Guest post by Jeff Norton: YA SciFi - Unleashing Imagination

Today I am very happy to have on my blog Jeff Norton, the author of the action-packed dystopian/thriller series MetaWars. I currently have the first book in the series Fight For The Future at the top of my to be read pile and it sounds AMAZING. Look out for a review coming in the near future.

MetaWars series by Jeff Norton

 

Synopsis

 

In an unforgiving future, two warring factions – the MILLENNIALS and the GUARDIANS – are locked in a brutal battle over control of an online virtual world called the Metasphere.

 

Jonah Delacroix has always known which side he’s on – the same side as his dead father. But when he assumes his father’s avatar, he learns that things aren’t as black and white as he once believed. He’s catapulted into a full-throttle race through both worlds – but can he find the truth?

 

Book 1 - Fight For The Future - Amazon| Amazon UK
Book 2 - The Dead are Rising - Amazon| Amazon UK
Book 3 - Battle of the Immortal - Amazon| Amazon UK

 

YA SciFi - Unleashing Imagination by Jeff Norton

 

At the London Book Fair last month, a snooty publisher (who shall remain nameless) asked me why I write books for “teenagers.”  I was struck by the judgmental tone contained in his question.  He said ‘teenagers’ the way one might say ‘earwig’ - small, icky, and insignificant.

I write for young people for a number of reasons, but primarily because I was such a reluctant reader as an adolescent; and the forever-nameless publisher in question should be happy that I do.  Children’s and young adult authors like me groom the next generation of his readers.

It’s my hope that my young readers graduate out of my books and become lifelong readers; effectively his customers. I’m actually surprised he didn’t thank me.  But it’s also my hope that my readers grow up to change the world for the better.

I’m currently writing the fourth book in the MetaWars saga, a high-tech thriller series for readers aged nine to ninety. Depending on the bookshop, the books are shelved in the 9-12, teen, or science fiction sections.  The books explore a speculative, dystopian future where whoever controls the internet controls the world.

I like to think that my high-tech tales are a kind of brain-training for innovative young minds.   

The great thing about science fiction (including dystopian fiction) is that it requires the reader to imagine a world different from our own.  It asks “what if?”  That thought process, the ability to imagine the world to be different from its current state, is the underlying premise behind all innovation and scientific achievement. Imagining the world to be different is the first step on the long journey to changing the world.

Young readers today are inheriting a world beset with challenges they did not create, but will be required to address.  Innovating thinking requires imagination, and by immersing themselves in an alternate version of reality, conjuring up a fictional world in the theatre of the mind, my readers are strengthening the synapses in their brains.  The solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges will spring from these nascent neurological connections so that we can avoid any of the dystopian futures spelled out in today’s fiction.

The question I should have asked that snooty publisher was, “why don’t you publish for children and teens?”  

Jeff Norton is the author of the MetaWars saga. The third book publishes May, 2013 from Orchard Books.  He can be found at www.jeffnorton.com and tweeting at @thejeffnorton.