I Miss Monsters

When I read a blurb for Dayna Lorentz’s No Safety In Numbers I misunderstood.  It mentioned something strange being discovered at a suburban shopping mall causing teens to battle to survive.  So I instantly assumed there would be monsters, probably zombies, involved as haven’t there been a number of films where survivors take refuge in a mall where there is access to food, clothes and potential weapons?

Well without giving too much away I will say that the mall part was accurate, but instead of monsters, there is a device discovered that has deadly consequences.  Have I become too hooked on monsters as an element in dystopian fiction?

Not all YA dystopian fiction has to have monsters to be good reads.  In books like The Hunger Games, Tomorrow When the War Began, Delirium and plenty of others, the monsters are really just us, humans.  Even in the Rot & Ruin series which does have zombies, the bounty hunters and cult fanatics are the bigger monsters than the actual monsters, which is why I am loving that series so much.   Maybe that’s the problem, maybe I find it actually more comforting when I read about a dystopian world where the ‘bad guys’ are someone other than us.  It’s easier to blame the woes of a post-apocalyptic situation on monstrous creatures, than to look to ourselves and our flaws that create disastrous events or worlds.  It hits to close too close to home when we are our own worst enemies.

It’s funny that I got to a point where I had to reduce time spent reading and watching news reports because I felt like I was drowning in a sea of bad news….dictators and authoritarian governments who control their citizens, environmental crises, violence and a loss of civility, and the greed of the rich and powerful.   I reduced my news absorption a few years ago, then a couple of years ago I got completely hooked on YA dystopian fiction!   It’s so ironic.

I am asking myself do I find it more palatable to face these issues in a work of fiction rather than real life?  At least in books, there are heroes; sometimes I am not sure whether there are many heroes or good leaders left  in real life.  However, that’s the thing I guess about apocalyptic or dystopian events, until one happens you never know how people will react, sometimes it’s the most ordinary or unassuming people who arise to meet the challenges at hand and emerge as heroes.

Sometimes it feels safer to read about a disaster between the pages of a book than to observe one in real life or to wonder who I would become in a crisis…

Dystopia vs. Sci Fi

I have been thinking about dystopia fiction vs. sci fi fiction while reading Maria Snyder’s Inside Out, a dystopia book with a sci fi bent.  It’s funny but I was having a recent discussion with some friends about how I don’t read traditional sci fi books, yet I have such a passion for dystopia books.  They both have imaginative world building in common, so why are my tastes so clearly in the one camp and not the other?

I guess it boils down to the fact that in dystopian novels, despite an event that changes the world or society dramatically, the settings in these stories are still recognizable as similar to our own civilization even if they have been distorted by an apocalyptic event.  This can be true of the sci fi genre, but the very nature of science fiction allows for unrecognizable technology or creatures.  Anything the author can imagine goes and that’s probably what fans of this type of fiction love.  Me, I like reading about a world that our current one could become if dangerous events come to pass.  It’s that grain of truth in the world building that appeals to me and the way a good author builds on that grain and extends it to the extremes.

In sci fi books, there is too much focus on technology for me…technology for weapons, space travel, communications etc. and the liberal use of these devices can be what assists or saves the characters.  In dystopia fiction often technology has been lost or at least reduced, and the characters must rely more on their own inventiveness, willpower and strength to survive situations in their world.  Maybe because I didn’t have smart phones, tablets and ipods as a child, I relate more to characters who can take action without relying on technology.   Recently I was in Portland, Oregon and needed some directions and was amazed that no one seemed able to provide them.  Even people who hadn’t grown up with so much technology whipped out their phones instead of just telling me where to turn left or right to get to my destination.  I was both fascinated and a little horrified on how quickly people have become completely reliant on a gadget for such a basic skill.  Maybe it’s just me, but I much prefer Katniss’s bow to a computerized weapon…

In Inside Out Trella is a scrub who lives on the lower levels though her job cleaning the pipes of Inside gives her glimpses of the world of the uppers.  The scrubs are menial workers who live in overcrowded conditions without any choice as to career, having a family or any control over their lives.  Trella, like the rest of the scrubs, resents the uppers and the chip on her shoulder even alienates her from the rest of her fellow scrubs, with the exception of her friend Cognos.  It’s because of her fondness for Cognos that she is pressured to see the latest Prophet who spins stories of hope and a world of other possibilities.  Because Trella wants to protect Cognos from falling for the Prophet’s message, she sets out to prove that he is lying, but then discovers there may be more to what he says.   This leads her on a journey to discover the truth, the truth about the uppers, her fellow scrubs and even herself.   Although there were elements of tech in this story, they were secondary to the characters and the plot which was a mashup of Attica, 2001 A Space Odyssey, Anthem and Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors.  Read it and see what I mean.

No Movie or TV Zombies, Just Book Zombies

I have never bought a ticket to see a zombie movie, though I admit I did catch part of one on TV once.  I don’t watch the currently popular Walking Dead.  Yes, it’s true I downgraded my satellite TV package to the lowest I could get, but even if I had that channel, I don’t think I would watch.  However, for some reason I enjoy zombies in YA dystopia books.

It may not be the zombies themselves, if it was the creatures I would watch zombie movies or I wouldn’t make a face when people in Seattle talk about Zombie Days where locals for some inexplicable reason think it’s fun to dress and act like a zombie with other people for the day.  I just don’t get it.

I think I am only liking zombies as part of dystopian fiction because there have been some kick ass YA authors including them in their books.  The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan reads like a lyrical poem to me and filled me with a drowsy sadness like a watercolor painting dissolving.  This Is Not A Test by Courtney Summers  fascinated me because it is the only YA dystopian novel I have found yet in which the protagonist is missing a strong survival instinct, well it’s not just missing, she wants to die even if by means of a horrific zombie death.  Now I just finished Jonathan Maberry’s Rot & Ruin, another so-called zombie book which really has very little to do with zombies, and much more about people and our humanity.

Benny, only a baby when the zombies arose, lives what appears to be an almost normal teen life.  Unlike the heroes in my post-apocalyptic novels he actually lives in a house, has enough to eat, goes to school and hangs out with his friends.  Yeah, ok he lives with his older half-brother who is a zombie bounty hunter and the community he lives in is fenced in to keep the zombies away and no one uses electricity anymore in a backlash against the modern ways and technologies that superstitious people blame as part of the cause that turned people into zombies.  However, this book is not nearly as grim as so many others of its kind as Benny doesn’t have to constantly fight hunger and monsters to survive.  I think that’s one of the things I liked about it, the shades of normalcy and even some pop culture references that lulled me as a reader into thinking that the world he lives in is pretty safe.  However, zombies are not the only horrors that fill this world, what Benny quickly learns is that there isn’t any malice in the zombies who attack because of a deep seated hunger, but not out of malice.  Instead people it’s who are truly vicious because when they act badly, it’s done with forethought and emotions.  This is really the story of a boy who matures into a man as he begins to believe that everything he has believed in may not be the actual truth.

The Novel Skylark Creates Its Own Genre

Skylark – A Book Review

I have read so many YA dystopia books now that I thought I knew the formula.

Some disaster that greatly changed the world – check

Rebel hero – check

Beloved family member – check

Authoritarian figure or totalitarian government – check

Heroic character under some constraint or control – check

Hardships such as poverty, hunger or the loss of a loved one – check

Artifacts or references to the world that was before – check

An element of horror … whether horrific tests/games, zombies, violent survivors- check

The novel Skylark by Meagan Spooner did have all the items on the checklist, but then it went and surprised me through some additional elements that I hadn’t seen before in this genre.  The story begins with teenage girl Lark sneaking into her school to peek at the Harvest Day list to see if her name is on it.  During her journey to the school there are references to something called the Resource and pixies, which unlike their name are quite malevolent.   It is these references that initially had me confused not only to what these two things were, but doubting whether this was a dystopian novel and maybe a sci fi book instead.  Then there is a description of a moment shared between Lark and her brother Basil that contained the word magic, which now made me wonder if this was going to be something along the lines of Harry Potter.  This confusion about what was going on in this book and what genre it really was is what kept me reading further. Lark and the remaining members of her family live behind the Wall in a city that is apparently fueled by the energy of the Resource and when children are called up for their Harvest Day, the forbiddingly named Institute harvests their energy or magic to help power the city.  When Lark is sent for harvesting she discovers a horrifying secret that sends her beyond the Wall accompanied by one of the pixies, a type of machine or robot that now had me thinking this was a steam punk novel, until she encountered the shadow people, which are somewhat reminiscent of zombies in other books, but with a magical element that adds a unique twist.   If you like not being able to guess where a story is going next, this is a book you might want to try.  The book reminds of something called, ‘kitchen soup’ that Grandma used to make.  It’s basically a soup made of any ingredients in the cupboard and leftovers in the fridge.  There isn’t a set recipe and each time it’s made it contains different elements combined together, which somehow end up tasting good together.

It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, I surprised myself by reading it straight through because it was refreshing to read something unique with each page adding a new distraction.  This novel even has an M. Night Shyamalan twist within the story that blew my mind.  I also liked that it threw in a reference to a time before the apocalyptic wars about bees dying out being a sign of bad things to come which echoes our own current problem with the decimation of honeybees.

In the end I decided that this is a book you can’t put a label on, which as a writer it’s rare for me to be at a loss for words, however that was the strange beauty of it.  I will be interested in what direction the rest of this trilogy takes.

What Reveals More About You, Your Medicine Cabinet or Your Bookcase?

I actually didn’t know that snooping through medicine cabinets was a thing, until I heard a joke referencing it.  Personally, I have never felt a strong urge to peek into anyone’s medicine cabinet when visiting, maybe because there’s not much to see in mine.  I grew up being told that medicine was bad because it only made the illness last longer, so I don’t keep much more than aspirin in the house.  I remember being surprised when two of my colleagues once freely talked about the variety of anti-anxiety medicine each took.

While I haven’t ever been tempted to peek through people’s medicine cabinets as a way to figure out who they are, I guess I have my own version. It’s looking at someone’s bookshelves.  Sometimes it’s surprising that the person who seems like such a ham has a bookcase full of serious business volumes or that the introvert who doesn’t seem comfortable around people has shelves full of biographies.  Then there are the rows of fiction, what sort of judgments do we make if we see romantic bodice rippers versus Charles Dickens?  Lines of sci-fi paperbacks vs. historical fiction?  And what about people whose only books appear to be glossy coffee table tomes?  Do you consider the latter to be book lovers or more fans of interior design?

However, it can be dangerous to make assumptions based on peoples’ reading material.  For example, my house is small and I don’t have space for bookcases.  The books I own are tucked away in drawers, which might leave the impression to those who don’t know me well that I am not much of a reader, when I actually read hundreds of books a year, many borrowed from friends or the library.  If a burglar were to break in, he might assume there’s a teenage girl living there based on the stack of books next to my favorite reading spot, but the reality is I am a grown woman who has simply been devouring YA dystopia novels for the past year.  However, because I feel a little shamefaced over this guilty reading pleasure, I alternate reading the YA novels with a few business and marketing books, which I imagine would be very confusing to anyone glancing at the pile.  But I can’t help but wonder: why is it so important to learn the latest business strategies if the world is on the verge of collapse?

So feel free to browse my books and I will do the same to you, but just let’s keep an open mind about each other, ok?