Genre Nuances: “Finding the Right Tool for the Job” in Young Adult Literature

Abstract

474 SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES, VOLUME 47 (2020) Broderick writes a long-winded description of the “Miracle of the Sun” at Fátima in 1917, which he suggests is “undeniably a UFO” (207). Broderick asserts the veracity of the event by observing, “Needless to say, this erratic celestial object was not the sun.... or was it a contagious hallucination” (208). He then goes on to discuss the “Fátima UFOs” (209) as though his readers have accepted his argument without any additional evidence that they are timetravelling and/or extraterrestrial vessels. Granted, reading a book about time travel presented “as entertainment, as speculation” (14) should be undertaken with an open mind and with suspension of disbelief, but skeptical readers may find this assertion (among many others in this chapter) a bit hard to swallow. Furthermore, and once again, this section of the book has very little to do with the other two. All of the literature Broderick discusses in the second portion of the volume seems forgotten. Indeed, this final section on UFO sightings feels out of place as a conclusion to a book about time-travel science fiction. Despite its structural problems, there are positives in this work. As mentioned above, the first section gives a readable explanation of the scientific theories behind time-travel narratives, making technical concepts accessible to lay readers; and the second section provides an enjoyable overview of many of the most thought-provoking and classic works in the subgenre. The anthologylike structure of the work should appeal both to seasoned readers of sf wanting to revisit some of their favorite stories as well as newcomers looking for suggestions of what to read. Most of all, The Time Machine Hypothesis captures the wonder that so many readers of sf feel when they first learn that scientists in the real world actually do study the possibility of time travel and that there may be something to these fantastic stories after all.—James Hamby, Middle Tennessee State University Genre Nuances: “Finding the Right Tool for the Job” in Young Adult Literature. Joseph W. Campbell. The Order and the Other: Young Adult Dystopian Literature and Science Fiction. Jackson, MI: UP of Mississippi, 2019. viii+191 pp. $30 pbk. While the inclusion of sf texts in both secondary and tertiary curricula has increased since the emergence of sf into academia in the mid-twentieth century, the use of sf and other speculative genres in classrooms is still largely undertheorized . Even more neglected is focused work on young adult science fiction (YASF), as attention is more commonly given to texts written for adults but read by youth on the rare occasions that speculative genres are explored pedagogically. Compoundingthe problem, dystopian fiction for young adults has dominated the young adult (YA) market for the first two decades of this century, but still remains sorely under-explored in educational research. In light of this, Joseph W. Campbell’s study makes an important contribution both to YASF and YA dystopian literature, placing pedagogy at the center of a nuanced examination of YA fiction, genre, and the critical potential of YASF and YA dystopian literature as catalysts for social critique and change in educational spaces. Writing for critics, librarians, and educators alike, Campbell offers a framework for text selection when working with youth, including a thoughtful 475 BOOKS IN REVIEW navigation of genre and a plethora of fictional and practice-based examples that help him to challenge common approaches to the teaching of YA fiction and to offer purposeful alternatives. In his introduction, Campbell begins to unpack the conflated treatment of YASF and YA dystopian literature, asserting that part of the challenge with teaching these texts comes from the notion that dystopia is a subgenre of sf. He views genre as a tool towards social critique, and he argues that sf and dystopia do different things, in particular in terms of “othering” (sf) and power (dystopia). To misclassify or merge texts in these genres undermines their critical potential, particularly as teaching tools for adolescents, given how these genres contribute to processes of subject formation. Attentive to the history of both genres, Campbell positions a thoughtful consideration of genre and the distinct contributions of these genres...