(no subject)

[skygiants]

The back cover of Marie Lu's Legend informed me that the author "was first inspired to write Legend while watching Les Miserables one afternoon, and wondered how the relationship between a famous criminal vs. a prodigious detective might translate into a more modern story."

It is not Marie Lu's fault that this somehow explicitly led me to expect a genderswapped steampunk Javert/Valjean fanfic about an obsessive police officer with a black-and-white morality and the escaped prisoner she pursues over the course of three or four decades . . . but apparently somehow this is something that my soul desperately craves, because I was unfairly disappointed not to get it.

Not that Legend is not good! Legend is a perfectly enjoyable dystopian YA novel about two SUPER TEEN PRODIGIES, one who is accelerating within the system (but only because she doesn't know all the terrible things the system does) and one who works outside the system (and is accused of terrible crimes, but has only ever committed the non-murderous ones), and how she's sent to bring him in because she thinks he killed her brother, and it's all very dramatic and interestingly world-built and involves government plague conspiracies and that's fine, I will totally be willing to read the sequel and see where it goes! I did wish that there was more of a clash of legitimately opposed ideologies, as opposed to the heroine realizing that everything she believes in is wrong. And if she was going to completely rebel, I really really wanted her to stay a double agent within the system at the end of the book, instead of going on the lam. BUT MAYBE THAT'S JUST ME and my eternal love for Lee Su Hyun/Cha Song Joo.

Anyway, it all worked out, because now that I've realized the tragic scarcity of YA novels with the EPIC MELODRAMA of Javert/Valjean slash fiction at their heart, I have simply decided that someday I am going to have to write my own, except with lesbians. (Working title: YOU KNOW NOTHING OF JAVERTINA.) You're welcome, world!

This also however begs the question of which OTHER famous musical nemeses should be updated into steampunk dystopian YA novels. I have provided some options for you, so please feel free to vote for your favorite! I will almost certainly not write it for you but YOU NEVER KNOW.

Poll #10656 THE YA OF THE FUTURE

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 38

View Respondents

Which of these FAMOUS MUSICAL NEMESES would you most like to see as the romantic leads of a YA novel?

View Answers

The Phantom/Raoul! HE's a foppish aristocrat! HE lives under the gladiatorial opera house where people compete in a singing competition to the death! Wacky circumstances force them to raise a baby together! (See Love Never Dies.)
8 (21.1%)

Velma Kelly/Roxie Hart! Both of them are showgirls arrested for spectacular tabloid crimes, but what Velma doesn't know is that Roxie's got an extra card up her sleeve: she's a RENEGADE ROBOT showgirl.
17 (44.7%)

Mark Cohen/Benjamin Coffin III! HE's a member of the secret BOHEME group that's spreading revolutionary viral videos . . . and HE'S the angry landlord who just got accidentally implicated in the conspiracy! NOW THEY'RE ON THE RUN TOGETHER.
5 (13.2%)

Sweeney Todd/Mrs. Lovett! Trapped in an oppressive society, they decided to rebel against the system by becoming cannibals and -- actually you wouldn't really even need to change the plot here. BUT WITH STEAMPUNK!
1 (2.6%)

Elphaba/Galinda! . . . is already a YA novel. BUT IT COULD ALWAYS BE ANOTHER ONE. This time with actual lesbians!
7 (18.4%)

The depressing secret of my life is that I would one hundred percent read all of these. (But especially Velma/Robot Roxie.)

PLEASE ALSO SUGGEST YOUR OWN.

Comments

[ceitfianna]

I would read all of these as well.

[skygiants]

I AM GLAD I AM NOT ALONE.

[ladysingsthe]

ALL OF THEMMMM

ps ps did you like the latest return to the secret podcast validate meee

[jinian]

Your icon is the BEST.

[skygiants]

I HAVE NOT LISTENED TO IT YET because I haven't been at work since Thursday! Tomorrow night I will be able to validate you properly. :D :D :D

[bookblather]

Velma Kelly/Robot Roxie is very tempting but I went finally with Elphie and Galinda with ACTUAL LESBIANS plzthx.

[skygiants]

ACTUAL LESBIANS IMPROVE EVERYTHING. WHBBWL*, as they say.


Would Have Been Better With Lesbians.

[innocentsmith]

I have to say, I would read the ever-loving daylights out of that proposed novel. Enemy slash! Melodrama! Obsession! Conflicting moral values! Steampunk lesbians! *_*

As for your question: is it wrong that the first thing that came to mind was Marian Paroo and Harold Hill? She's a bright but lonely, socially outcast librarian in a small post-apocalyptic settlement where books are seen as mostly irrelevant to current life. He's a wandering con man (possibly also a robot) out to rob the settlement and move on. Hijinks ensue.

Also, um, hi, by the way. I friended you a week or two ago, on the basis of your awesome reviews. Thought I should probably delurk. So. *waves*

[skygiants]

Hee, it is good to know I am not the only proposed audience for this novel written by me! REASON ENOUGH TO PROCEED.

Also: it is totally not wrong, and I would also read that novel in a heartbeat. BONUS POINTS for post-apocalyptic libraries, since I just wrote a paper on that very topic

And hello and welcome! :) Always happy to have more people here to talk about books with.

[hokuton_punch]

Trying to choose between Phantom/Raoul, Elphaba/Galinda, and Roxie/Velma just broke my heart. ;o; WHY NO TICKY BOXES. ... in the end I had to go with Phantom/Raoul because I am the worst sucker for Phantom of the Opera.

[skygiants]

BECAUSE I AM CRUEL and I like forcing people to make impossible choices! :D?

[genarti]

You did not provide an "enh, I have no soul" option. :(

Other options:

- Scarlet Pimpernel versus Chauvelin! The Scarlet Pimpernel saves humans from the ROBOT REVOLUTION! Chauvelin is an automaton human-hunter I guess. Possibly there is also genderswapping. Or Marguerite is suspected of secretly being an android in deep cover as human. OR BOTH.

- Jekyll versus Hyde! (This one is not actually my idea, it's totally yours even if you're making me make the comment, so I demand you do the summary.)

- Beauty and the Beast is totally a Broadway musical, even if it's taken from the Disney movie. As such: GENDERSWAP STEAMPUNK GASTON. (I have no idea how that would work.)

[skygiants]

I am shamed I did not think of the Scarlet Pimpernel one first! I will confess I did come up with Jekyll/Hyde, however, which I imagine goes something like this: HE'S a mad scientist! HE'S the alternate cyborg personality who lives in his head! Together: a quest to find him a new body, at first for practical purposes, and then for . . . SOMETHING MORE.

. . . is genderswap steampunk Gaston also a robot renegade Gaston?

[genarti]

MAYBE.

[nevanna]

I would read the Jekyll and Hyde one.

...You're shocked, I know.

[lacewood]

I am unable to vote on this poll because the one I REALLY WANT is JAVERTINA AND VALJEAN: NOW WITH LESBIANS. There's a market you could be tapping into right now, is what I'm sayin'

[skygiants]

BELIEVE ME, this is something that it makes me extremely happy to hear. >:D The YA market won't know what hit it!