In The Reader’s Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction (ALA, 2009), Joyce Saricks divides genre fiction into four categories: Adrenaline Genres, Emotion Genres, Intellect Genres, and Landscape Genres (h/t to Jonathan Hunt for pointing me to this wonderful resource–and click through that link to read some fascinating commentary on the categories). I find this categorization much more [...]
A few weeks ago, I posted about genre fiction and teen appeal. At that time I made a promise to myself that I would read more genre titles this year. So far so good because by reading The Six-Gun Tarot I covered three in one – fantasy, horror and western. Teens are going to love [...]
Teens who enjoy humorous sci-fi are in for a treat. On release day, John Scalzi wrote the following to his fans about Redshirts, ”…let me tell you what my own plan was for this book when I start writing it: To have fun with it, and to have you have fun with it. I wanted to write [...]
You know you’ve discovered Adult-Books-4-Teens gold when an author takes the time to assure readers that he has not written a YA novel. Lev AC Rosen posted the following note on his website homepage: “Note from the author: A lot of people who have approached me or emailed me about the book seem to be working [...]
Steven Gould is best known for his novel Jumper (Tor, 1992), which was later made into a movie starring Hayden Christensen. Like 7th Sigma, Jumper features a teenager and was marketed to an adult audience. 7th Sigma is a science fiction adventure story that combines a number of teen interests. Cory Doctorow’s blurb says it best, [...]
Catherynne Valente is well-known among fantasy fans as a true storyteller. In Deathless, she borrows generously from Russian folklore, and especially the figures of Baba Yaga and Koschei the Deathless. This is the way Valente describes the book in her blog post of March 29, the day it was published: “There is so much love in [...]
Carrie Vaughn’s new superhero novel is the epitome of teen appeal — just plain fun. If you want to give it a try, the first chapter is available on the author’s website. I expect teens will enjoy the game of picking out references to genre titles and characters. It reminds me of John Connolly’s Alex Award-winning The Book [...]
Last week I reviewed Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories, a collection edited by John Joseph Adams. Haunted Legends is a collection of short stories based on ghostly legends from around the world, compiled by another renowned editor, Ellen Datlow. Datlow has won Hugo Awards for Best Professional Editor and for Best Short Form Editor. She [...]
Orson Scott Card’s new coming-of-age fantasy is the first in the Mither Mages series. Consensus seems to be that it successfully stands on its own as well. Before getting to that review, I wanted to mention that the Nebula Award nominations were announced yesterday. Two of our Best Adult Books 4 Teens 2010 were included [...]
I have been looking forward to introducing Jo Walton’s Among Others. It is a glorious book, and not only because it is a celebration of books and readers and libraries and librarians. The dedication: “This is for all of the libraries in the world, and the librarians who sit there day after day lending books [...]
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