Gwenda pointed readers into the direction of Jennifer Rappaport's site yesterday and the question of why it seems that fantasy books are much more popular than science ficiton lately. There are lots of ideas as to why this is happening in the comments and honestly I'm not all that sure why the situation is this way - other than the obvious attempts by all the Harry Potter wannabes. But I am writing an urban fantasy for young adults right now and it never occured to me to write sci fi. I don't like to think it is because I struggled with high school physics though (that seems really unfair) and after reading Kara Dalky's excellent short story "Hive" in Firebirds Rising I don't think that being intimidated by math and logic is the answer. Her story is more human than technological, although the technology is critical to the plot, but the technology isn't hard to handle for the reader - I kept thinking how well I understood it, how it made sense to me.

So I don't think Sci Fi is too scary to write about.

It could just be that fantasy is the in thing right now - lame reason, but I honestly don't have an answer to this one. I do want to point out though the amazing amount of YA fantasy that I've received in the last few weeks - several of which look really wonderful and I can't wait to read them.

The Looking Glass Wars (everybody and their third cousin is going to be screaming about this book by the time it comes out in September), Snow, Fire, Sword (an alternate Indonesia that is a combinatin of magic and technology where a great epic battle ensues), The Death Collector (Dickensian with dinosaurs and that's all I'm going to say), Monster Blood Tattoo (Monster battles!!!), Corbenic (the Fisher King's castle in present day England), The Gods of Winter (where an innocent British family falls in with the old gods who aren't so mythical it seems) and Patricia McKillip's Solstice Wood which is an urban fantasy about a brush with the world of faerie and although written for adults I think it could be fabulous for teens.

In the same period I have received only one sci fi story - Secret Under My Skin - and I had to request that one direct from the author in order to get my hands on it. It's an environmental story about a future earth with a teenager protagonist. It reminded me just a little of Siberia whichI reviewed last December and loved. (And I just read that Norway is creating a seed bank for specimens of all the world's known crops. This is definitely shades of Siberia and I wish more people would read that wonderful book.)

Firebird's Rising had a couple of sci fi stories ("Hive" was just fantastic), but editor Sharyn November explained in her intro that getting sci fi was not as easy as fantasy. It could just be a current trend or fad (best book on trend's ever is Connie Williis' Bellwether - it cracks me up everytime I read it), but I'm confident that all it will take is a breakout like 2001 or The Martian Chronicles and everything will change again. In the meantime I'm planning a massive fantasy column this fall. And I'm still writing about churches and trench warfare and dragons.

If you know of a good YA sci fi book though, be sure to let me know.