Yay books and recs

[owl]

I am rather chuffed to notice that Children of Hurin has made the Tesco's value books list. A mythological tale by an author who's been dead for 30 years. I suppose it might be the incest factor.

I happened to be in the children's section of Waterstone's the other day and the done thing is to cash in on Harry Potter—2/3 of the books are about magic. Hardly an issue novel in sight. This started me thinking a bit: loads and loads of children's fantasy, but very little children's sf. Are children just not considered capable of understanding enough science to make it worthwhile?

A couple of quick recs:

matril ponders common complaints about the SW prequels.

Back to Where You Once Belonged, DW fic by sensiblecat. One of the best fics I've read about the Doctor and Martha stranded in 1969. Just enough angst, and a great Martha.

And then came 1969, and suddenly there was absolutely no money, and more time than they knew what to do with.

significantowl has Ten/Martha recs here.

Comments

[white_hart]

My memory suggests that there has always been a lot of children's fantasy. I certainly found plenty when I was a kid - Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, Susan Cooper, Joan Aiken - but I don't remember there being a similar amount of children's sf, and with a couple of exceptions most of it was really quite poor. OTOH, I was reading Clarke and Asimov at the age of ten (and Moorcock, actually), and Wyndham and McCaffery a couple of years after that, and I wonder if it's just that sf is a more difficult genre to make child-specific, while an awful lot of the 'grown-up' stuff is perfectly accessible to an intelligent 10-year-old?

[owl]

Good point about sf being accessible to kids anyway, although the same would apply to fantasy (some of it is a lot better read at 12 than 22). Perhaps it's magic=fairy tales=kids stuff?

[white_hart]

I think that a lot of fantasy themes fit very well into the coming-of-age type story that's so typical in YA fantasy. Certainly the only thing I can really find that distinguishes YA fantasy from adult fantasy (apart from the welcome absence of really bad sex scenes) is that the protagonists are the same age as the intended audience.

[owl]

apart from the welcome absence of really bad sex scenes

Bring on the YA! Actually I do still read a fair amount of YA fantasy still.

[white_hart]

I read more YA fantasy than adult. Generally, it's better.

[krpalmer.livejournal.com]

I certainly remember reading a lot of "sf for children" when I was a kid, enough to feel its absence nowadays, although I suppose I also have to admit that a lot of it wouldn't be classified as stellar. There are a lot of people who do speak fondly of Robert A. Heinlein's "juveniles" from the 1950s, although maybe those skew a little more towards (young) teenagers.

[owl]

Now that you mention it, I do remember some kids sf from when I was young. Certainly doesn't seem to be any being written currently.

[krpalmer.livejournal.com]

I wonder if SF writers would tend complain about how they can't compete with visual works and their tie-ins, although I'd also hope that at least a few young people would be able to move between one and the other... although just today, I did notice a small mention that Stephen Hawking is writing (http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/06/stephen_hawking.html) a "young-adult science-fiction novel." It may not mean that much in the end, but I did find it a little interesting...