Using the Program Guide of the World Science
Fiction Convention in Dublin, Ireland in August 2019 (to which I will be unable
to go (until I retire from education)), I will jump off, jump on, rail against,
and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program
Guide. The link is provided below where this appeared on page…
You Have To Laugh:
Humour in Young Adult Speculative Fiction
What with all the
struggles of growing up, finding love, saving the world, and overthrowing
dystopias, YA literature has a lot of serious business to take care of. But
laughter is an outlet too. Is there room for laughter in YA? What kinds of
humour do you find in the genre, how are they used, and is there a generation
gap when it comes to what’s funny anyway?
Gail Carriger: YA and
A author; well-known.
Ellen Klages: YA,
A, historical fiction, SF, F author; well-known.
Sarah Rees Brennan:
author; well known.
So – lots of experience
here; lots of fun, I’m sure. I’ve never read any of these writers, but I DID
order WHITE SANDS, RED MENACE by Ellen Klages from my local library.
However, what I do
see is that all of them take speculative fiction aimed at young adult readers
seriously.
I do, too. Several
published stories target young adults – “Skipping School”, “Biking Mars”, “Prince
of Blood and Spit”, “Invoking Fire”, “I Need More Space!”, “Fairy Bones”, “Peanut
Butter and Jellyfish”, “Penguin Whisperer”, “Mystery on Space Station COURAGE”,
and “Test”. But none of them are specifically humorous.
Not that I can’t
make teenagers laugh. I do often as both a teacher and a counselor. But the
stories above, while there may be funny moments, don’t actually wield humor as
a weapon to break through the armor most young adults build around themselves
to protect their growing hearts.
And, yes, I DO
believe that.
I’ve got several UNpublished
stories that lean more heavily on humor than others – “Alien Swimmer From Otter
Space”, “An End To Faerie”, and “Not Quite Blue Boy”.
And while many,
many, MANY speculative fiction writers who attempt to writer science fiction
lean heavily on slaughtering teens for sport (THE HUNGER GAMES, THE WHITE
MOUNTAINS trilogy, the MOON CRASH quartet, and many others), some OLDER science
fiction found humor a different lens through which to view the future – not that
the SITUATIONS were funny, but the characters have a “snarky”, hopeful
outlook rather than resigning themselves to either revolution or destruction.
Heinlein’s HAVE
SPACESUIT, WILL TRAVEL is one such. THE EVER EXPANDING UNIVERSE series by Martin
Leicht and Isla Neal are newcomers to writers who deal with hard teen problems
with humor without resorting to mass slaughter or using teens to solve the
world’s problems. READY PLAYER ONE by Eric Cline is another novel that, while
it has its dark moments, has a streak of rough humor running through it.
While SF is difficult
to write, and given the current “adult view” of adolescents, there’s very
little to recommend them to the general reading public, and when teachers and
reviewers hold up examples like the dystopian novels I listed above, teens take
them in (reading ones do, anyway) and absorb the image adults have of them. (I’ve
ranted on this before and most other writers shrugged and said I was making too
much of a big deal about it…but everyone who commented was…um…an adult. You can
read the rant here: http://www.sfwa.org/2012/07/guest-post-when-did-science-fiction-and-apocalypse-become-interchangeable/).
What young people
need is tools to deal with any future they discover. Right now, those futures
seems to mostly involve them giving up. What you don’t find is teens rising to
meet challenges on other worlds, meeting other intelligences, and forging
alliances – nope, that’s for “adult professionals”. It’s also true that middle
and high school young people are frequently victims, I have seen countless
students rise to meet profound challenges.
I rarely see that resiliency
reflected in the SF produced “for them”. In fantast, I see the same thing –
HARRY POTTER for instance. The Hogwarts students were the victims of two adults
who secretly and overtly manipulated them to reach their own goals. While some
adults stood up for the young people, they were mostly swept aside by the more “important”
adults. In the prequel movies FANTASTIC BEASTS, the same thing happens to
Credence Barebone…
At any rate, my
idea for a collection of published and unpublished short stories called MOVING
OUT: Tales of Teens Who Left Earth Behind To Explore the Universe! As I noted
above? Several of those stories showing those young people making FUN of the
universe and the adults who seek to control them. As always, there might be one
or two adults who actually CARE about young people, but as always, they remain
few and far between and have to watch out for the “important adults” who are
watching to see who tries to thwart their desires.
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