The nice people at Tor.com kindly asked me to write them something about YA dystopian for Dystopia Week. My post is up now–a snippet:
So I suspect the core reason these books connect so well with teens—many of them even with the potential to be that holy grail of YA, appealing to girls and to boys—is that most of them are, at heart, about pulling apart the oppressive assumption and the unexplained authority, and then rebelling against it. Tearing it apart. In a world where choosing what to rebel against seems impossible for every generation (“What do you got?”), stories set in worlds where the decision is easy and justified will never lose their appeal.
I even managed to work in some references to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Which means I win nerd bingo for today.