Why is Y/A taking over genre fiction?

Back in day, when I was a wee young ‘un just discovering the wonders of the written word (that golden age known as the 90’s…) Y/A fiction was basically Sweet Vally High and other stuff general shoved in a shelve at the back of the book store. For hardcore geeks, fantasy was a genre generally seen as being for adults, or at least for all ages. There was never the assumption that any of it was being specifically targeted towards young readers – generally speaking, if you were into fantasy, you started one on the more accessible stuff (Dragonlance Chronicles being the gateway of choice for a whole generation…RIP, TSR!) and moved on up as your tates matured (Robert Jordan, GRRM, Gaiman….) A big help was that a lot of the stuff being written back then was really accessible and didn’t take itself too seriously. Ad that was true of all speculative genres…scifi, horror and so on.

Now, it seems like a lot of the creative energy is coming from books that, technically speaking, are written for teen and tween readers…except that a large part of the audience are adults looking for a good read. While it seems like a lot of “adult” fantasy, scifi and so on come across as stale…which begs the question…why? How did Y/A get the genre-fic mojo?

Here’s an article from the LA Times that might shed a little light on the subject….

BOOM!!!!

Some times its the only way to dead with writers block!

Who are the founders of Fantasy?

What are the roots of fantasy?

The standard response has been to point to Tolkien, mutter some stuff about Western folklore and Arthurian romance, throw in some educated remarks about Greek and Roman mythology and the Kalevala, and then declare the Lord of the Rings the foundational text, full stop. But it seems to me, at least, that fantasy is a genre with many fathers. Tolkien casts a long shadow, to be sure – anyone writing epic fantasy for the last few decades has basically been following in the path laid by LOTR, despite many heroic efforts to the contrary. But that shortchanges other authors as well, who have had just as much of an impact on the development of the genre.

If there were such a thing as an ancestral temple of Fantasy Founders, I would put a statue of Robert E. Howard right up there next to JRR – REH basically invented Sword and Sorcery (predating Tolkien by several decades) and introduced a whole other style of (anti)hero very much the opposite of Aragorn and Frodo. (For the record, I think Conan could wipe the floor with Aragorn, stomp Sauron too mush, and pick his teeth with the splinters of Gandalf’s broken staff…just my humble opinion, of course.) Also, an honorable bust of Edgar Rice Burroughs – yeah, he’s considered a scifi writer, but his Barsoom series is still one of the most impressive examples of speculative world building ever.)

Anyone else care to venture a thought?