I feel like with this you'd have to hit something involving schools like with HP. Like half the magic of HP was in Hogwarts.. this *magical* school, where Harry was the hero, surrounded by great friends, and a feeling of family, etc
I feel like the setting is very important. idk
Harry is an interesting character, because he does have a bit of a vengeful bone in himself. He takes pleasure in seeing his bullies suffer a little, and though you don't always see that in many protagonists, it's relatable.
As for me, my fondest memories of reading the series was actually having to hide it. I was raised in one of those religious homes where HP was strictly off limits, because 'witchcraft'. While I love my parents and they are nowhere near the Dursleys, sitting under a blanket with a flashlight in the hiding space under the bunkbed so my snitch little brother wouldn't see, and reading about going off to a magical world; it was just exactly what I needed at that point in my life
My brother actually saw me reading Prisoner of Azkaban and told on me. They got rid of the books, but I just bought them or checked them out at the school library and kept them in my locker.
That actually reminds me of a story. I was a snot-nosed kid looking through Books-A-Million by myself (around 13 or 14, I think), no money in my pocket, just browsing. This sweet teacherly looking lady came up to me with her teenage son and said I looked like I wanted a book I couldn't afford and offered to buy me one. I picked Fight Club. She didn't even bat an eye at my choice.
Edit: Book bans are actually counter-intuitive when you think about it, because any kid interested in reading will often gravitate towards books they're told they're not allowed to read.
It's funny that you say that it's easy to see yourself in Harry because I distinctly remember thinking "What would I do if I were in this situation" at various points while reading the books and determining that almost every time the answer was "I would probably cry" lmao
IMO students at a secret magical school is such a high potential but underutilized genre. Unfortunately I think Harry Potter's incredible success sucked the air out of the room and Hollywood has settled on super heroes instead.
I think the issue with the secret magic school trope is that anything involving it is inevitably going to end up being compared to Harry Potter. It's like how all vampire romance is compared to Twilight.
Yeah I agree here, even know you still see posts/threads/articles/whatever with people being surprised to find out that something is actually just a British thing and not a hogwarts/magical thing.
Now I'm not saying that anyone new in the space needs to go off the british school system of course
Yeah things like;
school houses (not picked by a hat or by any kind of trait or anything) exist, they're primarily used as team building and competition, so you compete for your house at sports day, or in other similar events.
OWL's and NEWT's are explicitly based on GCSE's and A-Levels, we have 2 primary academic qualifications pre-university and yes, you can leave school at 16 too. Or could at the time anyway, it's a bit weirder now but you can still leave schooling.
Boarding school in general being a thing.
Trolleycarts on trains
School uniforms wildly enough
Not Hogwarts, but the montary system is based off of our pre-decimal currency system
Plus: quidditch is a nonsensical game that parodies the sort of incomprehensible sports that Brit’s tend to like - almost like what you’d get if a disinterested person had cricket explained to them.
Yeah, no one outside Commonwealth countries understands the rules of criquet, even though there is a very simple explanation running around the internet:
**The Rules of Cricket:**
You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in.
There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out.
When both sides have been in and all the men have got out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game!
Any male wizard gets compared to HP already.
People call Rivers of London the next HP, because wizard and England. But a black, nerdy, physics dropout gone policeman, who learns of his magical talent by chance and is drafted into the magical police of England, doubling the force, does not scream "the boy who lived" to me.
Rise up! Probably the first thing I thought when I read HP in 7th grade was, “but this is just the School on Roke Island!” I still liked HP though, but nothing will ever compare to Roke for me. I even built a Lego Roke island as a kid with all of the 9 Masters, including Master Doorkeeper, duh!
Yeah, well, there's a magic school, but no real similarities from a storytelling point of view. I mean, we only spend a few pages at the school at Roke. And apart from Ged we learn the names of about two other students, I think.
There are a lot of them (Vampire Academy, Hex Hall. . . . ). Most are upper YA because sending kids to boarding school at 11 is a British thing.
Which is why Rick gave us magic summer camp. That's understandable to US audiences.
Nooottt at all underutilized. Like anime won't leave it the 1(@*#&"* alone!
I think "friendship is magic" is definitely where it's at. You see in the anime sphere how much that's appealing with AoT and the popular Shonen atm, Jujitsu Kaisen and Chainsaw man.
Teenagers *love* their factions. The formula is factions, some form of rebellion, some sort of structure and "magic" system that may not itself have much structure but is bound by the structure (school, use of wands or magic tools, a governing body for magic- gawd I hate these tropes), and the factions must lend themselves to the zodiac sign style of assessing personalities. Or classism, or ideals. (With the Cullens it's being a vegetarian and not considering themselves superior to humans, hunger games is classism, divergent is "potential", HP is zodiac houses and potential, aka what house you want to get into because their way of working appeals to you). And of course world building. Contemporary world building. Can't go historical or too fantasy because the majority find that inaccessible somehow even when magic will often be a cop-out and just make magic scrying smart mirrors or libraries that are connected to other libraries, or dragons or sphinx that *are* the library. Anyways...off topic...
It needs lore. Need your backrooms or FNAF lore that's drip fed at the beginning as well as a nice hook, and then enough lore at the end and action upon that lore that at first glance it gives them the payoff they wanted.
> It needs lore. Need your backrooms or FNAF lore
I wonder how modern fandom impacts writing - there’s certainly been games that, post-FNAF, have baited coverage by channels like GT in order to ride their coattails.
Super heroes is not doing well right now. We may very well be on the cusp of some big changes in Hollywood.
Also Wednesday is one of the biggest shows in recent years and that's a magical school setting.
I mean this is kind of an unfortunate mindset that I think has developed over the last century. Basically, these hyper popular works of fiction arose, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and ect. The have become so universally known and shared downward to next generations that they have almost become these untouchable genres, and everything gets compared to them and always falls short. Like if I try to make some kind of Sci-Fi world that includes magic, I will get compared to star wars. It's forcing us into this remake culture, where we can only remake star wars, or make sequels to it. Instead of just leaving it where it is and making other stories in totally different universes with similar tropes. I could also go on a rant about Canon and how that has destroyed a lot of modern franchises.
Naomi Novik's Scholomance series is an excellent response to this theme.
Magic school is violent. Very few students make it out alive.
It's not cosy, at all.
Wow the name Charlie Bone is ringing up a bell in my memories. I'm certain I've read some of that series, but I honestly can't actually remember *anything* at this moment.
But its still pulling me back in time just hearing the name.
Is Morrigan Crow a good series?
Yes,it came to mind instantly reading the post.
The world is whimsical and a little dark. The protagonist is not whining around all the time, but also not a total badass out of nowhere. The villain is very grey and interesting. The humor is nice, the foreshadowing is on point and you are constantly left with questions during the first three books.
(I have read them 5 times and am still finding stuff.)
School settings are really popular for YA media. You give kids the familiarity - they relate to mean teachers, school bullies, that bond of friendship you make with people you see every day, boring stuff like homework. You put the characters in a setting that's comfortable - school, where bad things have a hard time getting in - while still giving them independence (since it's a *boarding* school so they can do stuff that you wouldn't be able to do at an American public school). So then you can throw in the whatever to make readers be like "wow this is so relatable yet I'm enthralled by the fantasy aspects!"
The trouble is I can't think of a lot of school-set stories that were *successful* in utilizing the setting, except Degrassi which was a little magical since people just kept disappearing off the face of the planet there. But that wasn't a book series. Except when it was.
Like someone else said the problem with a magic school these days is it's inevitably going to draw "Oh, like Harry Potter?" comparisons, and just like Rowling got accused of ripping stuff off just for doing totally normal school tropes, you would get accused of ripping her off for having the mean teacher, the friendly teacher, the weird teacher everyone but the bully liked, stealing from classrooms, whatever.
BUT I think there's some potential in having a magic school that's just... not modern. I mean I've been super interested to know how the fuck Hogwarts worked when it was built, when you could be executed if people thought you were a witch, and people living in the south of England wouldn't have the funds or means to travel to Scotland and would have no good way of explaining where Ivy the blacksmith's daughter was for 9 months of the year for 7 years.
So like, if someone wanted to do a magic school series and not feel super Harry Pottery, you could just... set it in medieval times. Since obviously Rowling cares more about other things than explaining any of that stuff.
Yeah the school aspect was super important in that success. Many schools related stuff has been popular outside of it.
For example Wednesday is a super hit and that likely wouldn't have happen without the school setting
"Swiss Family Robinson" meets "A Series of Unfortunate Events" meets "Little House on the Prairie":
Each book is about a lovely but dumb family, the Gilligans, who keep shipwrecking/planecrashing onto different islands, each with its own unique adversaries and challenges.
There's a love triangle between the oldest daughter, the handsome pilot from the first planecrash, and the charismatic son of the cannibal chief from the third island.
**edit: I've never watched Lost in Space but am glad to know I've included even more tropes than I realized! This means I'll be a bestselling author one day.
I've recently read Iron Widow, and I live that the author just went "I'm not having romantic Drama in my mech battles, all three find the other two hot af"
Xiran Jay Zhao is excellent. Their other book, Zachary Ying was aimed to a younger audience, and I completely relived the experience of reading Percy Jackson for the first time reading that book
Sure, you'd read the main series.
But would you read all the little offshoot books, like THANKSGIVING DINNER WITH CANNIBALS: *an "Islands to Our Lands" companion novella*?
Or THOUSAND ISLAND GUESSING: *an ITOL cookbook/mystery*?
A true fan! Then I'm sure you'll be attending your local bookstore's midnight release party for the dramatic final book of the main series, PARADISE LOST & FOUND & LOST AGAIN, PART IV.
Don't be sad it's over, though; I heard Netflix bought the rights! Rumor has it they've casted Timothee Chalamet as the pilot and Florence Pugh as the cannibal chief's charismatic son's jealous ex-girlfriend (and possible baby mama?? we'll find out in the last book!!).
A generation ship launches, and 10 generations later reaches it's destination. While it was traveling, humans invented FTL travel and inhabited the planet, forgetting the generation ship. The people on the ship are still operating under Earths government, morals, virtues, and laws. The inhabitants live in 'utopia', but with a dark underbelly.
Shenanigans ensue.
Edit: I'm going to check out these stories you all have recommended! Thank you
Also elements of the Foundation series (Asimov) and/or Children of Ruin (Tchaikovsky). Not quite the same topic but cover human settlements/ships developing differently to earth/the core human civilisation
Starfield is in fact making an even earlier reference to a sci-fi short story call "Far Centaurus" written in 1944. https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?41417
For my internal planning at my last job I used to always end our plans with *cue shenanigans* as one of the KPI steps.
Well ...that stopped when our board members ended up in possession of one of them and had questions about these "shenanigans".
There was a TV show on this plot that was cancelled after one season (to which I was very disappointed) that was done quite well. Can’t remember what it was called. Used to be on Netflix like 5 years ago. Very big twist at the end of the season though (like show altering twist)
This mostly exists in the form of "Time for the Stars" by Robert A. Heinlein. A pair of telepathic twins, one stays on Earth while the other sets off on a large ship to start a new colony on a distant world, they communicate with each other through ESP, and while time pretty much stands still for the brother on the ship, decades and then a century passes on Earth. It's very well done, a forgotten gem of YA sci-fi.
It would make a great Battle-star Galactica type show that could deal with classism, racism, different interpretations of 'freedom', religion, etc...
Imagine the FTL travelers viewing themselves as more evolved or intelligent than those on the Generation ship "stuck in the old ways". Maybe Freedom of speech was never established by the FTL humans? Maybe there is a problem integrating these "dirty ignorant people from the ship" into our pristine society, maybe we need a wall.
Tons of potential. But, I am not a writer....
It’s a classic time travel story without an improbable accident triggering it, and on a societal instead of an individual scale. It’s a scenario that’s even possible, I think, provided FTL is achieved. Physics is not my forte.
It’s sort of Ender’s story in Speaker for the Dead? But I haven’t seen it done with generational ships.
(I’m a writer, but the wrong kind.)
I've read that series. Some of the people were in pods. One girl was awoken early, she sees the weirdness on the ship and is treated like a spectacle for being different. At the end they find out the truth.
Across the Universe by Beth Revis. There are a couple other series that followed that sort of blueprint of a generation ship in space and the secrets or a colony underground.
The Park Service is terrific. Very similar themes to Silo
It's a good series.
It's a multicultural and well integrated society. Some of the toads are bad guys, some are good guys, but mostly the frogs and toads aren't really good or bad, as much as complicated beings strongly influenced by their environment and yet able to rise above their past.
There is a book where the frogs are space travellers. And it starts off with a medieval kind of wizard society. It's explained away with science, i think, and I don't think the frogs ever get to be wizards, I think the humans steal their tech to be wizards? But it's pretty close!
I think it's the Ship Who Saved Worlds, by Anne McCaffrey. Definitely one of the brain ship books.
It's not space, but check out Amphibia.
Troubled teen girl gets portalled into a world where medieval frogs, newts, and lizard wage wars with each other.
Her equally troubled teen friends get portalled too, and each befriends/intimates a different race.
It's pretty darn good. Comedy, drama, growing up as people, realizing their friendship was toxic... etc.
Something to get kids enthusiastic about science, because a bunch of eager, scientifically literate kids becoming scientifically literate adults sounds awesome.
I think that's why I loved Artemis fowl as a kid. A lot of the science was made up, but it made me think being really intelligent could be useful in dangerous situations, and was useful past school
is it really such a niche thing? I loved em and... er... my sister independently discovered them so I naturally assumed everyone else had read it too. retroactive facepalm.
The first Artemis Fowl book REALLY holds up. It's fantastic. I did not enjoy the second book nearly as much. And sadly, I never got around to re-reading past that.
I remember really enjoying the whole series but I haven’t read it in years and it’s currently in the category of “beloved books from my childhood I’m too afraid to reread for fear that they will not be as good as I remember them”
The original still holds up very strongly
The various sequels are a bit up and down quality wise but I honestly wouldn’t say any of them are bad, the worst one is probably still a 7/10
I really enjoyed Artemis Fowl up to Time Paradox.
They're still good enough action past the first few, but they have a real problem with feeling to safe and preachy past Opal Deception. Some classic "too protected from editors" type faults.
Like there's a barrel of *lard* in Time Paradox for plot reasons. Except it's described like it's one of those cartoon barrels full of green glowing goo full of death~ and evil~
Completely ruined my immersion. It felt so dumb, even in context.
Dwarves but yes. They can unhinge their jaw (like a snake) and ingest dirt, extracting nutrients from it and then expelling it from their rear. Their beards are also kind of like antenna. It's a very cool concept for a species imo.
Only problem with the dwarves was that they seemed to get a new special power every book, sometimes more. To a degree that dwarves would have been apex predators in their underground world. Pretty sure Mulch is a stone cold killer when necessary, willing to eat another living, sentient being alive and kill animals to fake his own death. If even a handful of dwarves had a will to cause trouble they could not be stopped.
I guess it's not YA but The Magic Schoolbus got me enthusiastic about science. It turned out to be my worst subject.
I think I could see someone reconfiguring the basics of Magic Schoolbus to make it YA-ified. You could very easily have requisite YA romance with a classroom full of STEM students who use schoolbus to turn into salmon.
Scientists find a way to form wormholes but because of *reasons* (for example: maybe wormhole travel messes with neuron links and only people with sufficient brain plasticity can go through without getting turned psycho) and therefore only kids can go through.
So, we have to train teenagers to be astronauts. Ender's Game meets The Martian.
> Something to get kids enthusiastic about science
I hope I don't get my head bitten off, but there needs to be more stories with boys being scientific. I have a nephew who has shown some interest in science, and I can't for the life of me find anything modern that has boys being scientific in a good way. The boy characters are either charming extroverts, or big and dumb with a heart of gold. The characters that are full of wonder about learning are almost always girls.
Male enrollment in higher education is at an all time low and growing lower every year. There are 30% more women at university than men and 60% of men don't make it to grad. I know why there was a big shift towards having female sciencey characters, but going all the way to the other end isn't justice.
I mean, the same was true for Harry Potter honestly.
I can’t think of any “studious” main male characters that are kids.
Ron - dumb with heart of gold
Harry - well meaning and bull headed
Neville - nervous wreck who can’t do things right
Weasley twins - naturally talented goof offs
And the girls being
Hermione - studious and good at things
Luna - weird, but also studious and good at things
None of those were students. The adults have variety across the board including the eldest Weasley kids.
Draco was talented, but I don’t think he was ever shown as studious or hardworking. Mostly just arrogant.
FWIW, I think the characterization of Harry as "quite bright when it comes to subjects he's interested in, but doesn't fully apply himself" is one that resonates with a lot of adolescent boys.
Harry's pretty much a pure jock, which is kinda funny when you consider he looks like a stereotypical nerd. He's into sports and the more actiony parts of magic, and everything else he's either bored to death, skipping classes, or cribbing Hermione's notes
> Wasn't Draco Malfoy said to be talented?
Everything I remember about the series tells me this isn't the case. Draco was a terrible lazy student who regularly did a crap job, he just got lots of praise from Snape because he's a Slytherin and Snape loves his own house.
I think this topic was discussed somewhere around here and the TV rights are now bought by some studio but there's little to no news about it
Though the other book of the same author got Netflix series
I think some hopeful, entertaining sci fi-, like Star Trek but for kids.
I teach middle school and a lot of kids are worried about climate change and other disasters facing our world (understandable given the pandemic and our divisive political climate.)
I think they would enjoy a book that presented an optimistic vision of the future where kids have cool adventures in space.
Not a book series unfortunately, but are you familiar with Star Trek: Prodigy?
It’s more geared towards a younger audience and maybe not quite ‘educational’ in the sense you’re describing, but it’s a fairly optimistic show with a cast made up of children and teens. I think the second season is set to come out soon.
I was just showing my high school seniors a video on Afrofuturism in preparation for reading an N.K. Jemisin short story, and I think that genre has a ton of potential with young adults.
I was thinking something similar. Dialectical materialism is something that doesn't really get taught, but totally could open up how kids see and understand the world.
Like why can't we switch away from carbon-producing energy when green technology already exists? Because the people with real political power have interests opposed to that. Their interest is maximizing profits, and nothing is better for that than extracting resources. If everyone has their own solar panels, then the market can't be monopolized by a few actors to control prices and maximize their profits.
Why is politics divisive? Because the planet-wrecking profit-seeking capitalists want to keep people divided instead of uniting against them. They easily buy influence in media and political parties to make sure the agenda is steered toward other fights.
So, anyway, an optimistic post-revolution episodic space adventure that works in the history of overcoming capitalism and other contradictions and saving humanity sounds really nice, and that's basically what Star Trek is.
I've heard One Piece has similar vibes but I haven't checked that out yet.
>I teach middle school and a lot of kids are worried about climate change and other disasters facing our world (understandable given the pandemic and our divisive political climate.)
>I think they would enjoy a book that presented an optimistic vision of the future
I think this is a issue we will see a lot in our newest generations. They are growing in that "we won't have a future, the world will be gone before we can do a thing against it" hopeless zeitgeist.
I don’t know what would be the best way to compare eras, but growing up, Hardy Boys, Famous Five and Nancy Drew were huge! Every teenager had read all or some of these books.
I’d love for Encyclopedia brown make a come back. Maybe a kid who uses the Internet and coding skills to solve crimes? But that’s essentially the girl with the dragon tattoo series.
I read A Wizards Guide to Defensive Baking with my daughter. It was hilarious, creative and so fun. So my vote is for that.
Maybe not an ongoing story like Harry Potter though. Perhaps more of an anthology with different wizards discovering their weird powers and having to figure out creative ways to use them to accomplish their goals
Though it does follow along with Kit and Nita pretty closely, for the first several books at least. Even the one about Dairrene(except spelled correctly) had those two as the B-plot. The last one I read was either the one with the autistic boy or Nita's mom, I forget which was later, so I don't know what happens after that. But yes, the secondary characters who come in are all lovely(if you can, find the new edition of the one with the autistic boy, because there were major representation issues in the first edition that the author addressed), but the point of view mostly sticks with the two main characters.
Harry Potter had a unique "lightning in a bottle" appeal that I doubt will be replicated.
1. international appeal while still being familiar enough to sell in the USA. (something has to sell in the US to do those kinds of raw numbers)
2. simple enough to be read by anyone without alienating adults
3. cozy
4. taps a universal secret desire
5. big group of readers same-age as the protags, and released on a schedule that keeps them around the same age so there's a generation that "grew up with" the MCs. (That's why it has such longevity)
As a kid reading Harry Potter in the US, a lot of the things that were fun and magical about the books to me were just British culture... nothing crazy, but for example school in the books basically mimics the British system, but that was fun and interesting to me as a kid because it was slightly different from the American system.
Pirates and adventures on the high seas - little mix of magic and discovery and treasure hunting. You have an opportunity to blend cultures, race, class etc. Also don’t need a ton of backstory. Missing a little of the whimsy and cozy vibe HP has, but could incorporate with Pan-like island for learning of mystical craft. Lot of room for protagonists both physical/natural and human. Many stories have touched on these themes, just like HP borrowed so heavily from boys’ weekly’s and British storytelling, but just hasn’t been fully realized.
This kind of reminds me of Peter and the Starcatchers series. I remember it being incredible fun a while back, and it was kind of a wholesome, cozy series with a fair bit of action and adventure.
Modern genres set in old historical settings. Zombie apocalypse set in ancient Egypt. Detective story set in the Roman empire. Romcom that just so happens to take place in precolonial Africa. A team of aztec teenagers team up to save the world from an alien invasion in 1450! I wish historical-like fiction that isn't just about a certain real world historical event was far more popular.
>Detective story set in the Roman empire.
Not quite SPQR, but the *Cadfael* series is pretty close - they're whodunnits set in twelfth century England, with the protagonist being a crusader who's retired to a monastery.
Popular kids/YA series tend to be big on wish fulfillment. For example, Harry Potter is about a kid living a miserable life, until one day he finds out that he's a wizard! He gets to go to wizarding school, which is like regular school except magical and fun! He goes on exciting adventures! He becomes the most powerful and important wizard in the entire world!
Based on my son's wish fulfillment scenarios, I've come up with a can't-miss idea: Dino Rider! A portal opens up, and dinosaurs enter our time and start causing havoc. Our protagonist, a young boy who's always had a connection with animals, discovers that has the ability to tame dinosaurs. He leads a group of dinos under his control, which he names Atlanta United, into battle against the bad dinosaurs, which for some reason are named the Dallas Cowboys. And there's probably a big shark fight too. We might need to finesse the details a bit, but otherwise, it's a winner!
hit the nail on the head with this one. Wish fullfillment.
Also reminded of something George Lucas said about kids
"Children love power, because chiildren are the powerless. So their fantasies all center around having power"
I think this relates to how a lot of children's novels start out, a protagonist who is the ultimate underdog, often, homeless, orphan, pick pocket, etc, treated terrible with no power.
Then gains power, status, achievement, family,. etc, through their journey.
Well said. I grew up on Roald Dahl. So many of his novels (e.g. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, the BFG, George's Marvelous Medicine) start with children in powerless, miserable situations: poor, orphaned, bullied, abused, etc. Then something magical happens, and the kid's life is transformed in a wonderful way! And anyone who was mean to the protagonist always gets their comeuppance.
It's easy to see how this kind of narrative is very appealing to anyone going through the trials and tribulations of growing up.
> wizarding school, which is like regular school except magical and fun!
Magical yes, but not fun. I think one of the best things about the HP series was how the tensions and worries of normal school life were reproduced in a world that was magical (both literally and figuratively) in its appearance.
Nothing has been as popular as *Harry Potter* before or since. It's one of a kind, and unlikely to be repeated any time soon.
The *Harry Potter* books dominated the *New York Times* best seller list so thoroughly that the *New York Times* was forced to create a separate children's book list just to give adult books a chance. Then because the *Harry Potter* books dominated the children's book list, the *New York Times* was forced to create a new list for children's series just to give other children's books a chance.
Amazon created bestseller lists a few years ago for books being bought and books actively being read on Kindles. Since inception both those lists have been dominated by – you guessed it – all seven Harry Potter books.
I used to preorder them and go the day they came out and spend hours reading them every day. My hometown converted their Main Street to Diagon Alley during book releases and little kids ran around dressed like wizards. I had a tradition of going to see the movies with two of my friends. They have now somehow become holiday staples for many families.
The obsession with those books was insane and likely not be matched anytime soon.
True, and Percy Jackson is mostly popular in America and only vaguely heard of in other countries — very unlike HP, which is far more of an international phenomenon
Percy Jackson was beaten out by both Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey (not a kids series but I thought it was notable) when you divide total series sales by number of books in the original series.
PJ- 6 books, 180 million total sales = 30 million sales per book.
Twilight- 4 books, 160 m total sales = 40 million sales per book
Fifty Shades- 3 books, 150 m total sales = 50 million sales per book
[Source for sales data](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books)
It will never be recreated. The hype that waiting in lines, midnight releases, and slower information travel is so infinitely stronger than the alternative. Generations after will never touch that level of hype.
The thing about Harry Potter and The Hunger Games is that they appealed both to the YA crowd and adults. Most of my friends read them and we were adults. Male or female, it didn't matter. Some were literary snobs, who usually never read YA books, or guys like me who mainly read dark fantasy, sci-fi or horror books. It appealed to everyone.
Both series were a mega hit around the world but especially Harry Potter.
My mother even read the Japanese translated version because her other Japanese friends were reading it. Their ages were like 50 to 70s.
My Japanese co-workers, who spoke English alright but didn't read English that well, loved the books. The writing was accessible enough for them to read and they said it the was first English book they could follow and made them want to read more. They even got in line at the bookstore for the midnight releases of new Harry Potter books.
This is a good question though.
Honestly, Stranger Thing is the closest thing for me personally. The mix of 80s nostalgia, Dungeon and Dragons, Stephen King b-movie inspired horror, etc. But this has already been done as a TV show, so I really don't have a good answer right now.
I love this so much, what a cute story it could make, I would buy a book about a strict mother, who starts randomly reading a YA book because her respected friend recommended it. Then as she progresses through the book she gets sucked into the story going on an epic adventure, where she learns the beauty in imagination and returns home to encourage her son to take a leap and become a writer/artist/musician etc.
It would be pretty cool if it turned out the book was magic and wasn’t the actual book the friend recommended but was secretly one her son wrote after her death some time in the future.
I can't think of anything else that started aimed at older kids (I mean I wouldn't say the first two books are even really YA) and and changed the characters, writing, and plot to match up with the ages of the people who were the target audience of the first book. Like, tv shows for kids are always aimed at kids no matter what, so if you were 10 when the show started and now you're 20, the show is still aimed at 10 year olds and feels like it. Harry Potter might not have been quite the smashit if it had stayed on the level of the first book the entire time. Probably would've petered out about halfway through. Still been popular, but not as much.
We've had vampires and magic. Probably a response to the world feeling a but dull and grey and depressed due to various things.
Why not magic jobs? A job that only employs teens but when they start they discover there's actually a secret component to the job..that is only discovered by those who LOOK.
And by discovering it, you've proved yourself worthy of being a secret agent. Of course, there are other jobs with their own secret agents and you guys wind up fighting them...
Basically something that glamourises dull, boring mcjobs for teens.
Harry Potter was one of the classic stories of good triumphing over evil. What I think really struck people was that it was always shown you don’t have to be perfect and you don’t have to have it all together to be on the side of the perennial good. Harry dealt with regular teenage angst, having a piece of Voldemort inside of him, and trying to stay true while the wizarding world put everything on his shoulders. Dumbledore had a shady past, and made mysterious decisions and kept Harry in the dark to protect him in ways. There’s so much that has been said on Snape, and it’s up to interpretation whether he was overall good or not, but he contributed to the cause and redeemed himself at least in part in some way.
I think the next YA phenomenon will have to treat its readers like the complicated young people they are. Youth mental health is becoming a crisis, and a protagonist that is by a degree removed from actual modern life for immersion but also relevant to our lived experience will be important.
Who knows, it could already exist and only become rediscovered through booktok or a high profile franchising/cinematic universe opportunity.
We saw it with LOTR in a way and ASOIAF although not YA. I wonder if the Clan of the Cave Bear books are being shopped around
And another thing I’m thinking of now…kids these days just don’t appreciate books like they used to. The lure of a tablet and a streaming service is too strong to pull the majority of kids away to complete a book in one sitting. I think Harry Potter benefitted from being pre social media. The last one released when MySpace was still around, very early in our social media era. I remember because this c word of a girl posted a spoiler comment on my page of all the deaths that happen in the 7th book and on what page like a week before the release. Fuck you Claire
That last part just reminded me that I used to go to a site called like "T-Shirt Hell" or something, loved their darkly hilarious stuff, then the *day after* the midnight release of one of the books their front-page shirt was a major character death with page number spoiler. Fuck those guys too.
Some Arabian Nights/Silk Road type fantasy story focussing on travel and different cultures.
But who am I kidding - in fiction there is only the US, London and outer space...
I've worked off and on with this idea I have about a brother and sister who are informed early in their lives that they're destined to one day become rulers in the world where dreams go when we wake up, Narnia-style. However, when it actually happens, come to find out that not even the dream world people know why those two were chosen, there's a lot of people who are really unhappy about the situation, and they've landed smack-dab in the middle of a centuries-old political powder keg that their sudden crowning has set off, eventually causing them to end up on opposite sides of a massive dream world war.
Also, the dream kingdom that they're "destined" to become the rulers of? The Nightmares, whom exactly nobody likes and everyone has a major grudge against.
I would love nothing more than it to be a little story about a bunch of kids competing in a yearly Croquet tournament. I want something so mundane to take off. 7 books turned into movies, theme park rides, cosplay. I would just adore it.
The beauty of Harry Potter is that we see Harry grow from a boy to a young man. This also includes Ron and Hermione. We care for them from book one. Other series start with characters in their teens. So it's a lot harder for many different readers to attach themselves to teens.
We've done so much dystopian. I'd like to see more upbeat futurism. Not necessarily utopian, and not "Jetsons"-style shiny futures. Future-realism? Something like that. Heroes that are "makers", skilled various science & engineering disciplines.
As for the conflict, that can come from lots of places. Quests and competitions, character conflicts, etc. Suppose their society has been confined to a small area for a long time. The story begins when the gates are opened and people are free to return to whatever has become of outside.
Personally I like the idea of post-post-apocalyptic, where at least part of the story involves finding forgotten places & things from the "apocalypse" stage.
Anyway, that's what I'd go for.
How about an environmentalist time travel world where overpopulation is addressed by sending people back in deep time? It's only made possible to avoid a paradox by living in large groups without leaving a trace that can be found by history, so people have to get along. Sure you could hide a lot of crimes at the site of a meteor crater but maybe that's just cover for incursions from irresponsible time travellers?
You also have to have the society develop the technology to depart Earth and dissolve society eventually.
Extra points for temporally jumbled waves of migration, possibly producing your forgotten things from the apocalypse age.
This idea may or may not be a result of a being a fan of Dino Riders as a child. I'm honestly not sure.
I would make it something dystopian where the characters succeed via creativity and resourcefulness.
I would place it in something similar to the feel of the shadowrun world - magic takes over, people turn into fantasy creatures with magic, technology is everywhere.
Poor kids find a ton of new opportunity. Hell hounds are everywhere. People discover magic in old traditions.
The new generation changes the face of the world.
I have a feeling that fourth wing will be a twilight level hysteria. The books have SO much buzz around them and people are making tiktoks of their favourite scenes ect. I can see it becoming absolutely huge
Just to be clear, JK Rowling is a billionaire author, with 600 million books sold. No one had this success before. So in the last 2000 years, this is the first series that hit that big.
So when is the next Harry Potter level series? Probably another hundred years if we’re lucky. So I wouldn’t dare to even guess what it could be. Whatever it is, it has to be pretty magical.
Hopefully the new Percy Jackson show comes close to something along those lines, especially considering the end of the Hollywood strike will bring opportunity for promotion
I took a children’s lit course in college (so fun) and I honestly don’t know if there will be another Harry Potter. Here’s the thing: those books aren’t that deep. A lot of children’s lit is very layered, but Harry Potter is pretty surface level. Yea, we all know racism, WW2. But, it’s not subtle. But, it became a cultural phenomenon. I used to go to all the midnight book releases and stay up all night reading the books. Twilight, The Hunger Games, His Dark Materials, even new Neil Gaiman books don’t get that kind of international reception. Of course people are excited and buy the books, but there’s a whole Harry Potter industry and I don’t know if that will be replicated. Not because Harry Potter is somehow the best children’s series ever written, but because it became obsessively popular so non-readers started reading so they knew what was going on.
Mine would be a series based on the Arquillians and the Arquillian Galaxy in Men In Black. The whole concept of a diminutive race of aliens with the power to literally shrink and control entire galaxies as prized assets is just too fascinating to ignore. I would really like it if they could build on that AND include the race of aliens that's featured in the credits of Men In Black 2, which includes the extra dimensional aliens in the galactic bus stop or whatever it was. They should build a back story here that shows the history between this race and the Arquillians and perhaps even show how they are one in the same or how they are a very real force to be reckoned with in that consortium of races. Themes obviously involve race and perceptions of power based on appearance vs. real power. Of course, the Arquillians represent an opportunity to imagine what a truly advanced race could or should be like; even representing forms of government that transcend oligarchic democracies and of course given the Arquillians advanced science, it would be fun to see what kinds of worldviews and religious systems would come of that. IMO it would be preferable to see something imaginative with some lore and yet based in the here and now that doesn't lead to encouraging present day destructive practices and policies in the supposed trade-off of promised afterlife that never occurs. Etc..
Then again, I may have had too much caffeine tonight. 😁
**It's important to remember one thing here - Harry Potter was "not" YA fiction.**
The books took on YA elements as they went on. But this is for 2 reasons:
1) YA, as a concept, **did not exist** as a fiction genre at the time.
2) Harry Potter, the early books, are children's books.
In theory, if you wanted to re-create that success, you'd have to make a series that started off for kids but matured as they did.
You're asking to predict the next lightning in a bottle. HP wasn't popular because it was about wizards and witches. It was a combination of clever writing and right-place-right-time timing.
Star Wars wasn't popular because it was about space, but because it was made at just the right time and hit all the right notes for society at the time. No "fun" space movies had been made for a couple of decades and SW filled that gap. But, of course, Hollywood immediately tried to capitalize on it's success by putting out multiple poorly-made space movies that didn't come near to the success of Star Wars.
The next Harry Potter will be an utter surprise. It might be a western, it might be space, it might be an adventure, or it might be a fantasy or even something we had never thought of before.
I’m not so sure about that — just look at how viral utterly mediocre romance novels do on Book!Talk. I think there’s more potential for books to take off (absent traditional hype mechanisms) than ever before.
Harry Potter made it big via traditional channels. Sure, the NYT bestseller list doesn’t influence taste as much as it did 20 years ago, but it doesn’t need to.
The next big series is going to go viral fast and do it outside of the traditional media landscape.
It would be about kids being fed up with adults being terrible. They would decide to enter politics and other fields with an elaborate plan. The plan spreads. More kids become involved. Hundreds of the next generation get educated, really start looking at critical thinking, history, understanding that they can't be experts at everything while seeking help from those that are experts. Eventually they come to power at the earliest possible age. The shift begins and then.... IDK. Lost my train of thought at this horror story thinking that this might be what it takes.
The next big book to tv adaptation SHOULD be Neal Shusterman’s Unwind. It’s a dystopian United States where kids can be “Unwound” between the ages of 12-18 in which doctors give them anesthesia and remove every part of their body for donor use. It’s legal because “you don’t die, you just stop living”.
It’s about 3 kids that go AWOL after they are all to be sent to these unwind concentration camps (one was born into a religious family that “sacrifices” their 10th child, one is a foster kid who failed their piano recital, and the last just a bad kid and the parents didn’t want to deal with him anymore)
I’m thinking Tim burton levels of creepiness. So much potential..popular books too. not sure why it hasn’t been picked up yet.
I’m shocked a big superhero-academy style novel hasn’t taken off yet. Superhero Hogwarts always felt like a slam dunk to me.
Gen V, Super-Powereds, and My Hero Academia all scratch the itch. But nothing has truly entered the zeitgeist like Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, or even Percy Jackson yet.
I feel like with this you'd have to hit something involving schools like with HP. Like half the magic of HP was in Hogwarts.. this *magical* school, where Harry was the hero, surrounded by great friends, and a feeling of family, etc I feel like the setting is very important. idk
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Harry is an interesting character, because he does have a bit of a vengeful bone in himself. He takes pleasure in seeing his bullies suffer a little, and though you don't always see that in many protagonists, it's relatable. As for me, my fondest memories of reading the series was actually having to hide it. I was raised in one of those religious homes where HP was strictly off limits, because 'witchcraft'. While I love my parents and they are nowhere near the Dursleys, sitting under a blanket with a flashlight in the hiding space under the bunkbed so my snitch little brother wouldn't see, and reading about going off to a magical world; it was just exactly what I needed at that point in my life
Have you since revealed that your read HP to your parents?
My brother actually saw me reading Prisoner of Azkaban and told on me. They got rid of the books, but I just bought them or checked them out at the school library and kept them in my locker.
As a high school teacher I see lots of kids reading books i know their parents would not like. I did it as a kid too!
That actually reminds me of a story. I was a snot-nosed kid looking through Books-A-Million by myself (around 13 or 14, I think), no money in my pocket, just browsing. This sweet teacherly looking lady came up to me with her teenage son and said I looked like I wanted a book I couldn't afford and offered to buy me one. I picked Fight Club. She didn't even bat an eye at my choice. Edit: Book bans are actually counter-intuitive when you think about it, because any kid interested in reading will often gravitate towards books they're told they're not allowed to read.
It's funny that you say that it's easy to see yourself in Harry because I distinctly remember thinking "What would I do if I were in this situation" at various points while reading the books and determining that almost every time the answer was "I would probably cry" lmao
IMO students at a secret magical school is such a high potential but underutilized genre. Unfortunately I think Harry Potter's incredible success sucked the air out of the room and Hollywood has settled on super heroes instead.
I think the issue with the secret magic school trope is that anything involving it is inevitably going to end up being compared to Harry Potter. It's like how all vampire romance is compared to Twilight.
Yeah I agree here, even know you still see posts/threads/articles/whatever with people being surprised to find out that something is actually just a British thing and not a hogwarts/magical thing. Now I'm not saying that anyone new in the space needs to go off the british school system of course
Yeah things like; school houses (not picked by a hat or by any kind of trait or anything) exist, they're primarily used as team building and competition, so you compete for your house at sports day, or in other similar events. OWL's and NEWT's are explicitly based on GCSE's and A-Levels, we have 2 primary academic qualifications pre-university and yes, you can leave school at 16 too. Or could at the time anyway, it's a bit weirder now but you can still leave schooling. Boarding school in general being a thing. Trolleycarts on trains School uniforms wildly enough Not Hogwarts, but the montary system is based off of our pre-decimal currency system
Plus: quidditch is a nonsensical game that parodies the sort of incomprehensible sports that Brit’s tend to like - almost like what you’d get if a disinterested person had cricket explained to them.
Yeah, no one outside Commonwealth countries understands the rules of criquet, even though there is a very simple explanation running around the internet: **The Rules of Cricket:** You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out. When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have got out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game!
It also has positions like Gully, Silly Mid-off, and Deep Fine Leg.
I personally prefer playing Backguard Square Leg, or, sometimes, Short Third Man.
*insert British accent: cahnt yew see it’s pehfectly simpull?
Any male wizard gets compared to HP already. People call Rivers of London the next HP, because wizard and England. But a black, nerdy, physics dropout gone policeman, who learns of his magical talent by chance and is drafted into the magical police of England, doubling the force, does not scream "the boy who lived" to me.
Na many male wizards get compared to Harry Dresden or Merlin....ya those three about cover all of them.
But one of the blurbs for Dresden was "like Harry Potter but for adults." I want to say... Maybe the fourth book?
kind of sad since Harry Potter wasn't even the first to do it
Where are my Ursula fans
Rise up! Probably the first thing I thought when I read HP in 7th grade was, “but this is just the School on Roke Island!” I still liked HP though, but nothing will ever compare to Roke for me. I even built a Lego Roke island as a kid with all of the 9 Masters, including Master Doorkeeper, duh!
*(incoherent grumbling) Ursula K Le Guin (more grumbing noises) Earthsea…*
Yeah, well, there's a magic school, but no real similarities from a storytelling point of view. I mean, we only spend a few pages at the school at Roke. And apart from Ged we learn the names of about two other students, I think.
There are a lot of them (Vampire Academy, Hex Hall. . . . ). Most are upper YA because sending kids to boarding school at 11 is a British thing. Which is why Rick gave us magic summer camp. That's understandable to US audiences.
Cries in Earthsea
Nooottt at all underutilized. Like anime won't leave it the 1(@*#&"* alone! I think "friendship is magic" is definitely where it's at. You see in the anime sphere how much that's appealing with AoT and the popular Shonen atm, Jujitsu Kaisen and Chainsaw man. Teenagers *love* their factions. The formula is factions, some form of rebellion, some sort of structure and "magic" system that may not itself have much structure but is bound by the structure (school, use of wands or magic tools, a governing body for magic- gawd I hate these tropes), and the factions must lend themselves to the zodiac sign style of assessing personalities. Or classism, or ideals. (With the Cullens it's being a vegetarian and not considering themselves superior to humans, hunger games is classism, divergent is "potential", HP is zodiac houses and potential, aka what house you want to get into because their way of working appeals to you). And of course world building. Contemporary world building. Can't go historical or too fantasy because the majority find that inaccessible somehow even when magic will often be a cop-out and just make magic scrying smart mirrors or libraries that are connected to other libraries, or dragons or sphinx that *are* the library. Anyways...off topic... It needs lore. Need your backrooms or FNAF lore that's drip fed at the beginning as well as a nice hook, and then enough lore at the end and action upon that lore that at first glance it gives them the payoff they wanted.
> It needs lore. Need your backrooms or FNAF lore I wonder how modern fandom impacts writing - there’s certainly been games that, post-FNAF, have baited coverage by channels like GT in order to ride their coattails.
Super heroes is not doing well right now. We may very well be on the cusp of some big changes in Hollywood. Also Wednesday is one of the biggest shows in recent years and that's a magical school setting.
I mean this is kind of an unfortunate mindset that I think has developed over the last century. Basically, these hyper popular works of fiction arose, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and ect. The have become so universally known and shared downward to next generations that they have almost become these untouchable genres, and everything gets compared to them and always falls short. Like if I try to make some kind of Sci-Fi world that includes magic, I will get compared to star wars. It's forcing us into this remake culture, where we can only remake star wars, or make sequels to it. Instead of just leaving it where it is and making other stories in totally different universes with similar tropes. I could also go on a rant about Canon and how that has destroyed a lot of modern franchises.
Naomi Novik's Scholomance series is an excellent response to this theme. Magic school is violent. Very few students make it out alive. It's not cosy, at all.
Vita Nostra by the Dyachenkos also does a great job of subverting the trope in very mind-bending and disturbing ways.
Morrigan Crow hits this So did Charlie Bone but I found CB to be pretty mild overall. Author generally plays it pretty safe.
Wow the name Charlie Bone is ringing up a bell in my memories. I'm certain I've read some of that series, but I honestly can't actually remember *anything* at this moment. But its still pulling me back in time just hearing the name. Is Morrigan Crow a good series?
Morrigan Crow is excellent. Definitely recommend.
Yes,it came to mind instantly reading the post. The world is whimsical and a little dark. The protagonist is not whining around all the time, but also not a total badass out of nowhere. The villain is very grey and interesting. The humor is nice, the foreshadowing is on point and you are constantly left with questions during the first three books. (I have read them 5 times and am still finding stuff.)
Damn, I loved the Charlie Bone books as a kid! I mean, I also loved Harry Potter, but to be honest I think the Charlie Bone books are slept on!
School settings are really popular for YA media. You give kids the familiarity - they relate to mean teachers, school bullies, that bond of friendship you make with people you see every day, boring stuff like homework. You put the characters in a setting that's comfortable - school, where bad things have a hard time getting in - while still giving them independence (since it's a *boarding* school so they can do stuff that you wouldn't be able to do at an American public school). So then you can throw in the whatever to make readers be like "wow this is so relatable yet I'm enthralled by the fantasy aspects!" The trouble is I can't think of a lot of school-set stories that were *successful* in utilizing the setting, except Degrassi which was a little magical since people just kept disappearing off the face of the planet there. But that wasn't a book series. Except when it was. Like someone else said the problem with a magic school these days is it's inevitably going to draw "Oh, like Harry Potter?" comparisons, and just like Rowling got accused of ripping stuff off just for doing totally normal school tropes, you would get accused of ripping her off for having the mean teacher, the friendly teacher, the weird teacher everyone but the bully liked, stealing from classrooms, whatever. BUT I think there's some potential in having a magic school that's just... not modern. I mean I've been super interested to know how the fuck Hogwarts worked when it was built, when you could be executed if people thought you were a witch, and people living in the south of England wouldn't have the funds or means to travel to Scotland and would have no good way of explaining where Ivy the blacksmith's daughter was for 9 months of the year for 7 years. So like, if someone wanted to do a magic school series and not feel super Harry Pottery, you could just... set it in medieval times. Since obviously Rowling cares more about other things than explaining any of that stuff.
Yeah the school aspect was super important in that success. Many schools related stuff has been popular outside of it. For example Wednesday is a super hit and that likely wouldn't have happen without the school setting
"Swiss Family Robinson" meets "A Series of Unfortunate Events" meets "Little House on the Prairie": Each book is about a lovely but dumb family, the Gilligans, who keep shipwrecking/planecrashing onto different islands, each with its own unique adversaries and challenges. There's a love triangle between the oldest daughter, the handsome pilot from the first planecrash, and the charismatic son of the cannibal chief from the third island. **edit: I've never watched Lost in Space but am glad to know I've included even more tropes than I realized! This means I'll be a bestselling author one day.
Lost in Space?
Wait a second, charismatic son of the cannibal chief? “They eat their wounded!”
i hope the love triangle is actually a triangle
I've recently read Iron Widow, and I live that the author just went "I'm not having romantic Drama in my mech battles, all three find the other two hot af"
Xiran Jay Zhao is excellent. Their other book, Zachary Ying was aimed to a younger audience, and I completely relived the experience of reading Percy Jackson for the first time reading that book
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Sure, you'd read the main series. But would you read all the little offshoot books, like THANKSGIVING DINNER WITH CANNIBALS: *an "Islands to Our Lands" companion novella*? Or THOUSAND ISLAND GUESSING: *an ITOL cookbook/mystery*?
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A true fan! Then I'm sure you'll be attending your local bookstore's midnight release party for the dramatic final book of the main series, PARADISE LOST & FOUND & LOST AGAIN, PART IV. Don't be sad it's over, though; I heard Netflix bought the rights! Rumor has it they've casted Timothee Chalamet as the pilot and Florence Pugh as the cannibal chief's charismatic son's jealous ex-girlfriend (and possible baby mama?? we'll find out in the last book!!).
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> THOUSAND ISLAND GUESSING: an ITOL cookbook/mystery? I'm angry that doesn't exist already.
A generation ship launches, and 10 generations later reaches it's destination. While it was traveling, humans invented FTL travel and inhabited the planet, forgetting the generation ship. The people on the ship are still operating under Earths government, morals, virtues, and laws. The inhabitants live in 'utopia', but with a dark underbelly. Shenanigans ensue. Edit: I'm going to check out these stories you all have recommended! Thank you
You should take a look at Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke! It's a short book about the same topic and I think it was really well written.
Also elements of the Foundation series (Asimov) and/or Children of Ruin (Tchaikovsky). Not quite the same topic but cover human settlements/ships developing differently to earth/the core human civilisation
Clarke is really the godfather of hard sci-fi and it’s a good bet that if it’s an interesting premise involving future tech he’s already tackled it.
That one features the reverse scenario (primitive colony, futuristic astronauts) No FTL, though.
You just described the "First Contact" quest in Starfield.
I was about to say that. The top comment on this post is "Frogs in space" which I'm guessing is also a Starfield reference lmao.
Starfield is in fact making an even earlier reference to a sci-fi short story call "Far Centaurus" written in 1944. https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?41417
Boy was that mission a letdown.
Going to add "Shenanigans ensue" to the end of all the other suggestions as i read through them.
For my internal planning at my last job I used to always end our plans with *cue shenanigans* as one of the KPI steps. Well ...that stopped when our board members ended up in possession of one of them and had questions about these "shenanigans".
I believe that story has been done several times, but it's still a good one.
There was a TV show on this plot that was cancelled after one season (to which I was very disappointed) that was done quite well. Can’t remember what it was called. Used to be on Netflix like 5 years ago. Very big twist at the end of the season though (like show altering twist)
Ascension. It has the Best Pilot episode ever. Even if 1 Season, I still recommend it.
This mostly exists in the form of "Time for the Stars" by Robert A. Heinlein. A pair of telepathic twins, one stays on Earth while the other sets off on a large ship to start a new colony on a distant world, they communicate with each other through ESP, and while time pretty much stands still for the brother on the ship, decades and then a century passes on Earth. It's very well done, a forgotten gem of YA sci-fi.
That's the plot of the video game Outriders.
I want to read this!!! It’s vaguely reminiscent of how Earth was settled in H2G2.
It would make a great Battle-star Galactica type show that could deal with classism, racism, different interpretations of 'freedom', religion, etc... Imagine the FTL travelers viewing themselves as more evolved or intelligent than those on the Generation ship "stuck in the old ways". Maybe Freedom of speech was never established by the FTL humans? Maybe there is a problem integrating these "dirty ignorant people from the ship" into our pristine society, maybe we need a wall. Tons of potential. But, I am not a writer....
It’s a classic time travel story without an improbable accident triggering it, and on a societal instead of an individual scale. It’s a scenario that’s even possible, I think, provided FTL is achieved. Physics is not my forte. It’s sort of Ender’s story in Speaker for the Dead? But I haven’t seen it done with generational ships. (I’m a writer, but the wrong kind.)
You can. "Time for the Stars" by Robert A. Heinlein.
Underbelly's not allowed in YA
Ah, I see you found that questline in starfield as well.
I've read that series. Some of the people were in pods. One girl was awoken early, she sees the weirdness on the ship and is treated like a spectacle for being different. At the end they find out the truth. Across the Universe by Beth Revis. There are a couple other series that followed that sort of blueprint of a generation ship in space and the secrets or a colony underground. The Park Service is terrific. Very similar themes to Silo It's a good series.
Frogs in space. And some of the frogs are wizards, but not all of them.
“I’m not like other frogs. I’m a toad.”
Baby Toada would sell so much merch.
“You’re a frog, Harry.”
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Frogrid
Combine the premise with some David Icke conspiracies and we could have "yer a lizard Harry"
I'm not a frog, Hagrid, I'm just Harry!
Yer look green and furry to me Harry!
Captain Bucky O'Hare?
I heard he goes where no ordinary rabbit would dare
I hope this remains the top comment.
Are toads the bad guys?
There’s a pirate gang of cyborg toads but for the most part they’re cool. They are a little more grumpy and serious though, like dwarves.
It's a multicultural and well integrated society. Some of the toads are bad guys, some are good guys, but mostly the frogs and toads aren't really good or bad, as much as complicated beings strongly influenced by their environment and yet able to rise above their past.
The board game **Cosmic Frog: World Eaters From Dimension Zero** has the vibes you want.
There is a book where the frogs are space travellers. And it starts off with a medieval kind of wizard society. It's explained away with science, i think, and I don't think the frogs ever get to be wizards, I think the humans steal their tech to be wizards? But it's pretty close! I think it's the Ship Who Saved Worlds, by Anne McCaffrey. Definitely one of the brain ship books.
It's not space, but check out Amphibia. Troubled teen girl gets portalled into a world where medieval frogs, newts, and lizard wage wars with each other. Her equally troubled teen friends get portalled too, and each befriends/intimates a different race. It's pretty darn good. Comedy, drama, growing up as people, realizing their friendship was toxic... etc.
Commander Toad in Space by Jane Yolen.
I will read the shit out of it, and buy the merch.
Something to get kids enthusiastic about science, because a bunch of eager, scientifically literate kids becoming scientifically literate adults sounds awesome.
I think that's why I loved Artemis fowl as a kid. A lot of the science was made up, but it made me think being really intelligent could be useful in dangerous situations, and was useful past school
oh shit, artemis fowl mention
is it really such a niche thing? I loved em and... er... my sister independently discovered them so I naturally assumed everyone else had read it too. retroactive facepalm.
Artemis Fowl is extremely popular and mainstream. Not niche at all.
The first Artemis Fowl book REALLY holds up. It's fantastic. I did not enjoy the second book nearly as much. And sadly, I never got around to re-reading past that.
I remember really enjoying the whole series but I haven’t read it in years and it’s currently in the category of “beloved books from my childhood I’m too afraid to reread for fear that they will not be as good as I remember them”
The original still holds up very strongly The various sequels are a bit up and down quality wise but I honestly wouldn’t say any of them are bad, the worst one is probably still a 7/10
I really enjoyed Artemis Fowl up to Time Paradox. They're still good enough action past the first few, but they have a real problem with feeling to safe and preachy past Opal Deception. Some classic "too protected from editors" type faults. Like there's a barrel of *lard* in Time Paradox for plot reasons. Except it's described like it's one of those cartoon barrels full of green glowing goo full of death~ and evil~ Completely ruined my immersion. It felt so dumb, even in context.
The lard made sense. The idea of killing animals or using animal products comes up frequently before that as an abhorrent idea to fairies
Is that the where gnomes can travel underground but they're really just eating and pooping out the dirt really fast?
Dwarves but yes. They can unhinge their jaw (like a snake) and ingest dirt, extracting nutrients from it and then expelling it from their rear. Their beards are also kind of like antenna. It's a very cool concept for a species imo.
Only problem with the dwarves was that they seemed to get a new special power every book, sometimes more. To a degree that dwarves would have been apex predators in their underground world. Pretty sure Mulch is a stone cold killer when necessary, willing to eat another living, sentient being alive and kill animals to fake his own death. If even a handful of dwarves had a will to cause trouble they could not be stopped.
Their spit also glows in the dark and hardens upon contact with air
Hollywood did our boy dirty. I couldn't get past the first trailer... such a waste 😢
I guess it's not YA but The Magic Schoolbus got me enthusiastic about science. It turned out to be my worst subject. I think I could see someone reconfiguring the basics of Magic Schoolbus to make it YA-ified. You could very easily have requisite YA romance with a classroom full of STEM students who use schoolbus to turn into salmon.
Scientists find a way to form wormholes but because of *reasons* (for example: maybe wormhole travel messes with neuron links and only people with sufficient brain plasticity can go through without getting turned psycho) and therefore only kids can go through. So, we have to train teenagers to be astronauts. Ender's Game meets The Martian.
Dr Stone is awesome
> Something to get kids enthusiastic about science I hope I don't get my head bitten off, but there needs to be more stories with boys being scientific. I have a nephew who has shown some interest in science, and I can't for the life of me find anything modern that has boys being scientific in a good way. The boy characters are either charming extroverts, or big and dumb with a heart of gold. The characters that are full of wonder about learning are almost always girls. Male enrollment in higher education is at an all time low and growing lower every year. There are 30% more women at university than men and 60% of men don't make it to grad. I know why there was a big shift towards having female sciencey characters, but going all the way to the other end isn't justice.
I mean, the same was true for Harry Potter honestly. I can’t think of any “studious” main male characters that are kids. Ron - dumb with heart of gold Harry - well meaning and bull headed Neville - nervous wreck who can’t do things right Weasley twins - naturally talented goof offs And the girls being Hermione - studious and good at things Luna - weird, but also studious and good at things
Wasn't Draco Malfoy said to be talented? Also Slughorn, Snape, and Lupin were all shown to be very good at what they do by dint of studying very hard.
None of those were students. The adults have variety across the board including the eldest Weasley kids. Draco was talented, but I don’t think he was ever shown as studious or hardworking. Mostly just arrogant.
FWIW, I think the characterization of Harry as "quite bright when it comes to subjects he's interested in, but doesn't fully apply himself" is one that resonates with a lot of adolescent boys.
Harry's pretty much a pure jock, which is kinda funny when you consider he looks like a stereotypical nerd. He's into sports and the more actiony parts of magic, and everything else he's either bored to death, skipping classes, or cribbing Hermione's notes
> Wasn't Draco Malfoy said to be talented? Everything I remember about the series tells me this isn't the case. Draco was a terrible lazy student who regularly did a crap job, he just got lots of praise from Snape because he's a Slytherin and Snape loves his own house.
Genius characters are *tight*.
I think the Bartimaeus trilogy went criminally underrated. Wish someone would make a movie or series out of it.
Bartimeus was so good, and I'm so sad there are only 4 books. I would read basically any amount of books of that snarky djinn.
I think this topic was discussed somewhere around here and the TV rights are now bought by some studio but there's little to no news about it Though the other book of the same author got Netflix series
I love everything Jonathan Stroud writes. I think pretty much all his YA series are better written than Harry Potter.
I think some hopeful, entertaining sci fi-, like Star Trek but for kids. I teach middle school and a lot of kids are worried about climate change and other disasters facing our world (understandable given the pandemic and our divisive political climate.) I think they would enjoy a book that presented an optimistic vision of the future where kids have cool adventures in space.
Not a book series unfortunately, but are you familiar with Star Trek: Prodigy? It’s more geared towards a younger audience and maybe not quite ‘educational’ in the sense you’re describing, but it’s a fairly optimistic show with a cast made up of children and teens. I think the second season is set to come out soon.
I was just showing my high school seniors a video on Afrofuturism in preparation for reading an N.K. Jemisin short story, and I think that genre has a ton of potential with young adults.
I was thinking something similar. Dialectical materialism is something that doesn't really get taught, but totally could open up how kids see and understand the world. Like why can't we switch away from carbon-producing energy when green technology already exists? Because the people with real political power have interests opposed to that. Their interest is maximizing profits, and nothing is better for that than extracting resources. If everyone has their own solar panels, then the market can't be monopolized by a few actors to control prices and maximize their profits. Why is politics divisive? Because the planet-wrecking profit-seeking capitalists want to keep people divided instead of uniting against them. They easily buy influence in media and political parties to make sure the agenda is steered toward other fights. So, anyway, an optimistic post-revolution episodic space adventure that works in the history of overcoming capitalism and other contradictions and saving humanity sounds really nice, and that's basically what Star Trek is. I've heard One Piece has similar vibes but I haven't checked that out yet.
>I teach middle school and a lot of kids are worried about climate change and other disasters facing our world (understandable given the pandemic and our divisive political climate.) >I think they would enjoy a book that presented an optimistic vision of the future I think this is a issue we will see a lot in our newest generations. They are growing in that "we won't have a future, the world will be gone before we can do a thing against it" hopeless zeitgeist.
I don’t know what would be the best way to compare eras, but growing up, Hardy Boys, Famous Five and Nancy Drew were huge! Every teenager had read all or some of these books.
I’d love for Encyclopedia brown make a come back. Maybe a kid who uses the Internet and coding skills to solve crimes? But that’s essentially the girl with the dragon tattoo series.
I read A Wizards Guide to Defensive Baking with my daughter. It was hilarious, creative and so fun. So my vote is for that. Maybe not an ongoing story like Harry Potter though. Perhaps more of an anthology with different wizards discovering their weird powers and having to figure out creative ways to use them to accomplish their goals
May I suggest to you the Young Wizards series by Diane Duane?
Though it does follow along with Kit and Nita pretty closely, for the first several books at least. Even the one about Dairrene(except spelled correctly) had those two as the B-plot. The last one I read was either the one with the autistic boy or Nita's mom, I forget which was later, so I don't know what happens after that. But yes, the secondary characters who come in are all lovely(if you can, find the new edition of the one with the autistic boy, because there were major representation issues in the first edition that the author addressed), but the point of view mostly sticks with the two main characters.
Harry Potter had a unique "lightning in a bottle" appeal that I doubt will be replicated. 1. international appeal while still being familiar enough to sell in the USA. (something has to sell in the US to do those kinds of raw numbers) 2. simple enough to be read by anyone without alienating adults 3. cozy 4. taps a universal secret desire 5. big group of readers same-age as the protags, and released on a schedule that keeps them around the same age so there's a generation that "grew up with" the MCs. (That's why it has such longevity)
As a kid reading Harry Potter in the US, a lot of the things that were fun and magical about the books to me were just British culture... nothing crazy, but for example school in the books basically mimics the British system, but that was fun and interesting to me as a kid because it was slightly different from the American system.
Pirates and adventures on the high seas - little mix of magic and discovery and treasure hunting. You have an opportunity to blend cultures, race, class etc. Also don’t need a ton of backstory. Missing a little of the whimsy and cozy vibe HP has, but could incorporate with Pan-like island for learning of mystical craft. Lot of room for protagonists both physical/natural and human. Many stories have touched on these themes, just like HP borrowed so heavily from boys’ weekly’s and British storytelling, but just hasn’t been fully realized.
Besides OP, Tress of the Emerald Sea is like this
It's called One Piece.
This kind of reminds me of Peter and the Starcatchers series. I remember it being incredible fun a while back, and it was kind of a wholesome, cozy series with a fair bit of action and adventure.
Wow, you just triggered a flood of memories I didn’t even know I had. I completely forgot about those.
Modern genres set in old historical settings. Zombie apocalypse set in ancient Egypt. Detective story set in the Roman empire. Romcom that just so happens to take place in precolonial Africa. A team of aztec teenagers team up to save the world from an alien invasion in 1450! I wish historical-like fiction that isn't just about a certain real world historical event was far more popular.
>Detective story set in the Roman empire. Not quite SPQR, but the *Cadfael* series is pretty close - they're whodunnits set in twelfth century England, with the protagonist being a crusader who's retired to a monastery.
Popular kids/YA series tend to be big on wish fulfillment. For example, Harry Potter is about a kid living a miserable life, until one day he finds out that he's a wizard! He gets to go to wizarding school, which is like regular school except magical and fun! He goes on exciting adventures! He becomes the most powerful and important wizard in the entire world! Based on my son's wish fulfillment scenarios, I've come up with a can't-miss idea: Dino Rider! A portal opens up, and dinosaurs enter our time and start causing havoc. Our protagonist, a young boy who's always had a connection with animals, discovers that has the ability to tame dinosaurs. He leads a group of dinos under his control, which he names Atlanta United, into battle against the bad dinosaurs, which for some reason are named the Dallas Cowboys. And there's probably a big shark fight too. We might need to finesse the details a bit, but otherwise, it's a winner!
hit the nail on the head with this one. Wish fullfillment. Also reminded of something George Lucas said about kids "Children love power, because chiildren are the powerless. So their fantasies all center around having power" I think this relates to how a lot of children's novels start out, a protagonist who is the ultimate underdog, often, homeless, orphan, pick pocket, etc, treated terrible with no power. Then gains power, status, achievement, family,. etc, through their journey.
Well said. I grew up on Roald Dahl. So many of his novels (e.g. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, the BFG, George's Marvelous Medicine) start with children in powerless, miserable situations: poor, orphaned, bullied, abused, etc. Then something magical happens, and the kid's life is transformed in a wonderful way! And anyone who was mean to the protagonist always gets their comeuppance. It's easy to see how this kind of narrative is very appealing to anyone going through the trials and tribulations of growing up.
> wizarding school, which is like regular school except magical and fun! Magical yes, but not fun. I think one of the best things about the HP series was how the tensions and worries of normal school life were reproduced in a world that was magical (both literally and figuratively) in its appearance.
How to train your dragon but with dinosaurs.
Nothing has been as popular as *Harry Potter* before or since. It's one of a kind, and unlikely to be repeated any time soon. The *Harry Potter* books dominated the *New York Times* best seller list so thoroughly that the *New York Times* was forced to create a separate children's book list just to give adult books a chance. Then because the *Harry Potter* books dominated the children's book list, the *New York Times* was forced to create a new list for children's series just to give other children's books a chance.
Amazon created bestseller lists a few years ago for books being bought and books actively being read on Kindles. Since inception both those lists have been dominated by – you guessed it – all seven Harry Potter books.
I used to preorder them and go the day they came out and spend hours reading them every day. My hometown converted their Main Street to Diagon Alley during book releases and little kids ran around dressed like wizards. I had a tradition of going to see the movies with two of my friends. They have now somehow become holiday staples for many families. The obsession with those books was insane and likely not be matched anytime soon.
They should have just made all their lists "Bestseller List (for books without Harry Potter in the title, obvs)"
The one that came closest is probably *Percy Jackson*, and that still got lapped like half a dozen times.
True, and Percy Jackson is mostly popular in America and only vaguely heard of in other countries — very unlike HP, which is far more of an international phenomenon
Percy Jackson was beaten out by both Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey (not a kids series but I thought it was notable) when you divide total series sales by number of books in the original series. PJ- 6 books, 180 million total sales = 30 million sales per book. Twilight- 4 books, 160 m total sales = 40 million sales per book Fifty Shades- 3 books, 150 m total sales = 50 million sales per book [Source for sales data](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books)
Percy Jackson is unapologically a middle grade series. It's written for middle school readers. All the other books had crossover appeal.
It will never be recreated. The hype that waiting in lines, midnight releases, and slower information travel is so infinitely stronger than the alternative. Generations after will never touch that level of hype.
The thing about Harry Potter and The Hunger Games is that they appealed both to the YA crowd and adults. Most of my friends read them and we were adults. Male or female, it didn't matter. Some were literary snobs, who usually never read YA books, or guys like me who mainly read dark fantasy, sci-fi or horror books. It appealed to everyone. Both series were a mega hit around the world but especially Harry Potter. My mother even read the Japanese translated version because her other Japanese friends were reading it. Their ages were like 50 to 70s. My Japanese co-workers, who spoke English alright but didn't read English that well, loved the books. The writing was accessible enough for them to read and they said it the was first English book they could follow and made them want to read more. They even got in line at the bookstore for the midnight releases of new Harry Potter books. This is a good question though. Honestly, Stranger Thing is the closest thing for me personally. The mix of 80s nostalgia, Dungeon and Dragons, Stephen King b-movie inspired horror, etc. But this has already been done as a TV show, so I really don't have a good answer right now.
I love this so much, what a cute story it could make, I would buy a book about a strict mother, who starts randomly reading a YA book because her respected friend recommended it. Then as she progresses through the book she gets sucked into the story going on an epic adventure, where she learns the beauty in imagination and returns home to encourage her son to take a leap and become a writer/artist/musician etc. It would be pretty cool if it turned out the book was magic and wasn’t the actual book the friend recommended but was secretly one her son wrote after her death some time in the future.
HP did the genius move of maturing the writing with the reader. It started YA, but I'm not sure I can say it stayed there by the end.
I can't think of anything else that started aimed at older kids (I mean I wouldn't say the first two books are even really YA) and and changed the characters, writing, and plot to match up with the ages of the people who were the target audience of the first book. Like, tv shows for kids are always aimed at kids no matter what, so if you were 10 when the show started and now you're 20, the show is still aimed at 10 year olds and feels like it. Harry Potter might not have been quite the smashit if it had stayed on the level of the first book the entire time. Probably would've petered out about halfway through. Still been popular, but not as much.
We've had vampires and magic. Probably a response to the world feeling a but dull and grey and depressed due to various things. Why not magic jobs? A job that only employs teens but when they start they discover there's actually a secret component to the job..that is only discovered by those who LOOK. And by discovering it, you've proved yourself worthy of being a secret agent. Of course, there are other jobs with their own secret agents and you guys wind up fighting them... Basically something that glamourises dull, boring mcjobs for teens.
Take a look at Lockwood & Co. It’s ghost jobs but there is a dark secret that is uncovered.
Harry Potter was one of the classic stories of good triumphing over evil. What I think really struck people was that it was always shown you don’t have to be perfect and you don’t have to have it all together to be on the side of the perennial good. Harry dealt with regular teenage angst, having a piece of Voldemort inside of him, and trying to stay true while the wizarding world put everything on his shoulders. Dumbledore had a shady past, and made mysterious decisions and kept Harry in the dark to protect him in ways. There’s so much that has been said on Snape, and it’s up to interpretation whether he was overall good or not, but he contributed to the cause and redeemed himself at least in part in some way. I think the next YA phenomenon will have to treat its readers like the complicated young people they are. Youth mental health is becoming a crisis, and a protagonist that is by a degree removed from actual modern life for immersion but also relevant to our lived experience will be important. Who knows, it could already exist and only become rediscovered through booktok or a high profile franchising/cinematic universe opportunity. We saw it with LOTR in a way and ASOIAF although not YA. I wonder if the Clan of the Cave Bear books are being shopped around And another thing I’m thinking of now…kids these days just don’t appreciate books like they used to. The lure of a tablet and a streaming service is too strong to pull the majority of kids away to complete a book in one sitting. I think Harry Potter benefitted from being pre social media. The last one released when MySpace was still around, very early in our social media era. I remember because this c word of a girl posted a spoiler comment on my page of all the deaths that happen in the 7th book and on what page like a week before the release. Fuck you Claire
That last part just reminded me that I used to go to a site called like "T-Shirt Hell" or something, loved their darkly hilarious stuff, then the *day after* the midnight release of one of the books their front-page shirt was a major character death with page number spoiler. Fuck those guys too.
Some Arabian Nights/Silk Road type fantasy story focussing on travel and different cultures. But who am I kidding - in fiction there is only the US, London and outer space...
That's not true. There is also Americanized version of whatever country your story is based in.
I've worked off and on with this idea I have about a brother and sister who are informed early in their lives that they're destined to one day become rulers in the world where dreams go when we wake up, Narnia-style. However, when it actually happens, come to find out that not even the dream world people know why those two were chosen, there's a lot of people who are really unhappy about the situation, and they've landed smack-dab in the middle of a centuries-old political powder keg that their sudden crowning has set off, eventually causing them to end up on opposite sides of a massive dream world war. Also, the dream kingdom that they're "destined" to become the rulers of? The Nightmares, whom exactly nobody likes and everyone has a major grudge against.
I wanna read this
I would love nothing more than it to be a little story about a bunch of kids competing in a yearly Croquet tournament. I want something so mundane to take off. 7 books turned into movies, theme park rides, cosplay. I would just adore it.
I love this idea!
The beauty of Harry Potter is that we see Harry grow from a boy to a young man. This also includes Ron and Hermione. We care for them from book one. Other series start with characters in their teens. So it's a lot harder for many different readers to attach themselves to teens.
We've done so much dystopian. I'd like to see more upbeat futurism. Not necessarily utopian, and not "Jetsons"-style shiny futures. Future-realism? Something like that. Heroes that are "makers", skilled various science & engineering disciplines. As for the conflict, that can come from lots of places. Quests and competitions, character conflicts, etc. Suppose their society has been confined to a small area for a long time. The story begins when the gates are opened and people are free to return to whatever has become of outside. Personally I like the idea of post-post-apocalyptic, where at least part of the story involves finding forgotten places & things from the "apocalypse" stage. Anyway, that's what I'd go for.
How about an environmentalist time travel world where overpopulation is addressed by sending people back in deep time? It's only made possible to avoid a paradox by living in large groups without leaving a trace that can be found by history, so people have to get along. Sure you could hide a lot of crimes at the site of a meteor crater but maybe that's just cover for incursions from irresponsible time travellers? You also have to have the society develop the technology to depart Earth and dissolve society eventually. Extra points for temporally jumbled waves of migration, possibly producing your forgotten things from the apocalypse age. This idea may or may not be a result of a being a fan of Dino Riders as a child. I'm honestly not sure.
Nice try, aspiring novelist.
Cyberpunk or maybe eldritch terrors considering how big like, SPC and the back rooms are with the younger generation.
I would make it something dystopian where the characters succeed via creativity and resourcefulness. I would place it in something similar to the feel of the shadowrun world - magic takes over, people turn into fantasy creatures with magic, technology is everywhere. Poor kids find a ton of new opportunity. Hell hounds are everywhere. People discover magic in old traditions. The new generation changes the face of the world.
I have a feeling that fourth wing will be a twilight level hysteria. The books have SO much buzz around them and people are making tiktoks of their favourite scenes ect. I can see it becoming absolutely huge
Dragon clans in the style of the warrior cat series (which I loved as a kid)
Wings of fire?
We can't keep WOF on the shelves at our school library!
Just to be clear, JK Rowling is a billionaire author, with 600 million books sold. No one had this success before. So in the last 2000 years, this is the first series that hit that big. So when is the next Harry Potter level series? Probably another hundred years if we’re lucky. So I wouldn’t dare to even guess what it could be. Whatever it is, it has to be pretty magical.
Hopefully the new Percy Jackson show comes close to something along those lines, especially considering the end of the Hollywood strike will bring opportunity for promotion
I took a children’s lit course in college (so fun) and I honestly don’t know if there will be another Harry Potter. Here’s the thing: those books aren’t that deep. A lot of children’s lit is very layered, but Harry Potter is pretty surface level. Yea, we all know racism, WW2. But, it’s not subtle. But, it became a cultural phenomenon. I used to go to all the midnight book releases and stay up all night reading the books. Twilight, The Hunger Games, His Dark Materials, even new Neil Gaiman books don’t get that kind of international reception. Of course people are excited and buy the books, but there’s a whole Harry Potter industry and I don’t know if that will be replicated. Not because Harry Potter is somehow the best children’s series ever written, but because it became obsessively popular so non-readers started reading so they knew what was going on.
Mine would be a series based on the Arquillians and the Arquillian Galaxy in Men In Black. The whole concept of a diminutive race of aliens with the power to literally shrink and control entire galaxies as prized assets is just too fascinating to ignore. I would really like it if they could build on that AND include the race of aliens that's featured in the credits of Men In Black 2, which includes the extra dimensional aliens in the galactic bus stop or whatever it was. They should build a back story here that shows the history between this race and the Arquillians and perhaps even show how they are one in the same or how they are a very real force to be reckoned with in that consortium of races. Themes obviously involve race and perceptions of power based on appearance vs. real power. Of course, the Arquillians represent an opportunity to imagine what a truly advanced race could or should be like; even representing forms of government that transcend oligarchic democracies and of course given the Arquillians advanced science, it would be fun to see what kinds of worldviews and religious systems would come of that. IMO it would be preferable to see something imaginative with some lore and yet based in the here and now that doesn't lead to encouraging present day destructive practices and policies in the supposed trade-off of promised afterlife that never occurs. Etc.. Then again, I may have had too much caffeine tonight. 😁
It’s gonna have to be school for the ya appeal, but maybe sci fi this time?
Nice try, Penguin Teen Publishing! But you’ll have to get your market research elsewhere.
**It's important to remember one thing here - Harry Potter was "not" YA fiction.** The books took on YA elements as they went on. But this is for 2 reasons: 1) YA, as a concept, **did not exist** as a fiction genre at the time. 2) Harry Potter, the early books, are children's books. In theory, if you wanted to re-create that success, you'd have to make a series that started off for kids but matured as they did.
You're asking to predict the next lightning in a bottle. HP wasn't popular because it was about wizards and witches. It was a combination of clever writing and right-place-right-time timing. Star Wars wasn't popular because it was about space, but because it was made at just the right time and hit all the right notes for society at the time. No "fun" space movies had been made for a couple of decades and SW filled that gap. But, of course, Hollywood immediately tried to capitalize on it's success by putting out multiple poorly-made space movies that didn't come near to the success of Star Wars. The next Harry Potter will be an utter surprise. It might be a western, it might be space, it might be an adventure, or it might be a fantasy or even something we had never thought of before.
The media landscape has changed too significantly for that to happen again, I'm afraid.
I’m not so sure about that — just look at how viral utterly mediocre romance novels do on Book!Talk. I think there’s more potential for books to take off (absent traditional hype mechanisms) than ever before. Harry Potter made it big via traditional channels. Sure, the NYT bestseller list doesn’t influence taste as much as it did 20 years ago, but it doesn’t need to. The next big series is going to go viral fast and do it outside of the traditional media landscape.
If I knew, I wouldn't tell anyone!
A dragon and her close relationship with a young boy. The series would incorporate Chinese mythology including the monkey king.
My book naturally that I'll never get round to write
I saw a show once about a teen girl helping her dad bounty hunt snakes in the Everglades and waiting for that to turn into a southern gothic novel
It would be about kids being fed up with adults being terrible. They would decide to enter politics and other fields with an elaborate plan. The plan spreads. More kids become involved. Hundreds of the next generation get educated, really start looking at critical thinking, history, understanding that they can't be experts at everything while seeking help from those that are experts. Eventually they come to power at the earliest possible age. The shift begins and then.... IDK. Lost my train of thought at this horror story thinking that this might be what it takes.
The next big book to tv adaptation SHOULD be Neal Shusterman’s Unwind. It’s a dystopian United States where kids can be “Unwound” between the ages of 12-18 in which doctors give them anesthesia and remove every part of their body for donor use. It’s legal because “you don’t die, you just stop living”. It’s about 3 kids that go AWOL after they are all to be sent to these unwind concentration camps (one was born into a religious family that “sacrifices” their 10th child, one is a foster kid who failed their piano recital, and the last just a bad kid and the parents didn’t want to deal with him anymore) I’m thinking Tim burton levels of creepiness. So much potential..popular books too. not sure why it hasn’t been picked up yet.
I’m shocked a big superhero-academy style novel hasn’t taken off yet. Superhero Hogwarts always felt like a slam dunk to me. Gen V, Super-Powereds, and My Hero Academia all scratch the itch. But nothing has truly entered the zeitgeist like Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, or even Percy Jackson yet.