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queensthiefBooks of Wonder's panel on Brave New Worlds was pretty much devoted to the tough ladies of dystopian fantasy.
Justine Larbalestier gave us a surprisingly spoiler-free introduction to compulsive liar Micah, who's had a "pretty bad year." Like Buffy and her Scooby Gang, Micah's about to learn that the changes of adolescence are even worse when they're literalized in quasi-supernatural forms. But if Micah and her dead ex(?)-boyfriend are an experiment in social realism, I want in! This is so much more interesting than my high school!
Asked why dystopia was hot in YA right now, JL said calmly that "high school is a dystopia." True for you, lady.
Kristin Cashore talked to us about the mind-reading "monster" heroine of Fire and told us she wanted to hang out with the heroine of her current work in progress. Asked about names she had, alas, no good explanation as to why her dashing hero had to be named Po. I mean, really? He's unquestionably hot, but I still am not buying that as a heroic name.
Scott Westerfeld played techno-geek for the night. He brought a slide-show of the illustrations in Leviathan and projected them on the ceiling for us while giving a talk that made me wish I'd bought his book instead of Graceling. He also introduced us to charmingly depressed hero Alek and spunky, cross-dressing, gun-toting heroine Darryn, both of whom sound entertaining. Plus, they have walking tank-beings. How cool is that?
Libba Bray cracked a lot of jokes and introduced Going Bovine, which seems to be more about the secondary characters than depressed, mad-cow-stricken Cameron. Unfortunately, she spoke right after SW's smoke and mirrors show and right before SC's "omg you are so amazing" manifestation so she made slightly less of an impression than she might have otherwise.
If I could read the audience right, 75% of them came to see Suzanne Collins, who hasn't been doing signings or talks this fall. Since I am not the biggest fan of The Hunger Games series, this wasn't exactly the selling point for me - but there were a lot of Mockingjay pins and badges in that crowd. She graciously answered a number of questions (including the perennial "where do you get your ideas?" "where do you get your names?" and the embarrassing, "I write fantasy myself and..." lead), assured us we would never see a complete map of Panem because Katniss doesn't know where everything is, declined to play favorites between Gale and Peeta, and talked a bit about bread and circuses (that's panem et circenses to you Latin-speakers).
In any case, Catching Fire's bad-tempered Katniss was in good company with some of the hottest and most bad-tempered fantasy girls on the market today. Definitely interesting.
Anybody else who made it care to weigh in?
Justine Larbalestier gave us a surprisingly spoiler-free introduction to compulsive liar Micah, who's had a "pretty bad year." Like Buffy and her Scooby Gang, Micah's about to learn that the changes of adolescence are even worse when they're literalized in quasi-supernatural forms. But if Micah and her dead ex(?)-boyfriend are an experiment in social realism, I want in! This is so much more interesting than my high school!
Asked why dystopia was hot in YA right now, JL said calmly that "high school is a dystopia." True for you, lady.
Kristin Cashore talked to us about the mind-reading "monster" heroine of Fire and told us she wanted to hang out with the heroine of her current work in progress. Asked about names she had, alas, no good explanation as to why her dashing hero had to be named Po. I mean, really? He's unquestionably hot, but I still am not buying that as a heroic name.
Scott Westerfeld played techno-geek for the night. He brought a slide-show of the illustrations in Leviathan and projected them on the ceiling for us while giving a talk that made me wish I'd bought his book instead of Graceling. He also introduced us to charmingly depressed hero Alek and spunky, cross-dressing, gun-toting heroine Darryn, both of whom sound entertaining. Plus, they have walking tank-beings. How cool is that?
Libba Bray cracked a lot of jokes and introduced Going Bovine, which seems to be more about the secondary characters than depressed, mad-cow-stricken Cameron. Unfortunately, she spoke right after SW's smoke and mirrors show and right before SC's "omg you are so amazing" manifestation so she made slightly less of an impression than she might have otherwise.
If I could read the audience right, 75% of them came to see Suzanne Collins, who hasn't been doing signings or talks this fall. Since I am not the biggest fan of The Hunger Games series, this wasn't exactly the selling point for me - but there were a lot of Mockingjay pins and badges in that crowd. She graciously answered a number of questions (including the perennial "where do you get your ideas?" "where do you get your names?" and the embarrassing, "I write fantasy myself and..." lead), assured us we would never see a complete map of Panem because Katniss doesn't know where everything is, declined to play favorites between Gale and Peeta, and talked a bit about bread and circuses (that's panem et circenses to you Latin-speakers).
In any case, Catching Fire's bad-tempered Katniss was in good company with some of the hottest and most bad-tempered fantasy girls on the market today. Definitely interesting.
Anybody else who made it care to weigh in?
