YA Guy Writes... Cli-Fi!

Back in 1973, when YA Guy was … well, considerably younger, I read a book titled Dar Tellum: Stranger From a Distant Planet, by James R. Berry. It tells the story of a boy who communicates telepathically with an alien (Dar Tellum), and it’s got lots of appealing sci-fi elements for younger readers. From the perspective of today, however, what’s most striking about it is the central conflict:

“It seems that the planet Earth was right in the middle of a big crisis. Dozens of cities were in danger of becoming flooded. Already one city in some eastern country was almost covered with water. And the reason for this flooding was that the oceans were getting higher.

From what I understood, and I’m sure there are gaps here and there, the smoke from cars and factories goes into the air. A part of this smoke called carbon dioxide gets into the atmosphere of Earth. It lets the sun’s heat in, but it won’t let much heat out. This carbon dioxide makes a kind of one-way lid on Earth. Heat in, but not much out.

And this extra heat was warming up the north and south poles. So the ice was melting and the oceans were getting higher.”

Yes, folks, there it is, in a children’s book from the early seventies: global warming.

Dar Tellum, in other words, is an early example of what’s come to be known as “cli-fi”: fiction having to do with climate change. Some (though not all) cli-fi is also sci-fi, and (as a science fiction writer myself) that’s the kind I prefer.

A gentleman by the name of Danny Bloom (@polarcityman on Twitter) introduced me to the genre of cli-fi. I hadn’t known it was a genre beforehand.

Which is odd, since my own debut novel is cli-fi.

Survival Colony 9 is set in a future where war and environmental catastrophe have turned the world into a desert. Though I didn’t set out to write a book about climate change--and though the book is certainly no polemic--it’s impossible for me to imagine the story without that desert setting, which possesses not only visual but thematic significance. In fact, the setting was the first thing that came to mind when I started the story way back when, and everything else grew from it.

There are lots of great YA sci-fi cli-fi novels out there. Here’s a sampling of new and forthcoming titles (listed alphabetically):

Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis (@MindyMcGinnis)

Orleans by Sherri L. Smith (@Sherri_L_Smith)

Rootless by Chris Howard (@chrisH0WARD)

SeaBEAN by Sarah Holding (@SeaHolding)

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi (@paolobacigalupi)

Some Fine Day by Kat Ross (@katrossauthor)

Starvation Ridge by Risa Stephanie Bear (@risa_s_bear)

Wasteland by Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan (@KimKlavan)

It's great to know there are so many others exploring climate change in their writing. It's great to be part of a movement.

And my hat's off to writers like James R. Berry, who planted the seed so many years ago.

YA Guy Reviews... THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG

YA Guy wouldn't be YA Guy if not for J.R.R. Tolkien.

I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings when I was twelve and thirteen, respectively. (It was right around the time Star Wars came out, which created a perfect storm of science fiction and fantasy.) What I loved most about The Hobbit was its essential YA-ness: it's the story of a small, seemingly insignificant person who grows up, finds his courage, and discovers his place in the larger world.

Which is why I so thoroughly despise what Peter Jackson has done to Tolkien's story in his three-part Hobbit extravaganza.

Now, look, I'm not dumb. I know movies are inherently different from the books on which they're based. I've taught both literature and film classes, published a book about film. I loved The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, different though it was from its source material. I thought Jackson and his crew made excellent decisions in those films.

I think they've made horrible decisions in The Hobbit.

I hated the first movie. (If you want to know why, see this post.) I didn't think I could hate the second one any more. But I did.

The reasons are many, but here's a start.

CGI madness. Jackson used to be a director who liked to work with actual actors and physical effects. For all the lavish CGI of The Lord of the Rings, he never forgot the humanity of his story--which started with relying to a great extent on actual people and actual places. But ever since King Kong, he's decided he doesn't want to direct movies anymore; he wants to direct video games. So we get computer-generated orcs, computer-generated actors, computer-generated settings, computer-generated action, computer-generated everything, all of it looking weightless and implausible and unreal (as when the dwarfs' barrels careen upright down raging rapids without tipping over once), all of it making a hash of Tolkien's lovingly crafted fantasy world.

Tone deaf. Jackson used to know his way around a scene. Watch the arming of Theoden in The Two Towers, or Pippin's song in The Return of the King. Both of them contain brilliant combinations of poetry, arresting visuals, cross-cutting, lighting effects, and (yes, indeed) human emotion. But lately, Jackson doesn't seem to know how to film a scene with lyricism, restraint, humanity: all he knows is loud, louder, and louder still. It's less like watching a movie than listening to your next-door neighbor scream at his wife for three straight hours.

Everything but the kitchen sink. I could hardly keep track of all the stuff going on in this unholy mess of a movie. We've got orcs attacking Lake Town! Gandalf storming Dol Guldur! A romance between an elf and a dwarf! Political intrigue between Bard and the Master! A dwarf dying of a poisoned arrow wound! Thorin and company relighting their forges to fight Smaug with a giant golden statue! (Huh?) Orlando Bloom looking old and fat and tired and ticked-off that ten years after his career was supposed to blossom, he's back fighting cartoon ape-orcs while his CGI figure leaps from head to head of barrel-riding dwarfs (who, I hasten to remind, magically remain upright while their barrels fly over waterfalls)! The only thing we didn't see much of--in fact barely saw anything of--was Bilbo's development as unlikely hero. I guess that wasn't exciting enough for Jackson.

In short, everything in The Desecration of Smaug (did I say that?) cuts against what I love about Tolkien's story: its intimate scale, its humanity, its quirkiness, its heart. Jackson decided to tell yet another big, loud, scream-at-the-audience-for-attention amusement park ride of a movie, and in so doing he killed everything that makes his source material great.

God only knows what the final installment will be like. All I know is it won't be anything like The Hobbit.

YA Guy's Top 10 (Movies!)

Following yesterday's post, I began to think about YA-guy movies.

Turns out there are quite a few of them.

So here, for what it's worth, is my provisional Top 10.  I say "provisional" because this list is based entirely on the DVDs and Blu-Ray discs I personally own, so obviously it's not definitive (for example, What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, which I love but don't own, isn't on the list.)  But it's not wholly random, either; all of these films, which I've listed in rank order (best to least best), are darn good.

YA Guy swears on it.

1. Breaking Away.  You want a YA-guy movie that deals thoughtfully and subtly with growing up, with father-son relationships, with male friendship, with choice-making, with the meaning of work and sports, and with a whole lot of other things besides?  Look no further.  Quite simply, one of the finest films ever made.

2. American History X.  This is R-rated, and the graphic violence and sexuality are tough for some to watch.  But it's an absolutely amazing film about the choices young men make--in this case, the negative choices.  Riveting and emotionally devastating.

3. Star Wars: A New Hope.  In other words, the very first Star Wars film in order of theatrical release.  I saw it when I was twelve, and my YA years were indelibly marked by it.  That the series morphed into a father-son story, and then (in the prequels) into the story of a young man's fall, only made it more powerful.

4. Edward Scissorhands.  For every high school boy who's ever felt like a freak....

5. Spider-Man. ... and wished he was a hero.  In other words, every high school boy.

6. The Outsiders.  This movie was critically panned for some reason, maybe because of its faithfulness to the book or because it wasn't the kind of film people were expecting Francis Ford Coppola to direct.  But it's a terrific adaptation of Hinton's novel, and it launched the careers of many fine young actors, male and female.

7. West Side Story.  Yes, it's dated.  Yes, it's ridiculous to have people dancing and singing while they're killing each other.  But if you can get past that and let yourself be immersed in the music and visuals (not to mention the Shakespearean love story), it remains an astonishing achievement.

8. Friday Night Lights.  A bit repetitive--how many scenes do we really need that show how football-crazy the town is?--but still a great high school sports film.

9. The Lightning Thief.  This film suffers from some very questionable adaptation choices--in particular, the decision to make Percy and co. much older than they are in the book, presumably so they can drive lots of really fast sports cars--but the source material is so great, the film couldn't go entirely wrong.

10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower.  Confession: I haven't seen this one yet.  But my daughter swears it's amazing.  I'll take her word for it.

I considered a few others for this list--Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Hunger Games, etc.  But the first seemed a bit young for YA, and in the case of the second, does Collins really need any more free publicity?  So I'm sticking with what I've got.

Now it's your turn.  What would you add (or delete)?

Inquiring YA Guys want to know.