YA Fiction: A Vast Teenage Wasteland

I read a scifi YA novel in high school called 'Spare Parts', about a girl who sold her body and got a cyborg one. I suspect that was aimed more at girls than boys, because if it had been aimed at boys there would have been more weaponry and 'action'.

@Loni Jay. Who wrote it? I might check it out...

Sally Rogers, apparently.

Thanks.

fairly interesting article about the gender distribution of YA authors.

edited 15th Aug '12 9:22:48 AM by Wicked223

The works of Ursula Le Guin, Octavia Butler, Lois Mc Master Bujold, C.J. Cherryh, and Anne Mc Caffrey were directed primarily at young men? Huh. Fooled me. Granted, they arent known for classic hard sci-fi.

Upon further research, it appears that every work marketed as YA appears to feature a teenage protagonist, and nearly every work that has a teenaged protagonist appears to be marketed as YA. It's as if people assume that teenagers can only identify with protagonists of their own age, and no one else can.

Can anyone think of a good work that should appeal to a YA audience but breaks these "rules"?

Wow so many people trying so hard to misunderstand my post. I don't think there's anything controversial about saying that publishers aim to sell sci-fi to young men. That there are female science fiction authors is both obvious and irrelevant, their books will still be marketed by their publishers to young men (For evidence: CJ Cherryh and Alice Sheldon changing their names to appeal more to male readers). Well maybe not Octavia Butler, unfortunately she was hardly marketed to anyone which is a shame since her short stories are amazingly good .

edited 15th Aug '12 4:30:55 PM by MrShine

Well from what I've seen, adult or hard sci-fi tends to be marketed at males and YA sci-fi tends to be either-or. That's just from casual browsing at bookstores and libraries though.

You're confusing actual demographics with Advertising Executive Idea Demographics. It's those same ideas that believe that a man beating up other men with explosions and car races are only appealing to men. Hence why they tend to cater to that.

Well, I'm less interested in how publishers market their titles than what to stock in my bookstore. Any 2011/2012 sci-fi that I should definitely have?

I think it was released in 2009-2010, but I found my old copy The Scorpion House by Nancy Farmer and reread parts of it. It's really, really good. I'd say it's for the 12+ age range, so it should fit in your store.

Also, like I said before, anything that's popular on TV or in the movies tends to be popular in book form too - so stuff like Star Wars EU or Doctor Who EU novels would definitely work.

edited 16th Aug '12 11:30:50 AM by czhang

The Lost Fleet comes to mind. However, I don't think it's really Young Adult. At least, it doesn't feature a teenager and it doesn't seem to be marketed to them. However, it's something that feels like it's firmly in the PG-13 range to me.

edited 16th Aug '12 4:04:06 PM by Deboss

I dunno, the Vorkosigan Saga is mil-sci-fi that seems to have a big following in the female side of the readership.

Admittedly, I don't know recent sci-fi terribly well. As for YA that breaks the "rules" of YA protagonists... I know I've seen some, I know I have, but I'm having a terrible time thinking of them.