracked, which can be scary, but they also give their users a lot of access to that data. So what's an "Ngram"? Wikipedia defines it as:

In the fields of computational linguistics and probability, an n-gram is a contiguous sequence of n items from a given sequence of text or speech. The items can be phonemes, syllables, letters, words or base pairs according to the application. The n-grams typically are collected from a text or speech corpus.

Basically, Google has provided us with a way to search for certain words or phrases that have appeared in books over a certain period of time, from about 1800 to 2008, then display the results on a graph to show their frequency of occurrence. The first things I plugged in when I discovered this a few years ago were topics related to the books I was writing. This is what the Google Ngram viewer displays for "parallel universe, alternate universe, multiple worlds":

That is awesome. See, physicist Hugh Everett III proposed his "many-worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics — the idea that a parallel universe exists for every action and decision we make — in 1957. The theory was promptly ignored in the scientific community until around the late 1970s and early 1980s, though it had appeared in science fiction for decades before that and grown in popularity, particularly in television shows like The Twilight Zone and Star Trek, and much later, Sliders. If you've been reading a lot of YA, you've probably noticed an increase in novels about alternate realities lately, and so has Google.

Let's try something even more popular. This is the search for "vampire":

This looks about right to me. Vampires have been around in folklore and fiction for a while before Bram Stoker wrote Dracula in 1897. But it sure looks like it really took off around 2005. Wonder what could account for that?

Okay, one more:

Whoa. Right?

I find this endlessly fascinating, almost as addictive as Wikipedia or TV Tropes (no links, you're welcome). What do you think of this tool? What sorts of terms are you interested in searching for?

How Do You Define Dystopian?

Okay, so I've been attending a symposium on science fiction and fantasy, and I was asked to sit on a dystopian/utopian panel.

We spent a lot of time discussing what makes a novel a dystopia. There were a few of us on the panel, and we all had interesting things to say, some of which included:

• A society that includes "bad" things.
• A society in a post-apocalyptic world.
• A "closed" society--one that exists without any outside influence.
• A society that includes a overbearing government.
• A novel that includes social commentary.

I'm going to open it up to you. How do you define dystopia? 

Humanity and Technology: An Interview with ODYSSEY's Elizabeth Lindstrom

This month's issue of ODYSSEY, a science and science fiction magazine for tweens and teens, has a decidedly dystopian flavor. The theme is "Am I a Borg, Yet?" The short story for the issue is about "cyborgs with dangerous agendas." (How can you not love that?)

Elizabeth Lindstrom, the editor of ODYSSEY, has graciously allowed me to pick her brains about what she looks for in a story and what her readers like. I've had the pleasure of working with Beth on many occasions. In fact, my novel, MEMENTO NORA, grew out of a short story of the same name published in ODYSSEY several years ago.


So, first a little about Beth.

Elizabeth Lindstrom is a senior editor at Cobblestone Publishing, where she edits the award-winning children’s science magazine ODYSSEY. After graduating from University of New Hampshire with a master’s degree in English, she worked as a newspaper reporter and features writer. She is the recipient of the New England Press Association award for investigative reporting, the New Hampshire Press Association award for social services writing, and numerous Educational Press Association and Parents’ Choice awards. Before coming to Cobblestone, she taught non-fiction writing at Saint Anselm College.


Welcome, Beth. Tell us a little about ODYSSEY. Who are your readers?

ODYSSEY is a science and technology magazine aimed at kids 10 to 16 years old. It has an edgy tone and an artsy look. In reality, some precocious 8-year-olds read it, and I know a lot of adults who enjoy it too. But when planning the issue, I target a bright 12-year-old whose parents want him/her to be exposed to the real world. The magazine includes articles, activities, and interviews for science junkies, but it also includes soft science pieces, beautiful art, and fiction to lure those kids who might not otherwise pick up a science magazine. Our monthly fiction feature is only several years old, but it is very popular with readers.

What's your role?

I pretty much determine what you’re going to see and read in the pages of ODYSSEY each month and what will be on its cover. I select the theme each month, assign and edit the articles, do the photo research, and select the illustrators. I work with Jim Fletcher, a very talented designer.

What do you look for in a story?

I’ll list my criteria:

• Believable characters who are memorable and approachable even if they aren’t supposed to be likeable.
• Dialogue that really has a voice, one that is suitable for our readers.
• Threads of good science that anchor the story.
• A consistent setting – one that doesn’t leap into the future and then sound retro because of its details.
• A plot that is neither too light nor too dark.
  
• A meaning that lingers with a reader after they read the last line.

What have been some of the most popular themes, articles, and/or stories? In other words, what do your readers really love?

Well, the theme of our most popular issue of all time was “Poop – What a Waste!” I guess that’s not surprising because kids love yucky things. “Is It Science or Art” was also a very popular theme, which seems to counter what I just said. Issues on crime scene science, killer viruses, and extreme science are also winners. Einstein, Feynman, and Goodall were popular biographical-themed issues. I don’t have a sense of a particular story being especially popular. I get letters from readers saying they love to read the story in each issue and see how it is connected to the science in the same issue. I think that is great because it shows readers that there is a link between science and art.

What can we expect in the September (aka, Am I a Borg, Yet?) issue?

The issue is out. You can sample it on our Web site odysseymagazine.com. It includes both bionics for restoration and bionics for enhancement, and deals with the many ethical issues of a world filled with hybrid humans — when we are part flesh and part steel. How soon will it happen? Should it happen? The issue includes the story “Afterman” by Zareh MacPherson Artinian, which explores a dystopian world filled with cyborgs with dangerous agendas.

Why this theme?

As I said in my editor’s note for the issue, humanity and technology are right now, and will continue in readers’ lifetimes, forging a powerful new relationship. It is important that we consider this exciting leap very carefully. We can’t let being a cyborg seem too romantic. An article in the issue called “The Human Enhancement Revolution!” looks at what has been called “the most important controversy in science and society this new century.” "Am I Borg, Yet?" is definitely a good theme for ODYSSEY.


Thanks, Beth!

You can order an issue or a subscription of ODYSSEY here. If you're interested in writing for Odyssey, check out the submission guidelines.

Closets of the Apocalypse

I lived on the Space Coast (east central) of Florida for ten years. Most of those years were quiet, catastrophe-wise. Then in 2004, we had 4 major hurricanes hit the state. Three of them rolled through our area, two almost making landfall in the same spot about 100 miles south of me. (My car still has a dent where Jeanne threw some mystery object at it.) In 2005, we had so many tropical storms and hurricanes that we ran through all of the official storm names and started on the Greek alphabet.

Before the storms, I had accumulated a reasonable number of hurricane supplies. All the usual suspects: candles, batteries, water, manual can opener. But some things you discover you need only after you actually need them.

Bleach. If you can’t boil water because the electricity is off and you’re out of propane or charcoal for your grill, you can use a drop of bleach (per so many gallons) to purify water.

TV antenna. Most TVs these days don’t come them.

Cash. No electricity, no ATM or credit card purchases. Some places didn’t have electricity for weeks after, but they still were open for business.

Gas. During Hurricane Francis, the entire state of Florida ran out of gas. Since it was an enormous (wide) storm, I ended up going to Georgia. On the way back, there were huge signs at the Florida border that said NO GAS. You could see people with South Florida plates with full cans of gasoline strapped to roofs of their cars.

Beer. Enough said.

So, after the storms I had really well stocked Hurricane Pantry. I shared my list of supplies with a friend who didn’t live in a hurricane (or earthquake or flood) zone, and she shared it with some other people. Next thing I know, my friend has a Bird Flu Survival Stash under her kitchen sink. She added cigarettes to my list, not only because she smokes but also because she says cigarettes will become the new currency. Just like in prison.

Another friend, who actually survived Katrina in New Orleans, has what she only half-jokingly calls the 2012 Armageddon Closet at her rental cabin in the mountains. The food and supplies are primarily in case the guests get snowed in and can’t make it to the store. But, I think my friend and her hubby are planning to occupy the cabin themselves, oh, around December of 2012, just in case.

After moving back to the mountains, I let my hurricane supplies sit on the shelf, batteries slowly expiring and analog TV becoming obsolete. Last winter, though, my Hurricane Pantry morphed into the Snowpocalypse Stash. I added pet friendly deicer and a small shovel to carry in the car. I still need a portable digital TV, though.

Do any of you have secret supplies for surviving potential apocalypses? A Swine Flu Fridge? A Climate Change Closet? (To clarify, I'm not talking about being a full-on survivalist with a storehouse of MRE's and ammo. No, just average folk with a tiny fear of running out of duct tape, peanut butter, and MGD 64.)

And, think about this when you’re reading or writing dystopian fiction, too. What dumb thing are the characters going to have to work around because they all of a sudden don’t have it anymore? How can you use that to heighten the drama?

Handling the Baggage

But that’s the way it works. That’s how it would happen.

We’ve all said that at one time or another as writers. An editor or critique reads our carefully researched darling of an idea or scene and tells us that it’s not believable. Or it didn’t happen that way. And we want to drag out our piles of research and rub their noses in it. Or we just want to write the naysayers off as being too thick to get it and go on our merry way.

But we can’t do that. Our job as fiction writers isn’t telling the truth. Our job is creating the appearance of truth, aka verisimilitude. If the readers don’t get it, then we’re the ones being thick.

So, how do we get them to get it?

Readers of any age come into a story with some baggage, some preconceptions about how the world works. Readers of science fiction and dystopia already have ideas—from movies, TV, and other books—of what, for instance, a post-plague world might look like. They’re generally willing to suspend disbelief—until they encounter something that doesn’t jive with their preconceptions, until they run over the baggage-shaped speed bump in the road through your story.

What do we do? We writers either have to cleverly convince the readers the story could happen that way or remove the speed bumps that jostle them out of the story.

I know of two strategies to do this:

(1) Take it out. Do you really need the detail? Although you did the research, you don’t need to include everything. Don’t fall in love with a detail or even an idea. (I do this all the time.) Is it critical to the story? If not, maybe you don’t need it. If this one thing that’s not critical to the story trips up your readers, then axe it.

(2) Debunk the popular wisdom. Use the truth to give the story even more authenticity. The best example I’ve heard to explain this strategy is from another genre—mystery. (And I’m going to steal shamelessly from a class I took from Michaela Roesner years ago.)

Let’s say you’re writing a scene where your protagonist has to identify a body at a small town morgue. Being a stickler for authenticity, you visit your local medical examiner, and she tells you no one ever identifies the body by actually looking at it. They use dental records, finger prints, and DNA testing. As a last resort, they might show a photo of the deceased to his or her family. And you find out most morgues are like that. So you write your scene in which the hero is shown a photo, but your editor later says it’s not believable. On TV or in movies, they always get to see the body.

But that's the way it works, you want to tell her.

Now what? Let's say the scene is crucial to your story, so you keep it. How do you make the truth believable? You could have your protagonist storming in, demanding to see the body. Then the disgruntled medical examiner could quip something like “What do you think this is? CSI: Miami? Those TV guys have ruined this profession.” In a few lines, you’ve turned the reader’s preconception on its ear--plus you've given them the feeling that now they're going to hear how it really works.

Can you guys think of other strategies you’ve used or read to create the appearance of truth? Also, what particular "baggage" do young adults (and adults) bring into dystopian fiction? Do teens bring fewer preconceptions just because they're younger? Or do they just have a different set of luggage than we adults?

The Literature of the What-if

Not too long ago a fellow writer and I had this conversation:

FW: I wouldn’t say my book is science fiction. Post-apocalyptic, yes. Dystopian, sure. Speculative fiction, Perhaps.

ME: How can your book be post-apocalyptic without being science fiction?

FW: Good question.

A good question indeed. And to answer it, we need to start with another good question. [BTW, we'll assume his book isn't fantasy--because it's not.] What is science fiction? This question is so good that science fiction writers, editors, and scholars have been debating it since Hugo Gernsbeck coined the term in the 1920’s. (He actually called it scientifiction when he created the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. When he started Science Wonder Stories in 1929, Gernsbeck changed the term to science fiction.)

If you look up science fiction in a dictionary, you might get something like this:

–noun
a form of fiction that draws imaginatively on scientific knowledge and speculation in its plot, setting, theme, etc. [dictionary.com]

or

fiction in which advanced technology and/or science is a key element. [Wikitionary.com]

So, I can see where my fellow writer might think his book or a book like Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD is not science fiction. There’s no science or technology left in the world, and the story is character-driven.

To me, the dictionary definition is sort of the layman’s or outsider’s take on the genre. The insiders' take on the field isn't always clear, though. Most writers, scholars, and editors of science fiction seem to have their own definition of the genre. Some say it’s indefinable. Others say it’s nothing more than a marketing category. Some, like Damon Knight, basically said you know when you see it. (Kind of like pornography!) And, those who do try to define the genre don’t always agree. Here are a few opinions:

Science fiction is really sociological studies of the future, things that the writer believes are going to happen by putting two and two together.

- Ray Bradbury

A good science-fiction story is a story about human beings, with a human problem, and a human solution, that would not have happened at all without its science content.

-Theodore Sturgeon

Modern science fiction is the only form of literature that consistently considers the nature of the changes that face us, the possible consequences, and the possible solutions. That branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of scientific advance upon human beings.

- Isaac Asimov

... science fiction is the myth-making principle of human nature today.

- Lester Del Rey

You'll notice that none of these masters of the genre said it was all about the science or technology. It's about their impact on human beings.

Personally, though, I have to go with Orson Scott Card's eminently practical definition in his book, HOW TO WRITE SCIENCE FICTION:

Speculative fiction includes all stories that take place in a setting contrary to reality.

Card lumps fantasy and science fiction under the umbrella of speculative fiction, which I think is entirely reasonable. The difference between the two has to do with whether the world obeys the laws of the world as we know it (science fiction) or the world as the author has created it (fantasy).

This is how I think of science fiction and fantasy. Both are the literature of the what-if. What if a comet struck the Earth? What if you could erase bad memories with a pill (and earn frequent forgetting points while doing it)? What if the Victorians had invented computers? What if vampires were real—and sparkly?

In science fiction (as opposed to fantasy), the what-if scenario has to be based on the laws of our universe—which does mean science and technology have to be involved somewhere along the line. They do need to be integral to the plot, but that doesn’t mean the story has to be about ray guns or space ships or mutants. The science doesn't even have to be explained in the story at all. In THE ROAD, the setting is contrary to reality, the world operates according the laws of our universe, but it wouldn’t exist without the impact of science or technology. (The world went to hell for some fathomable reason--war, plague, etc.)

So, yes, my fellow writer(s), your post-apocalyptic, dystopian, perhaps speculative fiction story is science fiction. The fact that THE ROAD and a few other books (like Margaret Atwood's) are shelved in the mainstream fiction section of your local Barnes & Noble has much more to do with marketing and the ghettoization of genre fiction. But that's a whole 'nuther post.

OK, I'm easing off my soapbox--for now. How do you guys define science fiction? Is dystopian its own genre, or is it a sub-genre of science fiction? Do you think it’s even necessary to worry about the labels? Discuss.

I Think, Therefore I Read and Write (Dystopia)

There's been some discussion (here and elsewhere in the blogosphere) about why dystopian literature is becoming so popular. I could link you to a bunch of places and we could probably theorize on it forever.

But for me, I think it comes down to this: Dystopian novels make you think.

Let's explore.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson. I'm not going to ruin it for you, but this is what the School Library Journal had to say about the book.

"Pearson has constructed a gripping, believable vision of a future dystopia. She explores issues surrounding scientific ethics, the power of science, and the nature of the soul with grace, poetry, and an apt sense of drama and suspense."

I adored this book, not only for the great characterization in Jenna, but the way it made me stop and think.

Unwind by Neal Shusterman. Again, no spoilers, but here's what Publisher's Weekly had to say about this dystopian.

"Gripping, brilliantly imagined futuristic thriller...The issues raised could not be more provocative--the sanctuary of life, the meaning of being human--while the delivery could hardly be more engrossing or better aimed to teens."

And again, from the School Library Journal:

"This gripping, thought-provoking novel is guaranteed to lead to interesting discussions about abortion, adoption, organ donation, religion, politics, and health care."

As I turned the pages of this book, I found myself not only riveted by the characters and plot, but often I found myself pausing to examine my own thoughts on particular issues.

I think Scott Westerfeld (author of the UGLIES trilogy) says it best in his review of Carrie Ryan's The Forest of Hands and Teeth:

"Zombies have been metaphors for many things: consumerism, contagion in an overpopulated world, the inevitability of death. But here they resonate with a particularly teenage realization about the world--that social limits and backward traditions are numberless and unstoppable, no matter how shambling they may seem at first.

And yet we must try to escape them anyway, lest we wither inside the fence."

His thoughts "that social limits and backward traditions are numberless and unstoppable, no matter how shambling they may seem at first. And yet we must try to escape them anyway, lest we wither inside the fence." are EXACTLY why dystopian novels are riding the tidal wave of popularity. And not just with young adults, but with anyone who dares to think.

What do YOU think? What novels have made you stop and think -- about life, love, the apocalypse?

There's Nothing New Pretty Under the Sun

What does a man from Chicago in the early 20s, an old episode of The Twilight Zone, and best-selling YA author Scott Westerfeld all have in common?

They all tell stories about a world where, when you reach a certain age, you are expected--even covertly forced--to get extensive plastic surgery to make you beautiful.

Perhaps best known is Scott Westerfeld's series starting with the book Uglies. In it, Tally is about to get the surgery to make her pretty when she discovers that the surgery does more than change your outside.

But nerds dystopian scholars like me :) will know that the idea of being turned pretty is a story that was first told on The Twilight Zone. The episode is called "Number 12 Looks Just Like You," and in it, a young girl protests getting the surgery, saying "Is [getting a surgery to be beautiful and perfect] good? Being like everybody? I mean, isn't that the same as being nobody?"

(Also: HILARIOUS--Rod Sterling says in the beginning that we're supposed to imagine this in the future, "Say, in the year 2000." HAHAHA!)

Here's a short version of it (less than five minutes long), but there are longer whole versions available online, too.



And while The Twilight Zone is clearly old--this episode aired in 1964--the source of it is a short story by Charles Beaumont in 1952 called "Beautiful People."

It's clear where Scott Westerfeld got his inspiration from. Although by no means did he copy The Twilight Zone, it certainly sparked the idea for Uglies--a fact attested to in the book Mind-Rain. As reviewer RJ Carter says, "There are two special shorts in this collection that are actually pre-Uglies publications, and Westerfeld explains how both impacted his writing of the series. The first is Charles Beaumont's "The Beautiful People," a short story about a society where, at a certain age, everyone gets the operation that makes them beautiful. Society is thrown for a loop, however, when a young girl discovers ancient texts -- actually printed on paper, if you can believe that! -- and decides she wants to keep her natural appearance. Sound familiar? Maybe you saw it on television: Beaumont's 1952 story was turned into an episode of The Twilight Zone, a story titled "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" which aired in 1964."

I love that Westerfeld embraces the sources of his inspiration, and that we, as readers, can see how these differences play out. To me, it's interesting to compare how in 1964, the story ended with the girl falling to the surgery and coming out, as Rod Sterling says it, "A girl in love...with herself." But in Westerfeld's story--which progresses through four volumes--the heroine becomes a true heroine fighting back against the establishment and the idea of being pretty.

While the differences in the outcomes of the girls isn't the only thing that distinguishes these three works from each other, it is the one I find most intriguing. Is the difference one based on time? Were we expecting the worst in 1964, but expecting to fight in 2005? Or is it more a matter of telling different stories?

Recently, I was at a talk and book-signing of Robert Goolrick, author of The Reliable Wife. (Photo from Fireside Books, my local indie.) He mentioned that authors really only have two or three or maybe six things to say--but no more. Every writer has a basic thing to say--Does true love exist? Does good triumph over evil? Is God real?--and every book is the writer's attempt to answer that question.

So, what was the difference between Charles Beaumont, The Twilight Zone, and Scott Westerfeld? What different thing were they saying--and what similar things were they saying? What do you think? Why would these authors take the same concept--a "pretty world"--and have such drastically different endings? And which ending do you prefer?

Warning us About the Bad Place: an Interview with Jim Gunn

James Gunn has literally written the book—actually many, many of them—on science fiction. He’s the Director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas. (Yes, you can study science fiction in college!) Every summer, he leads the Intensive English Institute on the Teaching of Science Fiction as well as the Writer’s Workshop in Science Fiction. His books about the genre include: Alternate Worlds: The Illustrated History of Science Fiction, The New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, the six-volume anthology The Road to Science Fiction, The Science of Science-Fiction Writing, Speculations on Speculation: Theories of Science Fiction, Inside Science Fiction, and his most recent, Reading Science Fiction. His best-known novels are The Immortals, The Dreamers, The Listeners, Kampus, and The Joy Makers. (Kampus, by the way, is a dystopian tale about college.) So, who would be better to ask about the history of dystopian science fiction?

---

Jim, how would you define dystopia and/or dystopian science fiction?

The dystopia is the reverse side of the utopia—the bad place instead of “the good place that is no place.” Science fiction always has been of two minds about the future—either science is going to make the world a better place, or the universe—or humanity’s perversity—is going to make the future worse. In the case of humanity’s role we can do something now that will prevent the bad place from happening or something that will help the good place from happening. So science fiction has its cautioning aspect. The utopia holds out the prospect of the wonderful world we could have if we do things right; the dystopia warns us about the bad place we will have if we do things wrong, or don’t do things right.


When did it first become popular in science fiction?

The utopia was more popular before World War I. The idea of “progress”—the gradual but steady improvement in humanity’s condition--prevailed (look up the concept of “progress”), and the benefits of science and technology (look up the Industrial Revolution and the Scientific Enlightenment) and the spread of democracy and the rising middle class and the gradual reduction in poverty seemed to suggest that eventually all humanity’s problems would be solved. Then the savagery and destruction of two World Wars changed people’s minds and supported the notion that science and technology merely increased the destructive powers available to us and released the evil that, according to traditional beliefs, resides within each human. Writers began abandoning utopias and producing dystopias. Up to that time, most dystopias were created by natural phenomena, liked human plagues or volcanic eruptions of poison gas.


Why do dystopic visions appeal to us—as readers and storytellers?

As storytellers, dystopias offer better material than utopias. In Edward Bellamy’s LOOKING BACKWARD, for instance, nothing happens but a lot of interesting talk and the possibility that this utopian future of the year 2,000 might be only a dream. The prospect was so appealing that it produced a worldwide movement centered around Bellamy Societies, but stories in which evil must be fought makes for far better stories and gives the author an opportunity to attack trends the author deplores. For the readers, that is true as well, and there is the additional value of seeing evils fought and maybe thwarted and to enjoy the portrayal of trends that the reader dislikes as well.

Does the type of dystopia we envision vary from generation to generation?

I’m sure it does. What is evil for one generation is often acceptable, or, at least, not offensive to another. And evils themselves tend to lose their threat or to be outmoded by events. It is often true, as well, that the generation of writers tends to disapprove of tendencies in the younger generation and portray how they will lead to bad ends. One can imagine, for instance, a dystopia in which people no longer come into contact with each other because they have become addicted to digital communication. Or the reverse, a future in which the use of digital communication makes the whole world brothers. A dystopia or a utopia.

Why do you think dystopia is gaining in popularity among young adult readers today?

We’re in one of those periods when events seem to moving beyond our control—the economy, terrorism, politics. Passions have been raised. Moderation seems out of date, or, at least, out of reach. In times like these, conditions getting worse seems far more likely, and a voice that says “this too will pass” or “we’ll solve our problems in this way or that” seems out of touch with reality.

What are some dystopian classics—book or film—that you think our readers would like?

My favorite dystopias came out of the late 1960s and 1970s, typified by four John Brunner novels: STAND ON ZANIBAR (overpopulation), THE SHEEP LOOK UP (pollution), THE JAGGED ORBIT (racism), and THE SHOCKWAVE RIDER (computer viruses—worms, Brunner called them). I wrote my own dystopia about this time—KAMPUS—about the world the student rebels of the 1960s might have made if they’d been successful. Readers might be interested in William Gibson’s NEUROMANCER, about a world of the near future controlled by international corporations and massive computers achieving sentience.

Thanks, Jim, for taking the time to talk to us today.

BTW, If you're interested in learning to write or teach science fiction, check out some of the classes, workshops, and scholarships the Center for the Study of Science Fiction offers.

---

Now, I have a question(s) for you guys. What are some of your favorite dystopian books? If you're into the classics--check out the Dystopian Literature list on Wikipedia--how has our collective vision of "the bad place" changed over the years?

Every Day is the End of the World

So here we are. Four writers that have all written books focusing on a dystopian or post-apocalyptic world. We're not alone either. Look at any list of upcoming YA novels and you'll see that the market seems to be starving for books with the words post-apocalyptic or dystopian in their descriptions.

Now, assuming we're not just trend followers (And honestly, it's not really possible. It just takes way to long to write, edit and get a book published) what's going on? Why are so many writers like us, independent of each other, writing stories like this and why are people so interested in reading them? Specifically why are kids interested in reading them?

Well I can only theorize why kids are reading them (which I'll do in a minute) but here's what led me to write mine....

I was thinking about the Gordian Knot. You know the story. Alexander the Great comes to Gordium and finds a knot so complex he can't untie it. His solution? Chop it in half with his sword. Knot undone. Problem solved. I think our world right now  feels alot like that knot--mind bogglingly complex and so tangled with competing ideologies and interests that the whole thing has ground to a halt and become completely useless. Sometimes it feels like the only solution, the only way we'll ever be able to move forward again, is to tear it down and start all over. I mean, who doesn't have a fantasy of a simpler and quieter time? A time when we lived closer to nature, closer to each other, closer to our own necessity. I think that idea, the idea of being able to hit the reset button on a too complicated world, is what drew me to writing a book like this.

Now, why do kids want to read this stuff? Well partially I think for the reasons above. They live in the same world that we do; they're not blind. But I also think that when you're moving through your teens years your life is a constant upending of everything you know. Like many writers, I spent my early teen years as an impenetrably shy loner. I ate alone. I had no friends. I had no direction. But then one day I wandered into my High School's theater when auditions were going on and for some reason I got up on that stage and BAM! For the first time in my life I was good at something! And so much followed that: friends, a workable sense of humor, better grades, girls that were actually willing to talk to me. If this wasn't the end of one world and the beginning of a new one I don't know what was.

And it seems like when you're a teen so many events in your life are like that, right? Relatively small moments that somehow produce huge transformations. You go from Junior High to High School. You fall in love. You get dumped. You get your driver's license. You have sex. You discover The Clash. One little adjustment and everything changes. Over and over you're saying goodbye to one world and hello to another.  Didn't it feel like that? So monumental? We laugh at it now, all the drama, but add years of near constant transformative change to a set of raging hormones and a evolving sense of self and no wonder every little thing felt like the end of the world. Of course our teens years felt monumental. They were monumental.

So I think when teens read a story about the end of the world maybe they connect to it because they live their lives on the precipice of one radical transformation or another. They get the grandeur of it, the angst and fear and possibility of it. I think maybe teens read this stuff simply because the end of the world makes sense to them. To them it's something that happens every day. I know it did to me.

So what do you all think? Why is this a trend now and what do you think of it?

Why do I write dystopian novels?

Hi there! I'm Julia Karr (bio on the right) and today's my day on the blog!

I'd like to look at the question of "why I write dystopia"  through the lens of this Lewis Carroll quote, "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there."

It would be pretty amazing if governments and people had any idea where they were going - but, for the most part, they don't. That's not to say that many individuals don't have a perfectly good idea where they are headed - at least career-wise. And, goal-setting gurus have tapped into an incredibly lucrative market filled with seminars, books, cds, dvds, and so on to help people achieve their dreams. But, the truth is - if you look at the big picture - most peoples and countries are just living day to day. There may be some set agenda (as with political parties in the United States - each with their set agendas and when they get into power they try to implement them, which usually means spending 4 to 8 years of battling the other party to get even a quarter of their campaign promises through congress) but, for the most part - we just muddle along, following the status quo and living our lives, occasionally jarred out of our singular path by outward or personal events.

So, what does that have to do with writing dystopian novels? Well, while the majority of us are cruising along on auto pilot, things are happening. Some of those things seem good and some have a bit of a sinister undertone if, like me, one takes works such as George Orwell's 1984 to heart. I wonder at how easy it is for people to accept that Chicago has 10,000 cameras taking constant pictures of residents...  and not to think beyond how "safe" that might make Chicagoans feel and how easy it will be for the city to add even more surveillance as they deem it necessary.

And, that is just one small example of what fascinates me about how we come to accept certain things as "just the way things are."

When I write speculative/dystopian fiction - I'm exploring those "any roads" that will get humankind where they are going - whether they really want to be there - or not.

Now you know why I write what I do. So, the logical next question is... why do you read dystopian novels?

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