Ugh. I’ve been hit with a nasty flu, so I will be out of commission today and probably for several more as this thing runs its course.
Which is a pity not only because I feel like crap but also because there’s lots of stuff going on. It’s (Not My) Presidet’s day, and there are anti-Trump protests around the US (and in London too, but for different anti-Trump reasons).
Meanwhle, our old friend fiend MILO was scheduled to be one of the keynote speakers at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) but, oops, conservatives discovered that their favorite hateful bigot has, on a number of occasions, explicitly defended pedophilia oh sorry “ephebophilia.” And now he’s been un-scheduled. See the latest here!
Anyway, I’m going to go lie down. Feel free to use this as an open thread of course.
Wait. “The next big thing after Divergent”? Isn’t Divergent most well-known for being Twilight with the serial numbers filed off (like, even moreso than 50 Shades, and 50 Shades is literally Twilight with the serial numbers filed off)? Not the most convincing advertisement ever…
Seconding LindsayIrene. Mortal Engines was tight.
The troll who wanted to divide the genders by the Mississippi was Anthony Zara the.
I live by the river so as long as I get to stay on the Minneapolis side, we’re good!
I mean Anthony Zarat.
That’s him! Thanks, WWTH!
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-u2elR1FSybo/UEefhGqSB-I/AAAAAAAABJo/NhecHpsVPPg/s1600/Lucille+gif+ugh.gif
Oh, no, how very overrated these books are compared to the more superior Nicholas Sparks or Tom Clancy books, which are actual novels for real adults and thus are much better.
You teenages and your crappy Star Girl and Hoot and Speak. Obviously if you ain’t reading Ernest Hemingway you’re wasting your time with your fake novels.
What did young adult fiction ever do to you?
Trivia!: Minneapolis comes from the Greek word for “city” (polis) and the Dakota word for “water” (mini, like the Lakota phrase: mni wiconi “water is life” ).
Maybe because they’re highly accessible, and some series’ popularity with both young and adult audiences has had a large cultural impact? Like, sure, there’s a trend of trying to be “That Next Big YA Series,” but that doesn’t mean the whole category lacks significance.
@Axe
I’ve never fully grasped the distinction between YA fiction and fiction with a young adult protagonist, so with that caveat in mind, here’s some stuff that at least meets the latter criterion (i.e. protagonists being in their teens at the oldest):
Midnight Robber (Nalo Hopkinson): Tan-Tan’s father was exiled from the paradisaical world of Toussaint to the penal colony of New Half-Way Tree, and takes her with him. She must learn to survive in a world where neither the law nor technology of her home are available. (Trigger warning:CSA)
Tinker (Wen Spencer): is a teenage inventor, who runs a Pittsburgh junkyard. The twist being that Pittsburgh has been transported to Elfhome, where magic works and elves rule. An ongoing series, now up to 4 novels and a short story collection (the latter focusing on other characters)
The first I think three Miles Vorkosigan books (Lois McMaster Bujold) count as well, Miles is in his teens then. Those would be The Warriors Apprentice, The Vor Game, and Cetaganda, along with short story “The Mountains of Mourning” (TW: Infanticide). (Those violate the ‘last 10 years’ rule, but they’re still worth reading).
I’ve just started The Root (Na’amen Gobert Tilahun), in which a former reality show star discovers that he’s descended from the gods (I haven’t learned which gods specifically yet), and drafted into a shadow war between dimensions.
EDIT: Nearly forgot Leviathan and sequels (Scott Westerfield), in which the Great War is being fought between the Clanker powers with their machines and the Darwinists, with their bioengineered monsters.
(Ok, a lot of these violate the ‘last 10 years’ rule, but they’re still worth reading).
Bonus track just because I can’t talk rap without mentioning La Gale, who in my opinion is simply the best francophone lyricist currently. I picked that song because I’m pretty sure that she is indeed a witch.
@Axe
Never was a big fan of gangsta rap so I can’t say I like it, but I gotta admit the dude’s good. That flow’s impressive.
’bout novels, huh, I heard that the His Dark Materials sequels are happening for realsies this time. You can’t believe how fucking happy that makes me, and also how fucking scared I am that it might be disappointing in the end (though it’s unlikely). So yeah, keep an eye out for that, and read His Dark Materials if you haven’t yet, or reread it if you have when you were 7 like I did.
@Chio
You’d be amazed at how many times I hear that in a day. ’tis why I spread the word, heh.
@IP
More 90s for the way it sounds, I guess. Though admittedly I pay more attention to the lyrics and what’s being said (hence why I never really liked gangsta rap). I got a love-hate relationship with Wu-Tang for that same reason, too.
@Scildfreja
I never really got the distinction between “adult” and “young adult” novels but I’m pretty sure that even if I did, I’d disagree pretty strongly with that. Also the stuff I write is definitely suitable for anyone over 14, so it could be I’m just pissed and taking exception. Who knows.
@Jack
Seconding that.
The books I’m listing aren’t that very recent because I haven’t been able to read a lot in the last few years like I use to. Some of them are a little over decade+ old but I remember enjoying when I was a teenager, not that they’re all good and stuff but I don’t remember putting them down in disgust or not enjoying them at all:
Koyal Dark, Mango Sweet, The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl and its sequel Goth Girl Rising, Heavy Metal and You, Ghostgirl, Born Confused, Ghost Boy, several Neil Shusterman books like the Dark Fusion series and Full Tilt, a bunch of Weetzie Bat books, the Gemma Doyle trilogy, Esperanza Rising, Miracle’s Boys, the Vampire Kissses series (up until Royal Blood I think?), The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor, Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns (yes, those are young adult novels), Dragon’s Keep, The Replacement, The Graveyard Book (this was in my high school library but I consider this more of a children’s novel because of the protagonist being a child and written fairly simply but it’s still considered YA somehow?), Dark Dude, Monster, Mexican White Boy, Fairest, The Tail of Emily Windsnap, Mermaid Park, I Kissed a Zombie and I Liked It, The Ghost and the Goth, Zombie Queen of Newburry High…
There’s a lot more that I don’t remember the name off hand. I mostly read thriller, horror and fantasy books when I was younger (still do).
Like there was this one free form book I liked, it wasn’t a part of the Cracked series and was about a girl who was in an abusive household and stuff? And there was this other novel about a girl who starting dating this “oh so much more mature” older guy and he gets scary and possessive. And there was this scifi novel about the future called Unit or something I can’t find where the world is in a really bad way ecologically and society wise. (Also there was a dude who was clones from Lincoln.)
There were some books I remember liking at first but then started sucking and then got good but then sucked by the time I got to the end, like Sweetblood or Zombie Blondes and some others I don’t remember off-hand so those would be mixed-bagged I guess.
@Dalillama
Ooo! I remember that one. It was alright.
Also kinda sorta in that vein that jogged my memory. The Pit Dragon series. It’s actually from the ’80s but still really interesting.
@Handsome Jack
Oh yeah, I remember those, they’re good
Orbital Resonance (John Barnes) was pretty good too, IIRC. It’s about members of the first generation to grow up on a space station. Apparently there’s sequels, but I haven’t read them
My favourite Young Adult novel, dating myself a little, is The Scavenger’s Tale.
Re: YA novels, I read one called Code Name Verity recently that’s considered YA though I’m not sure why because it deals with adult women at war (it’s historical fiction set in WWII). Awesome book, I recommend it. Way better read than most of the drivel people have recommended to me recently that’s aimed at adults.
Did I say Crack? I meant Crank.
Some more books I remember:
A lot by Annette Curtis Klause, like The Silver Kiss, Blood, and Chocolate and Freaks: Alive on the Inside! (if you’re a fan of The Mummy, you’d like Freaks).
The Wereling Trilogy was pretty alright, too.
There’s also All-American Girl, The Adventures of Blue Avenger, Eon, Cut, Beastly, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Dead Girl Walking, Bliss, Spirit, Bonechiller, Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary “Jacky” Faber, Ship’s Boy, Pirates!, read here and there of The Royal Diaries (Ch’iao Kuo, Cleopatra and Elizabeth I remember a bit), Peter and the Star Catchers, Uglies, Pretty Dead, Burned (I think this may have been a book I couldn’t remember the name of) and Dark Song is the other book I couldn’t remember the name of. That one is scary. It would make a really good thriller movie.
A young friend recommended the ‘CHERUB’ series, by Robert Muchamore to me; and I loved them.
Basic premise, the security services scour council care homes for kids to use on missions. The theory being, a criminal might be wary of an adult but if their kid brings a new schoolmate home they’ll be less suspicious.
It’s the complete antithesis of the James Bondesque fantasy of the Alex Rider stuff. These are very believable kids in grittilly real scenarios. The books can be very funny though too.
They’re also unusual in that they have a prequel series that is equally good. That deals with the origin of the organisation during WW2 with the kids of the French Resistance.
I haven’t read a lot of young adult novels, but then again my mid to late teens were kinda… I dunno, spent on Internet memes.
Do any of the science peeps around here have an opinion on the research around mini puberty and what people say about sex differences from it?
@IP
Meh! Redman may not have been claimed by GZA as a member of Wu-tang, but he’s turned up in a lot of Wu stuff therefore in my mind, he’s a member. Sort of. 😛
More music
I didn’t read a lot of good YA when I was young. I read crappy YA like Christopher Pike and Sweet Valley High and VC Andrews*. I read adult novels when I wanted to read something good. I was a weird kid I guess. I’d read a Fear Street book one day and 1984 the next and was still reading BSC when I first read Night by Elie Weisel. Or maybe that is a typical way to read? I don’t know. I’m not saying there wasn’t any good YA in the early nineties. I just didn’t come across it.
* Not sure that counts as YA. It wasn’t necessarily marketed as such but it seems like everyone read them as a teenager. Same goes for Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles.
@Axe:
I would recommend Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee, The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig, and Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour. Under a Painted Sky and Everything Leads to You are stand alones, The Girl from Everywhere has a sequel coming out. If you’re on Goodreads, you might want to join the group Keep it Diverse. They recommended all of those to me.
I can vouch for the Tantalize series by Cynthia Leitich Smith (which hasn’t had a movie adaptation and is written by a Native American woman and the second book is MY FAVORITE), and I can also vouch for Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.
But only for the books. The trailers for the movie alone was enough to get me hissing like a bibliophile wildcat. (MISS PEREGRINE IS AN OLD LADY DAMMIT LET WOMEN BE OLD YA FUCKS. They also lumped like three characters together to be the main character’s love interest which I’m just like “WHY THIS”)
Neither series is perfect, but if I had to pick a favorite, it would be the Tantalize books. The second book especially. It’s fantasy romance done right.
Miss Peregrine’s is alright. I did roll my eyes at a bit of it, but it’s still pretty good, imo. I’m kinda meh about the romance that gets between the MC and the girl he falls for, because she’s like the girl his grandpa was in love with (It’s complicated. Just know that there are time shenanigans involving time loops.).
But if you like an adventure novel with some good action, it’s not a bad way to go.
And if you want something older, I’ve read a good chunk of Tamora Pierce’s works and she’s amazing. Especially Alanna, that shit was my jam in Jr. High.
It got bonus points for being a fantasy novel, and bonus BONUS points for actually talking about periods because it was relevant to the plot.
Like hot damn, I didn’t realize it when I was a kid, but it means a lot to me as an adult that she normalized that stuff in her writing.
Other recommendations include:
Tiger’s Curse by Collen Houck (that one’s a series of 4), Ranger’s Apprentice (starts with The Ruins of Gorlan) by John Flanagan, and The Last Apprentice (starts with Revenge of The Witch) by Joseph Delaney.
Seconding the recommendation of Pierce, and putting Tantalize on my reading list.
Throwing in a vote for Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’m a Supervillain. Starts out good, and the books get more complex as the series goes on, definitely.
Aw I hope you’re feeling better now, David. Remember to drink lots and rest, okay 🙂
So apparently Matt Forney wants to nuke Japan a third time because he hates anime.
http://www.fstdt.com/QuoteComment.aspx?QID=124823
Given a lot of alt-rightists like anime, is this going to provoke another split just like Milo-gate did?
CPPhazor:
I’d never heard of mini-puberty before! Thanks for bringing it up, I’ve learned a lot so far:
http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2016/07/humans_experience_two_distinct_puberties.html
I sometimes wonder if there aren’t more than two puberties. I mean, I’m a guy and when I was 25, I could have sworn I was going through a second puberty. Not sure if that’s what it was, but it was certainly an odd experience. It might have also been brought on by experience rather than being innately programmed (after all, hormone surges can occur for environmental reasons too).
@PrettyPrettyPegasus
my local library hasn’t got that one, but that reminds me to suggest Brandon Sanderson’s Reckoners series, in which some people gain superpowers at the expense of their better nature. Steelheart ,the first book, opens with the protagonist seeking revenge on the eponymous super, who killed his fatheron the way to ruling Chicago with an iron fist.
@Hu’s on first
I’m definitely having a second puberty, but that’s thanks to science.
I’d list some YA books but the only ones I read these days are in Japanese. But Japan has some good YA that includes a lot of fantasy elements which are integral to the plot, but with stories that ultimately revolve around coming of age, finding oneself, and resolving internal conflicts.
What I like is that most authors either try to give reasonable explanations for why the fantasy elements were never anything supernatural to begin with or they just have the fantasy elements be a normal part of the world. They don’t usually do that annoying thing where they try to imply, in the last few pages, that the fantasy elements were possibly just someone’s delusion all along.
I am not 100% sure if all of them are YA, but here are my recommendations from the top of my mind that I didn’t see mention yet :
The Delhpi Effect and the Chronos Files series by Rysa Walker
Crudrat and the Finishing School series by Gail Carriger
Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older
The Illuminae Files series by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
The Starbound series by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
Every Heart a Doorway, Sparrow Hill Road and Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day by Seanan McGuire
For my two penn’orth on YA I’d recommend Terry Pratchett’s ‘Tiffany Aching’ stories, his earlier novel ‘Equal Rites’ and possibly ‘Monstrous Regiment.’ They seem to have a YA vibe to them, but I admit some are over ten years old.
-sees all this talk about YA works-
-just remembers a past full of Animorphs-
@Dalillama
I’ve only kinda sorta read the first book, but I believe it should include a (TW: Sexual Assault)
@Schnookums
You’re right, I missed that one.
@Troubelle
Same, except for me it was Goosebumps. I read a few Animorphs books and they were pretty awesome, but I had a veritable library of Goosebumps.
@WWTH
Not sure how common it is, but I took to reading very early and tended to just read whatever could get my hands on, so I had a fairly similar experience growing up. Though I was more into Sci-Fi/Fantasy, which meant alongside my stacks of Goosebumps books I also had Tolkien, Dragonlance, Star Wars EU novels, etc. Also, I seemed to have a penchant for checking out wildly age-inappropriate books from the library.
Hope you feel better soon, David.
I can’t think of any YA books to recommend. I read the Sweet Valley High series as a teenager, and I adored the Horses of Half Moon Ranch series when I was a pre-teen (I think?).
Majorly OT: Since this is an open thread, I want to mention a “right-wing conservative” (his words) commenter named “Dead1” over at the Angry Metal Guy blog forums. The AMG community is mostly progressive and troll-free. There’s a thread on Donald Trump, with a bunch of comments from Dead1. He seems to know everything about everything lol. I feel like I’d have to read for a 100 years just to catch up with him (he studied history and the American constitution at varsity, btw). I almost feel guilty for being a leftist, since the left seems to have ruined the environment, Western countries and social cohesion (i.e. “we” allowed too many immigrants in for his tastes).
A sample of his writing:
He starts on about immigrants (especially muslims) later in the thread; here’s the link to page 15 onwards: https://www.metal-fi.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=525&start=140
(Sorry for a teal deer).
Off topic of book discussion, but someone posted an older article on Tumblr, and I felt like it could be a good resource for trolls who happen by.
The U.N. Sent 3 Foreign Women To The U.S. To Assess Gender Equality. They Were Horrified.
So, the next time we get a troll saying that women want special rights and they’re not doing enough in THE MIDDLE EAST and how women aren’t oppressed, I’m just gonna link this.
From 2016, T. Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon) “The Raven and the Reindeer“.
One thing about Tiger’s Curse… it’s got a pretty strong white saviour vibe going on. (link goes to the goodreads page with reviews)
@Troubelle
Heh, I read those too, maybe three of them. Back then I was more into fantasy than SF so I didn’t really enjoy them all that much though.
BUT the author also wrote the Everworld trilogy, which is aimed at somewhat older readers and left me with some pretty good memories. Not sure if I’d still like it a decade and a half later, but then that goes for everything.
I’m a bit ashamed to have liked Terry Goodkind at some point when I was 13 or something. Though even back then there were things that really annoyed me, and they’re the same things that annoy me today, I guess I just have a lot less tolerance to it now.
I don’t read much anymore these days, though it pains me. I used to be an absolute bookworm, but that changed about five years ago for some reason, about the time I started writing the current iteration of my old big-ass fantasy project. Guess it’s taking up all my mental bookshelves and there’s not much room left for anything else ? Go figure. At any rate, progress is slow and not too steady on that front, but at least I’ve gone five years without deciding to burn all my papers and start over yet again, so that’s a start.
Kevin:
The last two Tiffany Aching books seem fairly dark and veering into Celtic mysticism, with some pretty obscure jokes. Like referring to Gytha Ogg’s house as “Tir Nani Ogg”. I’m so lucky I got that.
@Artic Ape
All the Discworld books are like that. Practically every time I reread one I catch one I’d missed before.
That one’s a standing joke, IIRC first used in Witches Abroad
@Sinkable John
I read Mr. Goodkind as well, all the way up to Chainfire. I almost never give up on a series, just out of stubbornness, but I realized if I wanted to read an implausible fantasy book that espouses odious political values I’d just read the original, Atlas Shrugged (Zing!).
What makes it sad is that the books could have been good. I think he does have some writing strengths, but it reached a point where I realized the only way I’d be happy with the ending of the series was if Richard was revealed to be a villain protaganist all along, and that wasn’t going to happen.
Pratchett and hidden jokes:
I think the one that hit me the most was in Hogsfather, when Death visits the computer Hex, and Hex asks (paraphrased) “Big Red Lever Time?” I didn’t realize it at first, but it hit me later that Hex just asked Death if he was going to be turned off i.e die. It was clever as well as rather chilling. (I can be a bit obtuse at times, so this might have been something everyone but me got the first time reading it.)
@Schnookums
I’d have gone with the Bible as the original, but that’d been cliché, so I approve this zing.
To be fair I didn’t read the series to the end, mainly cause my “fuck it” moment happened before the french translations were published – but the stubbornness (and OCD) definitely had something to do with me keeping at it past the first book.
By the way, I hadn’t seen the “GloboThermoNuclearHomo” addition to your name until now but it is glorious.
Haven’t seen this linked yet:
https://psmag.com/on-the-milo-bus-with-the-lost-boys-of-americas-new-right-629a77e87986
It’s by the writer who did “I’m with the banned.”
OT:
Next time I see something about how liberals are r-strategists, I’m going to remember this strip:
http://i.imgur.com/TELt6T9.png
@PoM
Yes ! I love Laurie Penny’s work and this article is excellent.