The Salon: YA Science Fiction
This month on The Salon Cheryl Morgan and her guests discuss writing science fiction for young people. With Cheryl in The Salon are David D. Levine, Imogen Russell Williams and Ben Jeapes.
If you have difficulty listening this podcast you can also find it here, via iTunes, or download the mp3 file directly at this link.
The books and stories mentioned during the podcast are as follows:
- Marsbound & Starbound by Joe Haldeman
- Leviathan & Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
- Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars by Ellen MacGregor
- Kid Vs. Squid by Greg Van Eekhout
- Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
- The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell
- The Lost Art by Simon Morden
- The Inferior & The Deserter by Peadar O’Guilin
- Anything by Arthur C Clarke up to and including Songs of Distant Earth
- “Dumb Martian” by John Wyndham (short story)
- Starman Jones by Robert A. Heinlein
- The Carbon Diaries 2015 and 2017 by Saci Lloyd
- The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins
- The Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness
- The Uglies trilogy (+1) by Scott Westerfeld
- A Rag, A Bone And A Hank Of Hair, and Grinny by Nicholas Fisk
- Shipbreaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
- Planesrunner by Ian McDonald (forthcoming)
- Dancers at the End of Time by Michael Moorcock
- Rebel at the End of Time by Steve Aylett (forthcoming)
For more information about the Dalek comic strip in TV Century 21 magazine, see the Tardis Wiki. The Daleks’ deadly enemies from the strip were the Mechanoids.
See the New in Store column in this issue for details of the books by Ben Jeapes that Wizard’s Tower Press are publishing this month.
About the Guests
David D. Levine is a writer of science fiction and fantasy short stories whose work has appeared in magazines, websites, and anthologies including Asimov’s, F&SF, Analog, Realms of Fantasy, and four Year’s Best volumes (two SF, two Fantasy). He has won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story, Writers of the Future Contest, James White Award, and Phobos Fiction Contest, and has been nominated or shortlisted for the Nebula Award, Theodore Sturgeon Award, Aeon Award, an earlier Hugo Award, and the John W. Campbell Award (twice). A collection of his short stories, Space Magic from Wheatland Press, won the 2009 Endeavour Award for best SF book by a Pacific Northwest writer. In January of 2010 he spent two weeks at a simulated Mars base in Utah. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife Kate Yule, with whom he publishes the fanzine Bento, and their website is at http://www.bentopress.com.
Imogen Russell Williams lives in London. She is a freelance journalist and YA/children’s book nerd with a particular interest in dystopian science and speculative fiction, writing chiefly for the Guardian Online. Currently on maternity leave, she hopes one day to write something longer than 800 words, but isn’t holding her breath.
Ben Jeapes watched far too much Dr Who at an early age and started writing science fiction at the age of 18 in the mistaken belief that it would be quite easy (it isn’t). As well as 18 short stories he is also the author of His Majesty’s Starship (1998), The Xenocide Mission (2002), The New World Order (2004) and Time’s Chariot (2008), plus numerous items of ghostwriting and hackwork that annoyingly earn more than his own stuff. His ambition is to live to be 101 and 7 months, so as to reach the 1000th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings and the arrival (so family lore has it) of the man responsible for his surname in the British Isles. He is English and as quietly proud of the fact as you would expect of the descendant of a Danish mercenary who fought for a bunch of Norsemen living in northern France.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider supporting Salon Futura financially, either by buying from the Wizard's Tower Bookstore, or by donating money directly via PayPal.
Pingback: April 12, 2011 Links and Plugs : Hobbies and Rides
I’ve only read the first one in the Uglies trilogy, but I highly recommend it.
I also recommend The Nex by Tim Pratt. It’s the best YA novel I’ve read since the first Harry Potter. Not pure SF but sciece fantasy, though. It’s available online at the author’s site and in several formats at the main ebook formats (last time I checked it was quite cheap also, around 1$).