All right, my friends. Cory Doctorow read from his YA novel, Little Brother, yesterday at Books of Wonder in Manhattan.
First of all, I feel the need to scold you for not showing up. I mean, lots of folks did, but they were all, like, grown-ups. Now, I know it was Memorial Day and you had your barbecues, but really. You missed out on a good time. I’ll tell you all about it inside.
There were about three kids in the audience. Here Cory is signing their books:
But before he signed, he talked. People had questions for him. My favorite was this one:
Audience member: “How does one learn to write YA after writing real sci fi?”
I’m planning a manifesto on how YA is indeed real, but Cory handled the question well, saying he asked other more experienced YA authors for advice and also explaining what he feels it means to be a member of that category known as “young adult.”
“The state of being an adolescent is the state of going through a lot of one-way changes,” Cory said. Every event has huge meaning, growing up is happening. And as a result, teenagers take risks that maybe people in the 25 and over demographic wouldn’t take.
“We treat that risk-taking behavior as though it’s a bug when it’s actually a feature of adolescence,” he added.
Indeed. Cory’s book actually delves quite deep into this. In case you aren’t already aware of the plot, terrorists blow up the Bay Bridge (which connects San Francisco to Berkeley), and California turns into a police state. The Department of Homeland Security takes innocent teenagers in for questioning, and some of those teens respond by using technology to break free of constantly being spied upon.
Vocab word: Dystopia, n. Refers to a society, generally imaginary, in which things have gone completely nuts. There are lots of these books around. Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies quartet is all about a dystopian society. George Orwell’s 1984 is a dystopia. What makes these books special is that they usually have a political stance behind them, they are about something very specific going very wrong.
In Cory’s book, it’s partially that technology — real technology that actually exists — is being used to spy on people in an unprecedented manner. What’s scary about his novel is that it’s not that far from what we’ve got today.
The book itself, by the way, is pretty good. Worth your time. A little heavy on the tech stuff, but not more than you can handle. It may scare the wits out of you, but in a good way. Like, a learn-y way. By which I mean, you’ll learn stuff you actually want to know, that may be useful to you later on. (Oh yeah. Little Brother is a good smooth read, too. Absorbing, though I wouldn’t call it “fun,” because police states just aren’t fun to begin with.)
Another lovely sound bite from yesterday’s reading, and then I’ll leave you with a picture of Cory’s kickass “steam punk” jewelry:
“Young adult fiction seems to exist in that amazing space that’s incredibly popular and critically unregarded.” Well. We’ll have to change that, won’t we?
As I mentioned, you can download Cory’s book for free. You can also buy a bound paper copy of Little Brother
I had the incredible fortune of getting the Advanced Reading Copy of ‘Little Brother’ and have been singing its praises ever since. I cannot say enough good things about this book. I think it did what ‘Snow Crash’ by Neal Stephenson did for adult geeks, for the YA crowd. It was scary to read because it was so realistic – you could see that happening any day now. I’ve noticed lately that dystopian books have been on the rise for the YA crowd and I think it’s an important topic to raise in the minds of the younger generation. I also highly recommend ‘Gone’ by Michael Grant, if you enjoyed ‘Little Brother.’