I have Kiernan's book on the list of things to pick up - and thanks for the other recs. They also go on the list of Things To Look For when I get a chance to go bookshopping, which should be relatively soon (yay!). I had heard about Healey writing "Guardian of the Dead" and she spoke about how she wanted to be really careful about appropriation issues and bad covers.
Sometimes genres get very narrow, when they get down to trying to press the same button over and over again, in this case the Laurell K. Hamilton button and the Charlaine Harris button (and the Stephenie Meyer button, for YA -- I don't think she's really had much influence on the adult market, though I could be wrong.)
Exactly this. As far as the question of Meyer, I would say that she is actually the product of influences from the adult market rather than being the source of it. I also think that in a way her wildfire popularity prevents her from being more influential. I think one of the reasons Harris and Hamilton had so much influence was that they sold well, but weren't so popular that anyone similar to them would get called a copycat. Now if someone tried to submit a YA vampire novel that was ANYTHING like Twilight, they'd get rejected, I think.
Though I might disagree with second-world fantasy not being so good for the market right now. I think it depends on the type. But that's a whole other post and discussion.
Can I ask, do you have trouble finding fantastic (in the sense of being fantasy/paranormal) literature that's good on the non-SFF shelves? Years of my own habits have trained me to seek out the SFF section for my speculative needs, but is there elsewhere I should be looking?
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Sometimes genres get very narrow, when they get down to trying to press the same button over and over again, in this case the Laurell K. Hamilton button and the Charlaine Harris button (and the Stephenie Meyer button, for YA -- I don't think she's really had much influence on the adult market, though I could be wrong.)
Exactly this. As far as the question of Meyer, I would say that she is actually the product of influences from the adult market rather than being the source of it. I also think that in a way her wildfire popularity prevents her from being more influential. I think one of the reasons Harris and Hamilton had so much influence was that they sold well, but weren't so popular that anyone similar to them would get called a copycat. Now if someone tried to submit a YA vampire novel that was ANYTHING like Twilight, they'd get rejected, I think.
Though I might disagree with second-world fantasy not being so good for the market right now. I think it depends on the type. But that's a whole other post and discussion.
Can I ask, do you have trouble finding fantastic (in the sense of being fantasy/paranormal) literature that's good on the non-SFF shelves? Years of my own habits have trained me to seek out the SFF section for my speculative needs, but is there elsewhere I should be looking?