From the introduction by Jacqueline Jackson: "This is a book about a lot of things, all clustered around the idea of writing. I've written it because it's the sort of book I wish someone had written for me. From third grade to seventh I filled dozens of notebooks and a fat briefcase with an assortment of stories and poems, but I never saw a book about writing for kids except textbooks."This may well be the first writing book I ever read. My grandmother met Jackson at a book festival and had her sign a copy for me. The inscription reads: Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance! Keep up your writing — you’re already choreographing the steps!” I have treasured this book for decades and it still, somewhat improbably, even retains its dust jacket.
What:Turn Not Pale, Beloved Snail is a writing book aimed at children. Jackson is an experienced YA adult writer, but this is less about writing for children than it is about being a kid who likes to write.
Who: While this is a great book for the nascent writer in your family, any writer will benefit from Jackson’s insight into what hooks a reader as well as her examinations of her own work.
Why: This book is full of joy in writing, a spirit so strong it can’t help but inform your own.
When: Read this with your kids if they’re thinking about writing. Or read it if you’re thinking about writing something aimed at kids and want to remind yourself what the reading experience is like for them.
Where and how: Read with a pen in hand, if only to jot down the many fiction recommendations Jackson makes (or if you forget, they’re all collected in an appendix.) It’s a reading list that shaped my own middle-grade reading, leading me to L.M. Boston and Tove Jansson, among others. Try the exercises as you go.
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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
~K. Richardson
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You Should Read This: The Past Through Tomorrow by Robert A. Heinlein
A blog post I read recently used attitude towards Robert A. Heinlein as a measurement of a person’s…I’m not quite sure what, but it seemed to be connected to their worthiness to be part of the F&SF community.
I don’t care so much about that. There are problematic aspects to Heinlein’s writing, yes, and one fascinating thing about that is that they span the range of the political spectrum. But regardless of attitude, if you want to be well-read in science fiction (by which I mean you have read much of the significant material in the field and understand at a rudimentary level where it fits in relationship to other significant works), you need to have at least a nodding acquaintance with Heinlein. And if you are looking for one work that shows his range and also includes some stories that show how marvelous a wordsmith he can be, I recommend The Past Through Tomorrow: Future History Stories.
Why do you need to have read Heinlein?
Because a significant group of readers came to science fiction through Heinlein’s YA novels. Know the novels and you’ll have a better understanding of some of their sweet spots as well as many of the basics for writing a YA novel. Heinlein knew how to do it.
Because he wrote so many landmarks in the field. Decades later, they’re still using the word “grok” (from Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land) at Microsoft. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers are other books that are worth grabbing if you only read a few of his books.
Because he influenced so many other writers and also interacted with and mentored many of them. Read his letters to get a sense of those interactions.
Because he is problematic. Farnham’s Freehold is infamous for how badly it’s aged and how racist it appears today, and in some ways it showcases how a writer can fail (in my opinion) to rise above the limitations of their own world view. If you want to avoid similar traps, you need to understand where Heinlein fell into them. Heinlein has some books that I recently saw described as “squicky” and I will agree that featuring an incestuous relationship with underaged twin girls, for example, in a book does strike me as squicky — (although I didn’t note it at all when reading the book as a teen). Lolita‘s squicky too. But it’s still literature. I don’t think anyone should be shamed or scolded* for having read Heinlein or even liking his work. I like a lot of his books.
To go back to the idea of using this as a measurement of who belongs in fandom and who doesn’t: this assumption is asinine. It’s a straw man argument. If you read and enjoy science fiction, you are a part of science fiction fandom regardless of what is and isn’t your favorite. And to present this as a characteristic of some monolithic block in fandom (or use it as a way to place them outside “true” fandom) strikes me as a misguided strategy if one is genuinely trying to solve divides causing difficulties in communication.
But I digress, and in doing so I’m pulling you away from some writing that has always moved and impressed me. The story, “The Green Hills of Earth,” for instance, makes me weep and sticks with me to this day. “The Man Who Sold the Moon” is another classic, with a protagonist who is one of my personal favorites. Beyond that, the book provides a sense of the chronology of Heinlein’s universe and the events that shaped it, functioning as a sampler of of his stories.
And it holds “The Menace From Earth,” a story that so irritated me that decades later it spurred my reply, Long Enough and Just So Long.
So yeah. You should read a little Heinlein. And you should read other stuff too, newer stuff. Stuff that grew out of his works, like Bill the Galactic Hero, which was Harry Harrison’s reply to Starship Troopers, or Soldier, Ask Not, which was Gordon Dickson’s answer in turn.
*I note that this has never happened to me, but several people have recounted incidents. Your mileage may vary.
You Should Read This: The Birthday Problem by Caren Gussoff
Ever wondered what it would be like to wander through plague-ridden Seattle in the future? This book’s a good approximation.In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that Caren’s a close friend. But beyond that The Birthday Problem is terrific SF, and a great example of interweaving narratives that is a) highly enjoyable to read and b) highly instructive to take a look at.
The Birthday Problem of the title is a common mathematical puzzle: find the probability that, in a group of N people, there is at least one pair of people who have the same birthday. (Hint: it’s a much lower number than you think. You can find out more about it on Wikipedia if you want to understand why.) The book is about odd ties and coincidences, set in a crumbling Seattle in a world plagued by nanobots that make people crazy.
Why’s it instructive to take a look at? Because Gussoff confronts two problems that speculative writers often face. The first is a complicated scientific or mathematical concept, like the birthday problem, which the reader needs to understand. Gussoff manages to convey it to the reader with no “As you know, Bob” or overly pedantic moments.
The second is that it’s constructed in a way that is incredibly hard to do: overlapping points of view, and plenty of them. When you switch POVs, you bounce the reader out of the story just a little, and Gussoff does it in a way that swiftly gathers the reader back in.
I like to include a beginning chunk of the book I’m discussing to show you what the author’s prose style as well as what they set. Here’s the first three paragraphs from The Birthday Problem:
Chaaya wasn’t surprised when she woke up and saw lips aimed directly over her face. It was beginning. It’d been just a matter of time.
It begins with one, good solid hallucination.
That was how it had happened to her Nani.This is how it would happen to her.
Gussoff also makes the most of her setting in a way that will delight Seattleites. There’s a joy to imagining Pike Place Market as a post-apocalytic trading post or the SF Museum hosting a cadre led by an aging rock musician.
If you’re interested in more of Gussoff’s work, she’s got a novella appearing this January from Aqueduct Press, Three Songs for Roxy. Its main character is an alien raised by Romany, and Gussoff draws on her own heritage to create a realistic, unromantic, and absolutely appealing narrative.
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