A Post-Apocalyptic Dystopia I Can Actually Enjoy

Here it is, people. My last post on this year's Cybils YA Speculative Fiction finalists. This is definitely a last, but not least, situation. This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab was the first of the finalists I read. It was a good introduction.

One of the things I liked about this fantasy/scifi (what is apocalyptic fiction, anyway?) is that instead of front loading the story with  world building, it begins with a scene that could appear in a nonfantasy book. The scene involved a girl burning down a church at a boarding school, so, sure, it wouldn't appear in just any nonfantasy book. But my point is, the book begins with a realistic (and intriguing) opening that helps pull readers like myself, who don't love fantasy for the sake of fantasy, into the story.

The publisher compares this book to the work of Holly Black, Maggie Stiefvater, and Laini Taylor. But This Savage Song reminded me much more of Jonathan Maberry's Rot and Ruin. Both are post-apocalyptic novels that don't rely on cliched totalitarian political mumbo jumbo. Instead, whatever caused society to fall involves the rising of...creatures...beings. In the case of Rot and Ruin, we're talking zombies. With This Savage Song, we're talking monsters that are "born" from the violent acts that caused human deaths. In these books, the human characters are trying to maintain a normal life with a town in the middle of a zombie frontier or a high school in the middle of a protected city. It's not their political leaders holding them down. It's a real, physical threat from outside. Not that there aren't some human issues. There's the question in both these books of just who is the real monster here?

This Savage Song, like Illuminae, the Cybils winner in this category, has a neat little gender twist. Kate is much more of an anti-hero than August is. He is more of a family person. I've seen a number of YA books over the years with a male protagonist who has father issues. In This Savage Song, it's Kate who has them. Both Kate and August are filling roles traditionally played by members of the opposite sex.

Okay, that's it. My 2017 Cybils experience is over.

Family Drama With Magical Realism

I'm down to writing about my last two Cybils YA speculative fiction finalists.

Today, lads and lasses, we will discuss Still Life With Tornado by A.S. King.
This was a particularly intriguing work because it wasn't overtly speculative. It was more of a family drama that had some magical realism here and there.

Sixteen-year-old Sarah is struggling. She's not going to school. She's wandering around the city. What's going on? How much does this have to do with an art project that was destroyed? How much with her brother who is estranged from the family? How much with a family vacation in her past?

What about those sightings she keeps having of herself from her past and future? What's that about?

What Little I Know About Magical Realism

The First Thing I Know About Magical Realism, Though I Don't Know If It's True. While reading this very well-written book, I kept thinking of a conversation I had with a bookseller years ago while I was making an appearance in her store. The poor woman didn't make a sale the entire time I was there. I don't mean that she didn't sell one of my books while I was there. She didn't sell any books while I was there. (There's no bookstore in that town anymore, so I guess she didn't do better on other days.) The two of us spent the afternoon sitting in rocking chairs in the middle of all the books that weren't selling, shooting the breeze. Good times, good times.

The one thing I remember us talking about was magical realism. She said that if some sort of bizarre event in a book is due to a character suffering trauma, than it's not magical realism. A delusion that occurs because someone is under mental duress has an explanation. Magical realism cannot be explained. That's why it's magical.

The bookseller who told me this had once been a therapist, which in my mind gave her opinions a lot of validity. No, I don't know why.

For a long time while reading Still Life With Tornado, I kept wondering if what Sara was seeing--her former self, at first--was explainable because of trauma, duress. Maybe I was reading a family drama, not speculative fiction. But eventually others see the various Saras, which meant that this wasn't going on in Sara's mind, something magical was going on.

The Second Thing I Know About Magical Realism, Though I Don't Know How True It Is. In magical realism, the magical events are simply accepted by the characters. Like the roses growing out of the main character's wrist in When the Moon Was Ours.

Eventually that's what happens in Still Life With Tornado.

Still Life With Tornado, in my humble opinion, should have a lot of attraction for adult readers as well as YA. In part that's due to the family drama. There are also a number of chapters from the mother's point of view. Adult point of view in a YA novel isn't something I see a lot of, so it does add something different to this particular piece of work.

Traditional Fantasy

The Keeper of the Mist by Rachel Neumeier is the fifth of the seven finalists
for the Cybils YA Speculative Fiction Award. This was my idea of serious, traditonal fantasy--imaginary country with a ruling family that's got some magical thing going. At least one member does. The book actually starts out with a Cinderella situation, though Cinderella becomes the prince figure, so to speak, she doesn't marry him. A very neat twist.

While reading this, I felt a bit of a feminist vibe. Main character Keri and her friend are the dominant people here. They are in control. They engage males not so much for help, but to flesh out their plans.

More Brooklyn-based Speculative Fiction From Cybil

Time for another Cybils YA Speculative Fiction finalist. I'm afraid it will be time to start the next Cybils season before I finish writing about this one.

Today, lads and lasses, I am going to tell you about Labyrinth Lost (Brooklyn Brujas) by Zoraida Cordova. Labyrinth Lost, like The Door at the Crossroads, is set in Brooklyn, at least in the beginning. (Brooklyn must be teeming with magical stuff.) It had an urban fantasy possibility, with a family of witches (brujas) existing in a contemporary urban world. That changes, though, when main character Alex, who hates this magic business, tries to shed hers. Instead, she sends her family into a fantasy world that she has to enter in order to save them. She's accompanied by a neighborhood boy she doesn't know very well, but one who knows what's going on with her and her family. And they're eventually unexpectedly joined by one of Alex's friends. So do we now have one of your classic trios on a journey? Well, yes and no.

A Latin family and the beginnings of a lesbian romance with a cliffhanger ending. 

Cybils Finalists For 2016

The 2016 Cybils finalists were announced yesterday, New Year's Day. I was happy to see that A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro, which I liked, made the short list for YA Fiction.

However, my big interest this year is YA Speculative Fiction, for which I am a second round judge. I'll be reading the following books before Valentine's Day.

YA Speculative Fiction Finalists

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman
Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova
Still Life with Tornado by A.S. King
The Door at the Crossroads by Zetta Elliott
The Keeper of the Mist by Rachel Neumeier
This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab
When the Moon was Ours: A Novel by Anna-Maria McLemore

I'll get back to you about these books after February 14.