The Passing of Dystopia?

I saw an entertainment news headline this morning on IMDb that got me thinking... Is Dystopia a trend that has passed in literature? Or is it, instead, at its peak? I've been planning my next book series (a NA Dystopia, for those of you who don't know) for about two years, and for the last year or so, I've run into people who have told me in no uncertain terms, "That ship has sailed!" Over! Done! What need is there for another Dystopian novel? People have moved on...

I disagree, and I think the facts are on my side.

The headline I saw stated that The Hunger Games: Mockingjay has just set a 2014 record for first-day pre-sales. And what was the previous record-holder for this year? Oh yes, that would be Divergent. (You can read the article here.) Unless you've been living on another planet, you are probably well aware that both of these movies are based off bestselling Dystopian book series.

As with any trend, at some point the market will become saturated with imitation novels, with all sorts of people who want a piece of the pie, and I think people who tell me the trend has passed believe the Dystopian market is already saturated. Do I want a piece of the Dystopian pie? Sure. But is that why I wrote BREEDER? No. I think Dystopian is a crucially important genre right now. The world is rapidly changing. My children are growing up with the sort of technology I watched on The Jetsons as a child, and I can only imagine what will become normal in the next ten years. But with all sorts of fun technology come questions of ethics and morality, questions that effect the human race and our stewardship of the earth itself. Throughout history, periods such as this have always led to great expression in literature, and I think many authors of Dystopia today see the world heading in directions that warrant warning. Isn't that - beneath the adventures, beneath the heroes and heroines, beneath the love triangles, beneath all the surface trappings of the story - what Dystopia is really all about?

So no, I don't think the Dystopian trend has passed. Far from it - I think it's at its peak, and I don't see it passing any time soon. People are hungry for stories that look forward to the future, especially in an era of rapid technological increase, terrible world conflicts, and threats of ebola epidemics. There may be a lot of Dystopian books out there right now, but I don't think the market is saturated, not yet. And I promise to deliver something in BREEDER that I think has been notably absent from most of the other Dystopias: hope.

Book 1 of The Breeder Cycle: BREEDER coming December 11, 2014! 

Once Upon a Time

I actively watch very few television shows on a regular basis. The only show I can remember setting out to watch from the pilot episode (based on the excellent marketing and Spielberg's attachment to the project) is Falling Skies, and that's been a very fun experience, although the special effects are at times cringe-worthy (which is why I avoid the SyFy channel like the plague.) But for a couple years now I've heard people talk about the show Once Upon a Time, and I've always had a mild interest in checking it out. After all, fairy tales are right up my alley! Well, my husband and I finally got Netflix and lo and behold, there was Once Upon a Time.

I watched the pilot episode and was immediately hooked. Needless to say, it's been a little bit of a productivity killer this week, BUT I can view it as research for my writing (right? Sure, why not.). The fairy tale side of the show is, truthfully, a bit cheesy, a bit tongue-in-cheek, and while I usually despise cheesiness, for some reason I don't mind it in this show. So that put me in a contemplative mood.


Why don't I mind that the evil queen is so over-the-top evil? Why don't I mind the love-at-first-sight cliches, the magical solution to every problem, and the obvious story outcomes perpetrated by over-the-top writing, acting, and costumery? I think the answer lies in the very fact that these things are what fairy tales are all about. In Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty, you're not supposed to wonder who is good and who is evil. Heroes and heroines are pure of heart and ready to love, often demonstrated by dashing displays of selflessness and friendly animal companionship. Villains hate everyone and everything that doesn't further their own agenda and drive for power. They are Machiavellian to the extreme, and they relish death and destruction. Except for in fairy tale revisionist stories, there is no place for the "misunderstood" villain that is so prevalent in our postmodern society in traditional fairy tales ... and I love this! Fairy tales draw a clear distinction between good and evil, and when they are transformed into a visual medium, you can literally see it. For children, and for those of us who sometimes yearn for things to just be cut and dry from time to time, this is a beautiful thing. There is obviously also a time in fantasy (and in all literature) for a not-so-obvious distinction between good and evil. In my opinion this is only appropriate if the purpose is not to blur the lines in actuality, but to make the reader dig deeper to figure it out for themselves. In fact, this makes for much more complex forms of storytelling than one finds in the traditional fairy tale, so I'm not saying doing things one way is better than doing things the other way. Where I think the show Once Upon a Time has really hit it on the nose is that the over-the-top obvious morality of the fairy tale realm is tempered by a more subtle figure-it-out morality of the "real world" setting of Storybrooke, Maine. Where the evil queen is SO EVIL in the fairy tale realm, in Storybrooke she's much more seductive and sly; at times the viewer almost wants to feel bad for her (before she hauls off and does something wicked again to remind you who she really is). I think the end result of the show is one that shows both sides of evil - how sometimes it is obvious, and sometimes it is not, and you need to be on guard against it regardless. It engages the cerebral and the emotional centers of the brain.

Mostly, I think I love fairy tales because all fantasy literature is essentially an offshoot of traditional fairy tales. Modern fantasy authors, in using fantasy, have the same ability to draw distinct contrast between good and evil, and to do so in a way that takes the reader to the extreme moral highs and lows without it seeming out of place in the real world (because, after all, it's *just* a story!). To quote a scholar on the subject, "Fantasy literature takes us out of our world, enabling us to see moral principles more clearly... In addition, fantasy literature gives us more stark examples of heroism and villainy than realistic fiction usually does." (Cole Matson, "Is Tolkien Useless?") These stark examples can encourage us to be better people than we are. After all, who ever roots for the evil queen?

Fantasy According to C. S. Lewis

I thought that I would take the opportunity to blog about a few topics near and dear to my heart as I wait for my manuscript to come back from my editors. I have made it no secret that I have a passion for good fantasy literature, my favorites being the works of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and J. K. Rowling. Some critics of fantasy literature accuse it of being (among other things) juvenile, escapist garbage, commercial trash, or even wicked (based on the presence of magic, witches, wizards, warlocks, sorcery, etc.). I freely admit that some fantasy literature falls into these categories, but nobody should write off the genre as a whole based on these presuppositions. In fact, I find that fantasy as a genre is more edifying in many cases than any other genre of literature, for many reasons. Rather than continuing to hear me wax philosophical on this topic, however, I thought I would present a few quotations from the late, great C. S. Lewis for your consideration:

"Admitted fantasy is precisely the kind of literature which never deceives at all. Children are not deceived by fairy-tales; they are often and gravely deceived by school-stories. Adults are not deceived by science-fiction; they can be deceived by the stories in the women's magazines. None of us are deceived by The Odyssey, the Kalevala, Beowulf, or Malory. The real danger lurks in sober-faced novels where all appears to be very probable but all is in fact contrived to put across some social or ethical or religious or anty-religious 'comment on life.'" From An Experiment in Criticism

"The boy does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted... the boy reading the fairy tale desires and is happy in the very fact of desiring. For his mind has not been concentrated on himself, as it often is in the more realistic story." From 'On Three Ways of Writing for Children,' Of Other Worlds

"...When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." Ibid.

I particularly love the middle quotation. Anybody who spends any amount of time with teenagers has witnessed the malignancy which is the self-centeredness of the American teenager. We live in a society of "YOU." Everything is always all about YOU; what makes YOU happy, finding YOUR hidden potential, being true to YOURSELF, etc.... Reading good fantasy (or fairy tales) can take a person outside his or herself in a way that causes him or her to desire a power and a fulfillment outside of him or herself, as well as encouraging them to see him or herself as part of a larger, more beautiful story. Anyhow, I'm ranting now, I suppose, and I could go on for much longer, so I'll cut myself off. Any thoughts?