Here’s the first panel I’m moderating today: The Once and Future Teen. The panel description is this: Estimates are that 80% of YA readers are adults. How might this affect the growth and direction of the fiction? What is it about YA fiction that brings adults and teens back for more?
Of course I take the position that there is no real dividing line between YA and adult SFF; that plenty of titles are published and marketed as one when they could perfectly well have gone the other way; and that therefore it is just silly to comment about the phenomenon of adults reading YA.
To support this assertion, I have here a modest list of adult SFF novels that I believe read like YA — these all have an important or primary coming-of-age character arc; they focus on characters and the internal, emotional life of the protagonist(s):
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen, and probably everything by Allen
The Last Unicorn by Beagle
The Vorkosigan saga by Bujold (The Warrior’s Apprentice)
The Sharing Knife series by Bujold
Pathfinder and the rest of the trilogy by Orson Scott Card
Cuckoo’s Egg and Fortress in the Eye of Time by Cherryh
Midshipman’s Hope by David Feintuch
The Magician series by Raymond Feist
Silver on the Road by Laura Anne Gilman
A Fistful of Sky by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, and probably everything by Hoffman
The Touchstone Trilogy by Andrea K Höst
The Longest Road trilogy by Guy Gavriel Kay
Bryony and Roses by T Kingfisher, and probably everything by Kingfisher
Lens of the World and practically everything else by RA MacAvoy
Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier, and probably everything else by Marillier
Alphabet of Thorn and practically everything by Patricia McKillip
Deerskin and Sunshine and everything else by Robin McKinley
The Paksenarrion series and the Vatta series by Elizabeth Moon
House of Shadows , the Griffin Mage trilogy, and The Mountain of Kept Memory by Neumeier
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Emergence by David Palmer
The Telsey Amberdon stories by James Schmitz
Across a Jade Sea trilogy by L Shelby
Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn, and probably everything by Shinn
That early Harrington series by David Weber
The Thousand Names series by Django Wexler (because of Winter)
Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy and Raksura series by Martha Wells
Daughter of the Empire series by Janny Wurts
Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls by Jane Lindskold
And here is a much shorter list of works that are officially YA (or MG even) but have older protagonists (over 20) – I didn’t think this ever happened nowadays, but it does, though infrequently.
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nymh
Mrs Pollifax spy novels
The Redwall Series by Jacques
The Princess Bride by Golding
Spirits that Walk in Shadow by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
The City in the Lake
The Hobbit by Tolkien
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (not SFF)
Rose Under Fire (ditto)
I Am the Messenger by Markus Zuzak
And a short but in theory practically infinite list of adult SFF that definitely is not YA — does not feature a coming-of-age character arc or a finding-your-place-in-the-world arc; instead we open with an already-competent older protagonist who is dealing with other sorts of problems. Yet I can’t see YA readers disliking these books, which also deal with character and the emotional life of the protagonist.
The Chalion series and the Cordelia stories by Bujold
Everything else by Guy Gavriel Kay
The Heris Serrano series by Elizabeth Moon
Temeraire series by Novik
The Martian by Weir
Wheel of the Infinite and practically everything else by Martha Wells
And here, at last, is a smallish set of adult SFF titles that to me do not seem likely to appeal to readers who basically prefer YA:
Foundation trilogy by Asimov
Leviathan Wakes series by Corey
Ancillary Justice trilogy by Leckie
Ringworld by Larry Niven, and probably his other books as well
Expiration Date and many other titles by Tim Powers
The Mars trilogy and other works by KSR
Dogland by Shetterly – very young protag who does not grow up during the course of the novel
Seveneves by Stephenson
The Just City series by Jo Walton
The Golden Age series by John C Wright
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I wish I could have come! Such a good topic! Though I think that Sunshine is the only one of McKinley’s books published for adults – and it’s still in the teen section of my library, with the rest of her books (and her classics are also in youth). I’d classify her as YA that appeals to adults rather than the reverse.
Katy, when I was a kid, there was no YA section and McKinley was therefore shelved just with all the fantasy/SF. Now, of course, she gets shuffled in with the YA. I agree with you; she’s fundamentally a YA author — to the extent there is such a thing in reality rather than just as a marketing category.