Dark/Dytopian YA Fiction (also, is optimistic Sci-Fi gone?)

So now that The Hunger Games movie hype is getting into high gear, I might as well share something that bugged me a while before I became an active participant in this fine forum:

I do follow new book listings with some regularity (even though I don't read many non fiction books) and one trend that came to my recent attention is the sheer amount of novels with really dark themes marketed as "Young Adult" (14 to 21, in other words teenagers) coming out these days. Stuff like The Hunger Games, Divergence, Eve, etc. And of course I wasn't the only person noticing this:

http://www.libraryjournal.com/slj/home/891276312/the_worst_is_yet_to.html.csp

Anyway, my question is this: I don't imagine my teenage self enjoying such downbeat premises. I don't have a problem with downbeat fiction in general (I love the A Song Of Ice And Fire series and I was even a fan of 1984 when I was a teenager, yet I couldn't read SEVERAL such books) So can anyone who is a fan of these kinds of books explain their appeal to me? Is the author of that article right in her theory that teenagers are drawn to stories where they dismantle the corrupt adult society even if terrible sacrifices are made along the way?

Also, this segues into another question I had: you could definitely make the case that these books are a sign of the difficult times we are living. But if that is the cast then why are more upbeat optimistic stories about the future becoming so rare? Are we that disillusioned as a society that we no longer believe that the future will be a better place? Or is it that authors prefer to project what they perceive are the issues in our present (which according to the old cliché is "how the best sci-fi is made) in the hopes that this inspires someone to find a solution? Discuss these two topics.

If you want optimistic sci-fi, check out the Firestar series by Michael Flynn. Written in the '90s, but not too dated yet - though it will be; by the third book taking place in the 2020s, it's developed technology in so many directions that the whole "holy shit! I could live to see the first colony ships!" appeal is kind of effaced. Still, though, it's pretty dang optimistic, while never losing sight of the fact that human beings are human beings.

edited 28th Nov '11 2:59:11 PM by Bealocwealm

Optimistic fiction in general hasn't died, it's just not popular right now.

Such things tend to go in cycles.

Which is strange because you would think in rough times such as these, people would prefer optimism (maybe thats why super hero movies are in)

I think cynicism has become a way of saying you're sophisticated. What self-respecting story-crafter doesn't want to be sophisticated? Remember that it used to be called the Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Realism.

Versus Realism? Are you kidding me?

How spectacularly stupid...but off-topic.

Anyway, this. Cynicism is experiencing quite an upswing, and has been for a while. It looked like it might have started sliding downwards, what with the Arab Spring and all...but I don't think that's going to happen. Especially because the Arab Spring seems to have skipped Summer and gone straight to the Fall...

Okay, bad pun. And another derail.

I don't think optimistic novels for young adults are gone. It's just Generation (don't know what this one's being called).

Millenials is the closest thing I've seen to a consensus.

This generation seems to prefer to be into stuff that's "Dark" and "Edgy". Probably because they think it's "Deep" "Mature" and "Thought-provoking" or some shit like that.

I think it's because misery loves company, and nobody wants to read idealistic happy horseshit when you're down on your luck.

Pretty much.

I don't read much YA fiction... well, anymore... but, sociologically-speaking, it makes sense that fiction would get darker as the times get darker. Look at how the superweapon was romanticized before World War Two and how it was absolutely demonized afterward. Why? Well, duh, nukes and the Cold War. Look at the postmodernist movement after World War One and all the depressing shit that came out during that period.

Hell, look at 1984 and Slaughterhouse Five. As I said, depressing shit in depressing times.

That, and overly happy and idealistic works tend to come across as irritatingly annoying and unrealistic. This is partially because that really isn't very realistic, and partially because it's easier to accept a shitty world being realistic than a utopian world because our world is shitty.

However saying that a Crapsack World is more realitive to reality is also of a prolbemic notion.

The world is in between so long ballance be maintained.

edited 4th Dec '11 12:37:26 AM by Ailedhoo

How 'bout this: our world is much closer to the "shitty" end of the scale than the "awesome" end, no matter whether it's a legitimate Crapsack World or not.

Point is, people are justifiably cynical, and you shove irritating "everything is happy and great!" shit in their face and they'll rightly ignore you.

The exact same argument can be applied to Dystopian fiction and more cynical works in general. Cynical works always come across as incredibly anal and pretentious in their presentation to me.

It especially bothers me when writers deliberately try and go out of their way to make the world and its characters overly bleak and serious in an effort to be more "realistic". More so when they don't even add any fantastical element to spice things up a bit. That's not to knock Dystopia's completely however, they just need to add that element of "coolness" to balance out the bleakness.

Take Megaman X and Megaman Zero. They both take place in a Dystopian world. Crappy Government politics, crappy place to live in, etc. However, they also have Ridiculously Human Robots that fire laser-cannons and wield lightsabers fighting other humanoid-animal themed robots who have gone rogue. Now that's what I'm talking about! Same deal with Blaz Blue and Guilty Gear, a Dystopia? Yawn. A Dystopia set in a Fantasy Kitchen Sink with Magitek? That's not afraid to poke fun at itself too boot? Count me in! If more dystopian literature were to incorporate these kinds of elements in their works, well then, I'd be reading a whole lot more books. XD

TL;DR Dystopian literature should learn to add more awesome to balance out the bleakness.

edited 4th Dec '11 12:58:16 AM by Rynnec

That kind of undermines the point, though.

If they had more "awesome" in 1984 they could have overthrown the governments.

I mean, you're describing... loosely... what I'm doing with my current project, except all the awesome backfires horribly and spectacularly.

Either way, point is, the "awesome" isn't really conducive to the cynicism. Then again, an overly hopeless world is just as unrealistic as an overly hopeful one, except probably still easier to pass off as realistic to an audience. Not that the author won't have problems...

I was more or less talking about YA fiction. Which is sure to have an increase in Dystopian Fiction due to the popularity of The Hunger Games. Just like it happened before with Twilight and Vampire/Supernatural fiction.

Obviously this doesn't count for stuff like 1984, which was probably aimed for an audience older than the YA crowd (or came out before the YA label really existed).

Well, dystopic YA seems rather pointless, in retrospect. Most teens barely read for fun as it is, and trying to give them a story like that isn't going to help matters.

Which brings me to my "make it awesome" post. Then again, The Hunger Games did just fine, despite seemingly not having any fantastic elements. So who knows?

edited 4th Dec '11 1:52:39 AM by Rynnec

Eh... YA is in that strange gray zone that all "made for teens" fiction inhabits, wherein it doesn't treat teens as sophisticated enough, by and large, to understand complex themes, but it can't treat them like little kids, either, so it's left twiddling its thumbs trying to think of what to say.

Actually, most of the people who've read books like 1984, Lord of the Flies, Fahrenheit 451, The Jungle, and Animal Farm were teens when they first read them, and not always for class.

I've read all but one of those books—The Jungle is the one I haven't read—and none of them for a class.

Most of the people at my school haven't read them at all, though. Of course, that's not quite representative, but I think it's fair to say that while there are kids who are very interested in reading, most kids aren't anymore.

The link in the first post doesn't work (at least for me), I think this is what was being linked to: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/slj/home/891276-312/the_worst_is_yet_to.html.csp

I very much agree with this part:

I loved reading Mortal Engines as a teenager (and I still love those books), because the dark and gritty world made the adventures more exciting and made me fear for the protagonists much more, but, in the end, it was the idealistic determinators that were my favourite characters.

So it's not about being all cynical (at least for me), it's about the belief that good will triumph, always, no matter how bad things get.

Would it be a bad thing to mention in this thread my sci-fi books do not tread the Grimdark/dystopian path and end on an Earn Your Happy Ending type deal?

Because that's how it really does go. I'm not interested in run of the mill fad stories that show how much you can make a world suck.

edited 4th Dec '11 6:36:40 AM by MajorTom