I’m pretty excited about finally getting to see Star Trek Into Darkness tomorrow night. I’ve been dodging internet spoilers like it’s my job, and I’m one of the devout Star Trek fans who really digs J.J. Abrams’ take on the franchise. It doesn’t take a lot to please me: Give me time travel, alternate timelines, and Leonard Nimoy, and I’m a happy geek. (Props to Abrams and Fringe for also delivering on all three!)

I just re-watched the 2009 Abrams film, which (spoiler!) I did like a hell of a lot, and I’m happy to say I still enjoy it. In honor of the release of the new film, here’s my non-spoilery review of Star Trek from way back in 2009, which launched me on my Star Trek Re-Watches at Tor.com and The Viewscreen. In the comments, let me know what you think of the Abrams’ films, but no spoilers on Into Darkness until 10:00 p.m. EST tomorrow night, please.

Star Trek
Directed by J.J. Abrams
Written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman

I have a long history with Star Trek. Not as long as some people can claim, and certainly not as long as the franchise’s own history, but I’ve spent roughly half of my relatively brief life on Earth as a con-going, trivia-quoting fan. I’ve seen the good and the bad, and while the series at its best can be mind-blowingly amazing, one can argue that after five television series and ten movies, there are more bad hours of Trek than good.

J.J. Abrams’ new movie definitively tips the balance back to the good side.

One of the problems with Trek, for its creators and viewers alike, is that by now we’ve pretty much seen it all. This is a serious handicap for a franchise founded on exploration and questioning the human condition; the newest incarnations of Trek still went boldly, but they were on a course heading into the proverbial toilet.

Admittedly, Abrams’ Star Trek doesn’t add a lot of new material to the franchise. In fact, there’s a heavy amount of old: established characters, a familiar setting, and frankly unoriginal ideas. We have Spock’s struggle between his human and Vulcan side, Kirk’s struggle with the “no-win scenario”, Kirk’s slashy struggle with Spock over logic vs. intuition, a standard revenge plot, a little space operatic romance, and hell—we even have time travel, the most Trek of concepts. The only young and fresh things in this movie are (most of) the faces, the sets and costumes, and the special effects. Not to mention the director and writers, who were tasked with harnessing the power of nostalgia to drive a shiny new enterprise.

And they did their jobs better than anyone could have imagined, showing far more care than George Lucas did to his own franchise’s prequels. I was highly skeptical of this new Star Trek. I have big love for its roots, the campy TOS (Star Trek The Original Series) and its direct successor, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Though Deep Space Nine and Voyager had their high points, the real essence of Star Trek has always been a crew, a ship, the final frontier, and a heavy dose of optimism. Those other shows were fresher but darker concepts, frequently good science fiction perhaps but not great Star Trek; there’s a reason why only TOS and TNG have transitioned to the big screen. After four years of the mediocre Enterprise and the last two films, Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek Nemesis, I just didn’t have faith anymore that we would ever again see anything good with the words Star Trek attached to it.

Happily, J.J. Abrams proved me wrong, because Trek has never looked this good. It starts with a literal bang, an extravaganza of explosions and space combat, but touched with a very human drama that impressed me before the title even blazed onto the screen. It was this balance of premium special effects—beyond anything we’ve seen before in the series—and the emphasis on characters that makes this film so enjoyable. As much as TOS was about interesting plots, good writing, and addressing the social problems of its day, it was also about the characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, Scott, and Chekov. TOS always highlighted the complex friendships among the crew and how they faced their duties more as a family than simply co-workers. The fact that these relationships translated to this movie so successfully with an entirely new cast demonstrates that it wasn’t really Shatner, Kelley, and Nimoy that we wanted to see (as much as we always want to see Nimoy, and he’s here too, anyway), but Kirk, Bones, and Spock. Fans are driven by the desire to see the continuing voyages of their favorite crew, and there’s a particular joy at filling in the gaps in their history that have never been put to film. How else can you explain the popularity of media tie-in novels, which are completely devoid of actors?

As much as Star Trek has been embraced into the popular culture of the world, practically part of our collective subconscious, this new film treats it like a shared mythology. It’s not just a continuation or expansion of the old stories, but a reinvention of them, in the way that Superman has been constantly revised and remade over his seventy-one year history; fortunately this Star Trek bears more in common with Bryan Singer’s sequel/reboot Superman Returns than the CW’s “young Superman” series, Smallville.

As different as things are in the new film, no one can question that the creators have a respect for their source material. The time travel gimmick that makes the Enterprise’s new adventures possible, relatively unburdened by over four decades of continuity that require a 745-page encyclopedia to wrap your brain around, is sheer technobabbly brilliance—as long as you don’t think about it too hard. The science is probably the weakest aspect of the new movie, but you’re hopefully having so much fun you don’t really care. And as much as they jettison continuity, they also canonize a fair portion of “unofficial” background. This is the first time we hear Uhura’s name outside of the tie-in novels and fan films, we learn that McCoy was divorced by his wife, and we see Spock bullied as a child for being half-human (as he was in the animated series episode “Yesteryear”). And there are some other improvements. At last, in Star Trek, no one can hear you scream in the vacuum of space—bringing the franchise in line with some of the more “realistic” space scenes of Firefly and Battlestar Galactica. I was most enthusiastic about the new transporter effects, which make you believe that the transportee’s molecules are really being torn apart. And we finally get to see the Enterprise upside-down and sideways.

Most importantly, these actors are quite good in filling the boots of those who have gone before, keeping the spirit of the original roles with their own edge, not an easy accomplishment. This is more of an ensemble than the recent TNG films have been. Chris Pine is brash and womanizing, but his version of Kirk lacks the command sense and charm that serve the Kirk we know so well on the bridge and in bed. Karl Urban channels Dr. McCoy the way we remember him, and his scenes with Kirk and Spock are pitch-perfect. Zachary Quinto is young Spock, understandably a bit moodier than we see him in most of TOS; one of the best moments in the film is when he tells the Vulcan Science Council to “Live long and prosper” when he clearly means the exact opposite. Simon Pegg brings his comic talents to a slightly goofier Montgomery Scott, but he’s a pleasure to watch in the role. John Cho adds the appropriate Sulu humor and muscle to his performance. Zoe Saldana is as smart and sexy as we expect Uhura to be, and she has a few surprising scenes in the film that show just how confident and strong she is. The poorest performances were Anton Yelchin as an overzealous Pavel Chekov, the new space nerd, catering to stereotypes; and Eric “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” Bana. He doesn’t have much to do though aside from grimace and jump around some, and it’s a shame because this film needed a stronger villain to challenge what will soon become the finest crew in Starfleet.

From the first scene of the film, we know this is going to be about death, how you face it and how you move on after a terrible loss. The conflict between Kirk and Spock isn’t only about their differences in logic versus emotion, but in how they accept death. Spock, who comes from a culture that reveres death and practices, in a sense, immortality, is a proponent of admitting defeat when there’s no hope for survival. Kirk, on the other hand, has lived in the shadow of death since the day he was born, when his father was killed in the line of duty, sacrificing his life so that others might live. Kirk is willing to fight long after logic dictates he should give up; he’s determined to cheat death. Spock faces it for the first time when he loses the people that mean the most to him and he doesn’t deal with the pressure well. There’s a lot of death in this film, but despite that, it still ends on a high note, filled with hope. Many of the previous films ended with the death of a character or the destruction of a ship named Enterprise; this one is probably closest to the end of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: there’s a brand new ship and its crew is exactly where they want to be, with the belief that some good can still come of all the pain they’ve suffered.

For all the weighty issues, the film fairly skims over the implications where another movie might have dwelled on them to the point of depression. At its core, this is an action movie, a summer blockbuster with its requisite amount of plot holes if you’re looking for them. This is also a very J.J. Abrams movie. Fans of his shows Alias, Lost, and Fringe might cringe at the CGI lettering of the on-screen text, perk up at the mention of Slusho, or groan at the Cloverfield-like monsters chasing Kirk on Delta Vega. (By the way, did anyone notice that the giant ball of “red matter” closely resembles Rambaldi’s Mueller device on Alias?) But Abrams knows how to direct amazing action sequences while focusing on his characters, and this film shows a sophistication in direction that makes it look like a film instead of a TV show on a big screen.

Like many Trekkies, the unraveling continuity of TOS and all that follow (while leaving the background established by Enterprise intact) doesn’t sit well with me. But as with any book-to-film adaptation, I can view this new series of films as its own thing, an offshoot akin to the Romulans spliting from Vulcan. I can continue watching DVDs of the old shows as much as I want, but they’ll always be reruns to me. I’ve seen those stories over and over again, so I’m excited that there’s now a new Trek out there that can reawaken the sense of wonder and fun that I’ve always sought in the franchise.

This post originally appeared on Tor.com.

May the 4th Be With You
First, if you’re anywhere near Rosemont, PA, come to the Rosemont Book Festival this Saturday, May 4. The first annual book festival at Rosemont College will be held at Connelly Green and in the library with workshops, readings, panels, and signings from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

I will be on a panel about young adult books with fabulous authors Beth Kephart, April Lindner, and Tiffany Schmidt from 11-12, with a signing afterward. Books will be available for purchase at the event courtesy of Children’s Book World. Hope to see you there!

Rare (First!) West Coast Signing
I will be attending the 48th Nebula Awards Weekend later this month, which includes a mass autograph session on Friday, May 17 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the San Jose Hilton, 300 Almaden Blvd, San Jose, CA.

The autograph session is open to the public and Borderland Books will be selling books by the authors in attendance. This will be my first signing on the West Coast!

Superman was such an important, formative part of my childhood, it’s very likely that I wouldn’t be the person I am today if he didn’t exist. Growing up without a father, I think Superman sort of became a role model for me and helped provide some of the moral guidance that I needed to become a decent human being.

I wrote about what Superman means to me in a very personal letter that originally appeared in a collection called Talking Back: Epistolary Fantasies (ed. L. Timmel Duchamp, Aqueduct Press, 2006). Writer/Editor Cat Rambo was kind enough to reprint it in Fantasy Magazine three years later, and it’s still online, so if you have a couple of minutes, please feel free to check out “Dear Superman.”

And to bring it all together, I snuck a quote from one of my favorite films, Superman: The Movie (1978), into Quantum Coin. I didn’t expect anyone to notice, but if you’re a fan of the film, see if you can spot it on pages 265-66!

That said, I’m double-dipping this week. It’s no surprise that many of my favorite episodes of Star Trek (in all its incarnations) involve time travel and/or alternate realities. So last week I was happy to cover one of the very best of these in the ongoing Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch at The Viewscreen: “Yesterday’s Enterprise“. Here’s an excerpt:

But I tell you, this episode is exciting, not least because it fills in some of the time between Kirk’s era and the TNG years, with the introduction of the Enterprise-C. (It hits some of the same buttons for me that “Babylon Squared” on Babylon 5 does, my favorite episode of the first season in which the Babylon 4 station reappears due to a temporal anomaly…) And I love this vessel, a beautiful melding of the best features of the Constitution-class and Galaxy-class designs. “Yesterday’s Enterprise” also has high stakes, gruesome deaths, and it looks and sounds more cinematic than anything on the show previously. I’m also a sucker for stories in which one ship or one person makes a huge impact for others–even in failure; we always root for the Enterprise to survive, but the idea that one crew’s sacrifice could still be a victory of sorts is gratifying.

Pop over there to see my episode recap and read reviews by me, Torie Atkinson, and our fine commenters.

I also had two other guest blog posts this week, if you haven’t had enough of me:

• At the League of Extraordinary Writers, I discuss the appearance of old technology in science fiction, particularly ham radios in Quantum Coin
• At teamTEENauthor, I offer some financial advice that I wish I could share with my past self

And finally, here’s a link to download a free PDF of Sybil’s Garage No. 7, which among many fantastic pieces includes one of my favorite short stories that I’ve written, “My Father’s Eyes”. It’s even kind of YA-ish, though with a slightly older main character, a photographer named Ambrose. And here’s the editor talking about the issue, Anne Frank, Justin Bieber, and the band Neutral Milk Hotel.

It’s an honor to be considered for the same award as all those talented writers and to share this year’s shortlist with Heather Anastasiu, Myke Cole, Jay Kristoff, and Jeff Salyards. Though I can’t find a list of finalists from previous years, I’m pretty happy to see a good range of fantasy and science fiction here, including three young adult titles. The BCFS membership will continue to read nominees and vote through April, and the award will be presented to the winner at Balticon in May.

And I’m still bouncing over the Andre Norton nomination… If you’re a member of SFWA, don’t forget to cast your votes by Saturday, March 30! Most of the Norton-nominated books are free in the Nebula Voter Packet, including Fair Coin, so you still have time to catch up! Right now I’m reading through as much of the Nebula-nominated short fiction as I can before the deadline.

I’ve also been meaning to mention that you have until April 15, 2013 to cast your ballots for the Locus Award. Anyone can vote for the Locus Awards, with no special membership or subscription requirements, so I’ll hope you’ll take a moment to do so. You’ll notice that Fair Coin is not listed among the fantastic YA Books or First Novels on the ballot, but you can write in up to five books you want to vote for.

And that’s all I’ve got on awards for now… :) Thanks to everyone who has read, considered, and nominated Fair Coin. I’m thrilled to get every bit of recognition because I know how hard it is to for a debut novel to be noticed, especially with so many excellent books being published every year. I hope you’ve enjoyed it!

At The League of Extraordinary Writers, I finally talk about how I got my agent!

And on the shiny new teamTEENauthor site, I answer this month’s question: “Do you believe in Luck?”

I’ll be blogging at least once a month on these other sites, so go check out my words over there, comment, share — and read everyone else’s posts too!

“Alternate World vs. Imaginary World”:
Of these authors, some have written stories involving alternate or parallel versions of our world, some have made up imaginary worlds for their characters, and still others have written books that do each.  We’ll discuss the decision to either connect the world of a book to our world, or to take it out of the historical context of our world.  How do these strategies help in telling story and developing character?  Is one easier than the other? Is the stepping off point always reality, or can it sometimes be another fictional world? With authors:

Sarah Beth Durst
Jeff Hirsch
Emmy Laybourne
Lauren Miller
E. C. Myers (that’s me!)
Diana Peterfreund
Mary Thompson
Moderator:  Chris Shoemaker

Friday, March 22, 2013 | 4:40 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.

New York Public Library
Steven A. Schwarzman Building (the one with the lions)
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street
Bergen Forum, 2nd Floor

While I won’t be in this year’s big group signing at Books of Wonder on Sunday, the store still has signed copies of Quantum Coin, so just ask if you don’t see it on the shelves. And if you’re hoping to get something signed or just say hi or want a bookmark or some gummi bears (really!), I’ll be lurking around the Festival from Thursday to Saturday, either attending panels and events or writing in the beautiful Rose Main Reading Room. I hope you’ll drop by!

The full Festival schedule is below and you also can join the Facebook page for the latest information:

http://www.facebook.com/NYCTeenAuthorFestival

Monday, March 18 (Mulberry Street Branch of the NYPL, 10 Jersey Street b/w Mulberry and Lafayette, 6-8):

I’ll Take You There: A Change of Scenery, A Change of Self

Description: In their recent books, each of these authors have plunged their teen characters into new places as a way of revealing their true selves. We’ll talk about this YA journey narrative – where it comes from, and what it can lead to.

Gayle Forman
Kristen-Paige Madonia
Bennett Madison
Jennifer E. Smith
Melissa Walker

moderator: David Levithan

Tuesday, March 19 (WORD Bookstore, 7-8:30, 126 Franklin St, Greenpoint):

The Only Way Out is Through: Engaging Truth through YA

Description: Pain. Confusion. Loss. Mistakes. Revelation. More mistakes. Recovery. One of the things that makes YA work is its desire to engage the messy truths of both adolescence and life in general. Here we talk about what it’s like to engage this messy truth, and how to craft it into a story with some kind of form.

Crissa Chappell
Tim Decker
Ellen Hopkins
Amy McNamara
Jessica Verdi

moderator: David Levithan

Wednesday. March 20 (42nd St NYPL, South Court room, 6-8):

Imagination: A Conversation

Description: It’s a given that authors’ minds are very strange, wonderful, twisted, illogical, inventive places. Here we talk to five rather imaginative authors about how they conjure the worlds in their books and the stories that they tell, along with glimpses of the strange and wonderful worlds they are creating at the present.

Holly Black
Lev Grossman
Michelle Hodkin
Alaya Johnson
Robin Wasserman

moderators: David Levithan and Chris Shoemaker

Thursday, March 21:
SOHO Teen night, 6-9pm (Books of Wonder, 18 W18th St)

Celebrate the launch of SOHO Teen, featuring readings by Jacquelyn Mitchard, Joy Preble, Margaux Froley, Elizabeth Kiem, Heather Terrell & Ricardo Cortés, and Lisa & Laura Roecker.

Friday March 22, Symposium (42nd Street NYPL, Berger Forum, 2nd floor, 2-6)

2:00 – Introduction

2:10-3:00: He Said, She Said

Description: Not to be too mysterious, but I will email these authors separately about what I’m thinking for this.

He:
Ted Goeglein
Gordon Korman
Lucas Klauss
Michael Northrop

She:
Susane Colasanti
E. Lockhart
Carolyn Mackler
Sarah Mlynowski
Leila Sales

moderator: David Levithan

3:00-4:00: Taking a Turn: YA Characters Dealing with Bad and Unexpected Choices

Description: In each of these authors’ novels, the main character’s life takes an unexpected twist. Sometimes this is because of a bad choice. Sometimes this is because of a secret revealed. And sometimes it doesn’t feel like a choice at all, but rather a reaction. We’ll talk about following these characters as they make these choices – both good and bad. Will include brief readings illuminating these choices.

Caela Carter
Eireann Corrigan
Alissa Grosso
Terra Elan McVoy
Jacquelyn Mitchard
Elizabeth Scott
K. M. Walton

moderator: Aaron Hartzler

4:00-4:10: Break

4:10-4:40: That’s So Nineteenth Century

Description: A Conversation About Playing with 19th Century Archetypes in the 21st Century

Sharon Cameron
Leanna Renee Hieber
Stephanie Strohm
Suzanne Weyn

Moderator: Sarah Beth Durst

4:40-5:30: Alternate World vs. Imaginary World

Description: Of these authors, some have written stories involving alternate or parallel versions of our world, some have made up imaginary worlds for their characters, and still others have written books that do each. We’ll discuss the decision to either connect the world of a book to our world, or to take it out of the historical context of our world. How do each strategies help in telling story and developing character? Is one easier than the other? Is the stepping off point always reality, or can it sometimes be another fictional world?

Sarah Beth Durst
Jeff Hirsch
Emmy Laybourne
Lauren Miller
E. C. Myers
Diana Peterfreund
Mary Thompson

Moderator: Chris Shoemaker

Friday March 22, Barnes & Noble Reader’s Theater/Signing (Union Square B&N, 33 E 17th St, 7-8:30)

Eireann Corrigan
Elizabeth Eulberg
Jeff Hirsch
David Levithan
Rainbow Rowell
Nova Ren Suma

Saturday March 23, Symposium (42nd Street NYPL, Bergen Forum, 2nd Floor, 1-5)

1:00 – Introduction

1:10-2:10 – Defying Description: Tackling the Many Facets of Identity in YA

Description: As YA literature evolves, there is more of an acknowledgment of the many facets that go into a teenager’s identity, and even categories that once seemed absolute now have more nuance. Focusing particularly, but not exclusively, on LGBTQ characters and their depiction, we’ll discuss the complexities about writing about such a complex experience.

Marissa Calin
Emily Danforth
Aaron Hartzler
A.S. King
Jacqueline Woodson

moderator: David Levithan

2:10-2:40 — New Voices Spotlight

Description: Each debut author will share a five-minute reading from her or his work

J. J. Howard
Kimberly Sabatini
Tiffany Schmidt
Greg Takoudes

2:40-3:30 – Under Many Influences: Shaping Identity When You’re a Teen Girl

Description: Being a teen girl is to be under many influences – friends, parents, siblings, teachers, favorite bands, favorite boys, favorite web sites. These authors will talk about the influences that each of their main characters tap into – and then talk about what influences them as writers when they shape these characters.

Jen Calonita
Deborah Heiligman
Hilary Weisman Graham
Kody Keplinger
Amy Spalding
Katie Sise
Kathryn Williams

moderator: Terra Elan McVoy

3:30-3:40 – Break

3:40-4:20 – Born This Way: Nature, Nurture, and Paranormalcy

Description: Paranormal and supernatural fiction for teens constantly wrestles with issues of identity and the origin of identity. Whether their characters are born “different” or come into their powers over time, each of these authors uses the supernatural as a way to explore the nature of self.

Jessica Brody
Gina Damico
Maya Gold
Alexandra Monir
Lindsay Ribar
Jeri Smith-Ready
Jessica Spotswood

moderator: Adrienne Maria Vrettos

4:20-5:00 – The Next Big Thing

Description: Again, not to be too mysterious, but I will email these authors separately about what I’m thinking for this.

Jocelyn Davies
Leanna Renee Hieber
Barry Lyga
Maryrose Wood

Saturday March 23: Mutual Admiration Society reading at McNally Jackson (McNally Jackson, Prince Street, 7-8:30):

Sharon Cameron
A.S. King
Michael Northrop
Diana Peterfreund
Victoria Schwab
Nova Ren Suma

hosted by David Levithan

Sunday March 24: Our No-Foolin’ Mega-Signing at Books of Wonder (Books of Wonder, 1-4):

1-1:45:
Jessica Brody (Unremembered, Macmillan)
Marisa Calin (Between You and Me, Bloomsbury)
Jen Calonita (The Grass is Always Greener, LB)
Sharon Cameron (The Dark Unwinding, Scholastic)
Caela Carter (Me, Him, Them, and It, Bloomsbury)
Crissa Chappell (Narc, Flux)
Susane Colasanti (Keep Holding On, Penguin)
Zoraida Cordova (The Vicious Deep, Sourcebooks)
Gina Damico (Scorch, HMH)
Jocelyn Davies (A Fractured Light, HC)
Sarah Beth Durst (Vessel, S&S)
Gayle Forman (Just One Day, Penguin)
Elizabeth Scott (Miracle, S&S)

1:45-2:30
T. M. Goeglein (Cold Fury, Penguin)
Hilary Weisman Graham (Reunited, S&S)
Alissa Grosso (Ferocity Summer, Flux)
Aaron Hartzler (Rapture Practice, LB)
Deborah Heiligman (Intentions, RH)
Leanna Renee Hieber (The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart, Sourcebooks)
Jeff Hirsch (Magisterium, Scholastic)
J. J. Howard (That Time I Joined the Circus, Scholastic)
Alaya Johnson (The Summer Prince, Scholastic)
Beth Kephart (Small Damages, Penguin)
Kody Keplinger (A Midsummer’s Nightmare, LB)

2:30-3:15
A.S. King (Ask the Passengers, LB)
Emmy Laybourne (Monument 14, Macmillan)
David Levithan (Every Day, RH)
Barry Lyga (Yesterday Again, Scholastic)
Brian Meehl (Suck it Up and Die, RH)
Alexandra Monir (Timekeeper, RH)
Michael Northrop (Rotten, Scholastic)
Diana Peterfreund (For Darkness Shows the Stars, HC)
Lindsay Ribar (The Art of Wishing, Penguin)
Rainbow Rowell (Eleanor & Park, St. Martin’s)
Kimberly Sabatini (Touching the Surface, S&S)
Tiffany Schmidt (Send Me a Sign, Bloomsbury)

3:15-4:00
Victoria Schwab (The Archived, Hyperion)
Jeri Smith-Ready (Shine, S&S)
Amy Spalding (The Reece Malcolm List, Entangled)
Stephanie Strohm (Pilgrims Don’t Wear Pink, HMH)
Nova Ren Suma (17 & Gone, Penguin)
Greg Takoudes (When We Wuz Famous, Macmillan)
Mary Thompson (Wuftoom, HMH)
Jess Verdi (My Life After Now, Sourcebooks)
K.M. Walton (Empty, S&S)
Suzanne Weyn (Dr. Frankenstein’s Daughters, Scholastic)
Kathryn Williams (Pizza, Love, and Other Stuff That Made Me Famous, Macmillan)

We always pay a lot of attention to the mechanisms of time travel–a DeLorean, the Millenium Shortcut, slingshotting around the sun at warp speed–but every time traveler has another important tool: a watch.  Sometimes it’s just there for symbolism, like the paradoxical pocket watch in Somewhere in Time, but often it serves a more practical purpose, what it was made for–to keep track of time.

Clocks are everywhere in Back to the Future, and Marty McFly’s digital watch is more than just a gag; there’s a reason that the poster shows him checking his watch: being in the right place at exactly the right time is a major plot point. Recently, another timepiece caught my eye in one of my favorite science fiction shows, Fringe.

Without spoiling the surprising twists the series takes, in its final season, there’s a certain amount of time travel involved. In episode seven of season five, “Five-Twenty-Ten”, Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson) needs to pay very careful attention to the time at which specific events take place… and I really liked the watch he used. (I have no idea how you keep that synced while jumping around in time, but whatever.)

I figured it would be tricky finding it since the brand name was blacked out for the episode, but naturally, someone else on the internet had already identified it. Thanks, internet! (It turns out that identifying watches worn by celebrities is a hobby for some people.) Ultimately, I learned it’s a Fossil Relic watch, model ZR15552… which is no longer in production. Darn! But hey, there’s eBay. Thanks again, internet! In short, I now own a little piece of Fringe history and I’m prepared for my next temporal displacement.

I’m really gonna miss that show.

Watches almost seem like anachronisms today, with many people just using their cell phones to tell the time. Do you still wear one? Have you ever bought something because you saw it in a TV show or film?

I don’t usually get on soapboxes. I have poor balance and I don’t like it when everyone looks at me like that… Yeah, like that. But I just noticed that the deadline for voting for the Hugo Awards is approaching–March 10th!

If you attended Worldcon last year or have a membership for this or next year’s Worldcon, you are eligible to vote for the Hugo Awards. Please do! The good news is that even if you can’t make it to the convention, anyone can buy a non-attending membership for $60 which will let them vote for the awards, but I don’t actually know who does that.

Anyway, I love books for children. Probably 90% of my leisure reading consists of middle grade and young adult books. I write young adult books. So I was very pleased when I heard last year that there was a proposal to add a new award category for Best Children’s/Young Adult Book.

And I was shocked when it was voted down.

Apparently it lost by a narrow margin, but I just couldn’t see why anyone would be opposed to it, except for a lack of interest in YA and/or a lack of respect for it, or simply resistance to change. The issue goes much deeper than that though, and some of the major concerns are quite reasonable. There are questions about how to define the eligibility requirements for “children’s book” and whether there’s even a need for the category to be split.

But I think there are just as many good reasons to have a separate, prominent category: From what I hear, MG and YA books are selling more than adult books, certainly more than science fiction and fantasy are. By like, a lot. MG and YA books absolutely can be “as good as adult books” and often are. (Many are much better! Yup, I went there.) Obviously more adults are reading young adult fiction than ever before, or at least freely admitting to it. More young adults are growing into adults who still read young adult fiction, which I’m sure they just think of as “fiction.” Hollywood is mining children’s fiction for blockbuster films and new TV shows on the CW. The fact is, children’s books are becoming more and more significant to publishing.

Illustrating this trend, in the last eleven years, two children’s books have won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, which is actually pretty good considering they were competing against adult books: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling (2001) and The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (2009). (Gaiman’s Coraline won as Best Novella in 2003.) Interestingly, neither of these books is actually YA. Middle grade FTW!

The first children’s book to appear on the ballot was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban the year before, which makes sense because Rowling is pretty much responsible for putting children’s fiction on the map, or at least encouraged more adults to start taking it seriously. (Sure, books like Ender’s Game appeared on the ballot before that, but that was only recently marketed to younger readers.) Even though Azkaban is my favorite of the Harry Potter series, I can’t be too disappointed; the winner in 2000, A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge, is an incredible novel.

In the last twelve years, there have only been six children’s books on the ballot out of 68 nominations.  That’s not so good. I know that some amazing children’s books were published in this time frame, but they were all either ignored or missed by the voting membership. Now, it’s worth noting that in 2009, children’s fiction actually dominated the Hugo ballot, with The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (winner); Little Brother, Cory Doctorow; Saturn’s Children, Charles Stross; and Zoe’s Tale, John Scalzi. The odd one out was Neal Stephenson’s Anathem.

What can account for this brief burst of love for YA by the voting membership? Is it because the convention was held in Quebec that year? Were there fewer adult SFF books published? I have no idea, but my cynical side suggests that adult readers might have taken note of those titles because they were written by authors who were already known for their adult SFF. Of course those books were more than worthy of being contenders for the award, but it certainly does seem like an anomaly in the Award’s 60-year history.

My point is, I and many others think there should be a permanent Hugo Award for Best Children’s Novel of the Year. I understand it may not be proposed again this year, but whether or not it is, I’d like it if more people were thinking about the situation and recognizing the importance of children’s fiction, particularly to the science fiction field.

I became a lifelong SF reader (and eventually a writer) because I found William Sleator’s Interstellar Pig at a young age. Publishing quality, thought-provoking, entertaining SF for younger readers is the best way to help them discover the genre — not so that they will one day “graduate” to more mature books, but so that they will love speculative fiction in all its forms. A Hugo Award will help librarians and teachers find the best books the genre has to offer and get them into the hands of their young readers, and it would likely influence book sales, which probably helps everyone trying to make a living in publishing.

It’s also possible that the recognition will work in the other direction too: Those who pay attention to children’s fiction may become more aware of the Hugo Award and the larger SFF community. How excellent would it be for a kid to read and love a book with a Hugo Award sticker on it and find out that there’s a whole other science fiction section in her library, and conventions like Worldcon where she can gather with other fans and readers?

So my humble suggestion is this: When you fill out your ballot (before Sunday, March 10 at 11:59 p.m.), try to use at least one of your five slots for a middle grade or young adult science fiction book that you read in the last year (published in 2012) that you would want other people, kids or adults, to read. And if a children’s book ends up being on the shortlist, give it a chance. Read it and try to weigh it fairly against the other books on the ballot.

Sure, getting more children’s books on the ballot or giving the award to one could be a convincing argument that there really is no need for a separate award. But it would just as well demonstrate that children’s fiction is thriving, that there are more than enough contenders each year to make an award feasible, that the fans are paying attention, and that maybe we should keep the categories distinct after all, if only to give adult novels a fair shake every year. :P

So what do you think? Hugo Award for Best MG or YA: Good idea?/Bad idea? What children’s books would you vote for this year? Share in the comments below!

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Would you like to know more? Some further reading on this topic:

Facebook discussion page about the Hugo Award Proposal for Children’s Young Adult Books

Cheryl Morgan’s post about the proposal (2010), and a follow-up (2012)

Good advice from Patrick Nielsen Hayden at Making Light

Jane Yolen’s endorsement for the award

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Disclaimer: Admittedly, I have a bit of a bias with a couple of YA books of my own published last year. But my stronger prejudice is that I really want to see more children’s books on the ballot. I would have trouble narrowing my nominations down to just five.

It was an amazing year though. In some ways, being an author was exactly the way I imagined it, and in other ways, it was very surprising. Fortunately, the unexpected things were mostly good! It has been wonderful meeting so many people who love books and young adult fiction: the readers, bloggers, librarians, book sellers, other writers, agents, publicists, editors…

Most of all, it’s always humbling and thrilling to realize that people are reading Fair Coin and Quantum Coin. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing reviews, e-mails, drawings, and tweets about the books. No, really—even the lukewarm or “bad” reviews. Thank you, all!

There have been a lot of high points, some even quite recent. I usually mention squee-worthy reviews on the Facebook page and Twitter, and archive them on my website, instead of blogging about them. But I think a few of them are worth highlighting, if you’ll indulge me for another moment:

“(Fair Coin) is fabulous from start to finish… …I recommend it to you highly.”
— Charles de Lint, F&SF, Mar/Apr 2013

“I really liked Fair Coin, and the smart universe the author created.”
— Felicia Day, Goodreads

And of course, an oldie but a goodie:

“Tired of cookie-cutter young-adult novels? The cure awaits, in the shape of E.C. Myers’ astounding Fair Coin — a book which, among other things, achieves the feat of seeming like a dark fairy tale and a clever science fiction epic, rolled into one.”
— Charlie Jane Anders, io9 (2012 Summer Reading List pick!)

Happy anniversary, Fair Coin! You’ve done me proud.