Artemis Fowl Has A New Look.

My absolute favorite middle grade series is getting repackaged and I’m debating whether or not to pick up a new set.  My paperbacks were so ratty when I got them since I bought the first three, used.  I’m not sure yet whether I like -all- the covers though.  From an industry perspective, I think that the new direction they’ve taken the package is very smart.  The old covers feel too young now-a-days, and while the Artemis Fowl books have remained quite true and targeted to its middle grade audience, I wouldn’t limit them to a young teen-reader (8-12).  [Hey, I’m 23 and I love these books.]

The new covers have the look of the Percy Jackson & Olympians series by Rick Riordan or Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry.  They are comparable to the popular styles on the market, but for the most part they remain identifiable as its own brand.  Scroll down to the cover of the first book, to catch my drift.  I’d recognize that as Artemis from a mile away even without the slanting, bordering on sinister looking text  I think this is going to be a much more attractive package for boys.  The old, shiny covers always struck me as a little too sparkly and girly.  There’s a lot of action on each and they show you what the book is about rather than just sitting there looking like a pretty journal.

So now without further ado in the event that you haven’t seen them yet.  I give you, Mr. Artemis Fowl:

 

The first book is definitely my favorite of the new set.  I’ll admit, part of this was just out of a pure fan reaction over seeing the plucky anti-hero for the first time in a more realistic portrayal than what we saw in the graphic novel.  The graphic novel was cute, but this is how I’ve always pictured Artemis Fowl.

 

/End of Line

L.

Beauty Contest: The Name of This Book is Secret

So currently, Little Brown put in a strong showing towards winning my own “Best Book Packaging” award for 2009.  I picked this book up, free, at Comic-Con on Kids Day.  The giveaway packaging was even impressive.  It had it’s own printed box, containing the book and a book mark.  It was gorgeous and fun, but just wait until I get to the best part. The book itself is the quirkiest thing I have picked up in a long time.

The Name of This Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch
Publisher:  Little Brown 
ISBN: 978-0316113663
List Price: $16.99 Page Count: 364
Available on the Kindle?: Yes ($4.79)
Available on the Sony?:  Yes ($5.99)

 Summary:  

If this were a normal cover for a normal book, I would tell you that this book is fantastic!  Gripping! (According to their covers, all books are fantastic and gripping.)  You’d meet the brave young heroes, Cass and Max Ernest.  And you’d hear about how a mysterious box of vials, The Symphony of Smells, sends them on the trail of a magician who was vanished under strange (and stinky) circumstances.  If this were a normal book, I would brag about the hair-raising adventures that follow – about the brain-twisting riddles Cass and Max-Ernest solve and the nefarious villains they face.  But sadly, I can’t tell you about any of those things; they might make you want to read the book.

You see, not only is the name of this book secret, the story is too.  For it concerns a secret – a big secret – that has been tormenting people like you for over…oh no!  Did I just mention the secret?  Then it’s too late.  

I’m afraid nothing will stop you now.  Open the book if you must.  But, please, tell no one.

With apologies,

Pseud. Bosh

My Thoughts:  And it gets better.  The photo up on amazon does not do this book justice.

The are just so many elements incorporated into the design and packaging of this book.  It is quite impressive.  The jacket is a green foil, die cut piece.  There is a hole through the top of the magicians top hat revealing a bright, orange hardcase.  The hardcase is specially designed with a glossy lamination over it.  The copy on the back of the jacket is in reverse.  So a child is going to have to hold this up to a mirror to read it, adding to the sense of mystery and fun in this book.  This was a very expensive book to print.  Particularly to have the die cut done. 

Flipping further, the interior of the book continues to abound in cuteness.  (Shut up.  I’m having a girl moment.  But it is adorable.  :p)  The original title of the book is scratched out, replaced with the quickly scraweled words “The Name of This Book is Secret”  on the title page.  The copyright page is broken up and pasted down at odd angles.  And of course what is a good mystery without a disclaimer warning on page one.  

 There are also letters and artwork between chapter breaks. I think I’ve hit all the highlights by this point.  I haven’t read it all yet, so I can’t comment on the writing.  It’s worth it to preview this book on Amazon, just to get a sense of the fun going on here.  I imagine this book is for a very young crowd, the 8-10 crowd and kids who like Sage’s Magyk books.  I really wouldn’t recommend it to anyone older that from the bit’s I have read.

Things like this appeal to me.  I will probably take some flack for this, but I like gimmicks.  They make me smile.  They make me laugh, and even before I have to read a page, I’m already enjoying myself.  So I’ll buy a book on a gimmick, usually without regrets even if I end up not liking the narrative.  It’s good packaging.  

At the same time, it really doesn’t pay to put lipstick on a pig.  Gimmicks need to be chosen with great care.  If the book is only so, so it’ll hurt more in the long run to build a fancy campaign around a title that you know is likely only going to attain a lukewarm reception just to drive the sales of that particular title.  You don’t ever want the reader feeling like they were tricked into buying a book.  They will remember that middle-of-the-road-book that they wasted twenty dollars when they happen across one of the author’s other books or a title that is comparable.  You risk loosing the ability to affect them with similar gimmicks again.

/End of Line

~ Darcy

Jane Lindskold Talks About the Meaning of YA

An interesting discussion is evolving at Tor.com around a recent post by Jane Lindskold, author of the “Firekeeper” Series (containing Through Wolf’s Eyes, Wolf’s Head Wolfs Heart, etc.)

The full post can be found here on Tor.com

I like that Lindskold recognizes how subjective the answer to this question is:  ”Not knowing your child, I cannot really answer this question.” Teens are individuals.  Some begin reading up at an earlier age than others and many adults enjoy the genre as well, and so in some sense the YA classification is pointless since age isn’t a strict boundary.

Read the comments. There are some interesting arguements and definitions being offered up.  The closest definition to my own beliefs was made by a poster going by the handle of neutronjockey:  ” The big thing is that YA caters to its audience. It follows YA trends, YA language, YA pop-culture, and YA needs.”

I think this a great way of putting it. As an adult reading YA, I don’t tend to empathize with the characters on a personal level, at least in a present sense.  I don’t have to deal with any of the playground politics that made high school hell.  I don’t have a curfew.  I pay my own bills.  I lay awake at night worrying about politics weakened state of the American dollar, but when I read YA none of that mucks up the reading experience.  My adult worries don’t follow me into my entertainment.  It is an escape for me, but the story is wholly centered on a younger mindset: their thoughts, worries, fantasies, and experiences.  And when a book gains an adult following, it isn’t because the work is trying to speak to adults.  It is because of good prose, writing that can carry the reader to another place and time.

Some comments made me a bit sad though.  A commenter using the name of Orchard writes:  ”The fact is YA books are written for everyone and genre adult stuff is very limited to adult genre fans.  Who else is reading adult genre stuff?”

I found authors like Lindskold as a young adult.  I was reading Jordan, Modesit, Herbert and Niven at age fifteen.  In one sense YA makes science fiction and fantasy more accessible to readers who might otherwise have never found their way to the genre.  But I wonder, is it hurting the adult market and stifling the growth of some of these young readers.  A lot of teens aren’t venturing out of their genre now.  

I’m not sure to be honest.  It used to be that adults reading YA were teased and looked down on.  Now, there’s a fair bit of snobbery around YA readers.  They isolate themselves in the genre claiming that its just more imaginative than adult science-fiction/fantasy as proven by how widely known and popular some of these teen franchises have become.  I’ve been running into it a lot lately and it bugs the hell out of me.  

Until then, read the discussion on Tor.com.  Let me know what you think.  AND check out Lindskold’s new book, Thirteen Orphans, on sale November 11.   For fans of Fruits Baskets and Lindskold’s previous works this looks like a win.  Her new urban fantasy is based around the Chinese Zodiac (INCLUDING THE CAT!!!  Whee!).

PW’s Highly Anticipated YA Titles

While Christopher Paolini’s Brisinger and the debut of the 39 Clues series are assured the the spotlight, Publisher’s Weekly wrote an article earlier this week, introducing four other YA titles to remember this fall.

High Hopes for Early Favorites

1. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
2. Eon: The Dragoneye Reborn by Alison Goodman
3. The Year We Disappeared by Cylin Busby and John Busby

Last but certainly not least, the book I’m counting down the days till.

4. Graceling by Kristin Cashore!!!

Not many new details though as far as the story goes, but it is nice to know that a companion book is already in the works for an 09 release!

The Debate On YA Science Fiction

I wouldn’t call this controversy, but I’ve seen a couple other bloggers talking about these two posts on IO9 about the topic of YA Sci-Fi.

In the first corner:  Stop Writing YA Sci-Fi

“But I object to the idea that young people need their own special, segregated genre of books, as if their minds are so dramatically different from adult minds that they require their own category of fantasy. Once a person has reached adolescence, relegating their reading material to its own gated subgenre seems at best condescending and at worst censorious.”

Actually I think it is rather helpful to have their own section outside of the children’s section.  There is no rule, or bookstore police force keeping the teens in their own private YA corral.  It makes it easier for younger teens, who are looking to read up and to branch out from the kids books, without being intimidating.  

I was not a sci-fi/fantasy reader as a young teen and bookstores intimidated me, frankly.  I should also mention that we didn’t have book stores like the large retailers on St. Croix. All my books came through the scholastic book club, and a Barnes and Nobles was larger than my school library.  I hardly knew what to do with myself when my mom would drop me off at the bookstore. 

Its protagonist is just 18 years old. But nobody would think Stephenson’s book was for young people, just as they wouldn’t likely slap “young adult” on the cover of a Vinge tome. Obviously age isn’t the only indicator, then: There is something more than safe subjects or young characters that makes a book YA.

I think you and I know exactly what that “something” is. It’s niche marketing. We’ve already got clothing, games, and technologies aimed at teenagers. Now we have scifi books aimed at them too. I don’t want you to think that I have some giant objection to niche marketing, because I don’t. It’s helpful to have bookstores divided up into sections. What I don’t like is when one of those sections is specifically designed to repel me, to make me think that I shouldn’t be there.

I admit I haven’t seen repackaging done for Sci-Fi, but both The Wheel of Time and Dragonlance two very popular adult fantasy series were repackaged for teens.  Of course this was years ago when I was still in high school, before the big YA boom.  Repackaging didn’t work then, but I think the atmosphere has changed.  A new repackaging project would be an interesting experiment.  

One thing that really bothered me about this article was that the author doesn’t fully explain how the teen market repels adults from it.  As a raging geek, I’m quite used to having people cast disparaging glances at me in the bookstore as the literary classics were kept across the aisle from sci-fi/fantasy.  Worse yet, I read manga and while it is much more mainstream today, readers still face a lot of opposition.  I’ve seen it no worse in the YA section.  In fact because of series such as Harry Potter, Twilight, and Gossip Girls I don’t think I’ve ever seen those same glares directed at adults in the YA section.  It is not that abnormal anymore for adults to be reading YA, and besides, was it ever truly weird to begin with?  How is a bystander to know whether that adult reads YA or is just looking for a book for a child or relative?  

Sure teen books aren’t marketed directly at adults in the same media channels, but do adults market to teens in through their popular media?  Not very often.  

I don’t mean to rag on the article so.  I’m grateful to the author for their opinions because it has been an interesting and thought provoking topic.  I do agree that I also cringe when I hear of a favorite adult author of mine jumping into the YA pool.  My reason for this is that I do find YA fiction to be very different from adult fiction, and there are few authors who can write to both markets.  Plot focuses in YA tend to be very teen specific because authors are trying to relate to their audience and cultivate the reading experience.  Adult fiction tends to be much more free-form, I feel.  Neither is wrong or worse than the other.  You can really tell though when an author is feeling either constrained or has been given too much room to work with.  The quality of the work usually suffers.  Some authors can do it.  I don’t mean to say that it can’t be done.  

Anyway, in the other corner:  Young Adult Books Will Save Sci-Fi

I think the title may be pushing it a little. While it’s true that there have been few new sci-fi superstars to emerge from the younger generations I’m not convinced that YA sci-fi is going to raise up the next Frank Herbert.  We live in a technological atmosphere that is so different from our elders.  I think modern sci-fi is in a bit of a flux because we are already living in an age that is so much a fantasy itself, one that is constantly changing and progressing.  It is hard to keep ahead of the sci-fi in our everyday lives.

I do agree though with the projection that YA sci-fi will impact the growth of the adult readership in the future.  The hope is that these young readers through word of mouth or their own initiative, will take the plunge into adult science fiction because they’ve felt comfortable and have been encouraged to delve into the genre during their formative reading years.