Archive for the ‘Market musings’ Category
“Science fiction for teens”—gibberish category?
The label “science fiction” on a teen book usually translates as “soon-to-be failure.” Not always, no. For every dozen science fiction novels that bomb in the teen section, there are a few that by dint of smart packaging or awards attention succeed fantastically. (Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series, which is packaged in such a way that it is about our own fascination with looks over brains; M.T. Anderson’s Feed, which is deservedly acclaimed and did well thanks to prizes and review attention; Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, which simply kicks mighty ass—exceptions are easy to call to mind. But beside the point.) The biggest teen science fiction novel ever, Ender’s Game, was published as an adult book and then republished as a children’s novel (with a risible cover that makes it look dorky as all get-out).
But for the most part, those teen readers who cotton to science fiction? They’ve abandoned the teen section. They’ll never find, say, the Mortal Engines quartet by Philip Reeve, which they would love. They’ll never stumble across Westerfeld’s excellent dystopias, because they wouldn’t recognize it as science fiction, anyway. That’s because publishers, recognizing that that boy audience no longer browses the teen shelves, target their science fiction to girls. Those teen novels about not-so brave new worlds these days look like the strongest sellers in the genre: chick lit.
