Reviews

HORMONAL DYSTOPIAS

Did you read the recent, and excellent, Laura Miller piece in the New Yorker about dystopic YA literature?  It’s built around Suzanne Collins’ massively popular Hunger Games novels, which I’ve read (clumsy sentence-for-sentence writing, but great/addictive plotting) and which are basically Battle Royale for younger readers (group of kids dropped into arena/island, forced to hunt and kill each other as part of a game)… but it also name-checks the great House of Stairs and Singularity author William Sleator (with whom I once did an interview in which he effectively came out of the closet), Patrick Ness (whose The Knife of Never Letting Go had big problems, but was still immersive), and M.T. Anderson, whose amazing novel Feed is like A Clockwork Orange or The Informers or J.G. Ballard stuff masquerading as a YA novel.  It’s really brilliant in every respect including the prose, and you should read it immediately if you haven’t and you’re into that sort of thing.

Tags: ,

33 Comments

  1. Matt Bell

      I literally just finished reading this article about two minutes before reading this post. I thought it was an excellent article, and made me think of the similar books I loved when I was a kid, and how those loves are still playing out in my reading and my writing. Very good stuff, and I’m glad to see you highlighting it.

  2. Salvatore Pane

      Thanks for posting this. It helped me track down The A.I. Gang Series by Bruce Coville, books I haven’t read in years. I absolutely loved these as a kid. The basic premise is that a bunch of super scientists go to an island to create artificial intelligence and they all bring their pre-teen kids with them. Ready for the twist? The kids are also super geniuses and begin building A.I. on their own!

      http://www.brucecoville.com/books.asp?tid=188

      From the website: “Some days a gang of kid geniuses just can’t win. As if it wasn’t bad enough that the A.I. Gang has Sergeant Brody’s terrifying security robots crimping their activities and the mysterious Black Glove out for their hides, now they’ve managed to get on the bad side of an international superspy who has secretly invaded Anza-bora Island.

      Of course a little thing that won’t stop these kids from coming up with new schemes. But when Rachel talks the others into building a rocket to launch Dr. Weiskopf’s singing robot, Twerpy, on a vital space mission, it turns out that the final countdown to blastoff is also a countdown to death.”

      That’s easily the best description for a book I’ve ever read. I must track these down now.

  3. Brett Ratner

      from what videogame is that screenshot? It looks like “the hotness”.

  4. Nick Antosca

      When I go back and reread some of the YA books I read and love when I was very young, I occasionally have the delicious experience of realizing that they are elegantly constructed novellas for adults. That was the case with Sleator’s books. I do remember reading some Coville books when I was around 8 or 9… something about Aliens in the Breakfast Cereal I think?

  5. Nick Antosca

      No idea, I think I just google image searched “dystopia,” can’t remember. (i posted this yesterday, just scheduled it for this morning)

  6. jon cone

      Nick,

      I’m familiar with JG Ballard but the other writers you mention are new to me.

      Thank you for giving me a new list of books to read this summer.

  7. jon cone

      Apropos of not much: I once got a postcard from Alejandro Jodorowsky, in French, from Paris where he lives.

  8. JimR

      Thanks for the link/post. This is all new to me.

  9. Matthew Simmons

      MT is the man. He wrote a picture book about Erik Satie.

  10. Nick Antosca

      Read FEED, it’s fucking awesome. And Sleator’s Singularity is brilliance, too, even for adults. You can read it in like an hour.

  11. Tim Horvath

      Yep, from which I learned that one of Satie’s directions to the pianist was to play a section “like a hat made of mahogany.” Maybe my favorite musical instruction. Which I briefly considered making the title of my novel: The Man in the Mahogany Hat.

  12. mark

      read interstellar pig compulsively as a kid. great interview w/sleator — the answer about thailand was fascinating.

  13. Matt Bell

      I literally just finished reading this article about two minutes before reading this post. I thought it was an excellent article, and made me think of the similar books I loved when I was a kid, and how those loves are still playing out in my reading and my writing. Very good stuff, and I’m glad to see you highlighting it.

  14. Amber

      Seconded. It’s one of the few YA books that gets to sit on the shelf with my big kid books.

  15. Salvatore Pane

      Thanks for posting this. It helped me track down The A.I. Gang Series by Bruce Coville, books I haven’t read in years. I absolutely loved these as a kid. The basic premise is that a bunch of super scientists go to an island to create artificial intelligence and they all bring their pre-teen kids with them. Ready for the twist? The kids are also super geniuses and begin building A.I. on their own!

      http://www.brucecoville.com/books.asp?tid=188

      From the website: “Some days a gang of kid geniuses just can’t win. As if it wasn’t bad enough that the A.I. Gang has Sergeant Brody’s terrifying security robots crimping their activities and the mysterious Black Glove out for their hides, now they’ve managed to get on the bad side of an international superspy who has secretly invaded Anza-bora Island.

      Of course a little thing that won’t stop these kids from coming up with new schemes. But when Rachel talks the others into building a rocket to launch Dr. Weiskopf’s singing robot, Twerpy, on a vital space mission, it turns out that the final countdown to blastoff is also a countdown to death.”

      That’s easily the best description for a book I’ve ever read. I must track these down now.

  16. Brett Ratner

      from what videogame is that screenshot? It looks like “the hotness”.

  17. Nick Antosca

      When I go back and reread some of the YA books I read and love when I was very young, I occasionally have the delicious experience of realizing that they are elegantly constructed novellas for adults. That was the case with Sleator’s books. I do remember reading some Coville books when I was around 8 or 9… something about Aliens in the Breakfast Cereal I think?

  18. Nick Antosca

      No idea, I think I just google image searched “dystopia,” can’t remember. (i posted this yesterday, just scheduled it for this morning)

  19. jon cone

      Nick,

      I’m familiar with JG Ballard but the other writers you mention are new to me.

      Thank you for giving me a new list of books to read this summer.

  20. JimR

      Thanks for the link/post. This is all new to me.

  21. Matthew Simmons

      MT is the man. He wrote a picture book about Erik Satie.

  22. Nick Antosca

      Read FEED, it’s fucking awesome. And Sleator’s Singularity is brilliance, too, even for adults. You can read it in like an hour.

  23. Tim Horvath

      Yep, from which I learned that one of Satie’s directions to the pianist was to play a section “like a hat made of mahogany.” Maybe my favorite musical instruction. Which I briefly considered making the title of my novel: The Man in the Mahogany Hat.

  24. Rebekah Silverman

      Thirded! But the rest of Anderson’s stuff is only OK.

  25. Rebekah Silverman

      Battle Royale! Yes.

  26. mark

      read interstellar pig compulsively as a kid. great interview w/sleator — the answer about thailand was fascinating.

  27. Nick Antosca

      I haven’t read any of his other stuff but that’s what I heard as well. Someone told me “Feed is like his Jesus’s Son. All his other stuff is like his all Denis Johnson’s other stuff.”

  28. Amber

      Seconded. It’s one of the few YA books that gets to sit on the shelf with my big kid books.

  29. Rebekah Silverman

      Thirded! But the rest of Anderson’s stuff is only OK.

  30. Rebekah Silverman

      Battle Royale! Yes.

  31. sasha fletcher

      man. strange attractors and the green futures of tycho were huge parts of my childhood.

  32. Nick Antosca

      I haven’t read any of his other stuff but that’s what I heard as well. Someone told me “Feed is like his Jesus’s Son. All his other stuff is like his all Denis Johnson’s other stuff.”

  33. sasha fletcher

      man. strange attractors and the green futures of tycho were huge parts of my childhood.