2009 - 03/2009 Meeting

Page Created: 09/16/10. Last Updated: 11/01/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 11/14/09.

ROBIN WASSERMAN

Genre Novels:

Skinned

Crashed

Non Genre YA Novels:

Chasing Yesterday Series:

.....Awakening

.....Betrayal

.....Truth

Hacking Harvard

Seven Deadly Sins Series:

.....Envy

.....Gluttony

.....Greed

.....Lust

.....Pride

.....Sloth

.....Wrath

Author's Website: http://www.robinwasserman.com/

Note:

The author has written over 40 books, most of them Work For Hire (novelizations, adaptations, and other media tie-ins), both under her own name and under pen names as well. We will respect her wish to refrain from listing them her just as she does not list them on her website.

MEETING SUMMARY:

Meeting Date: March 14, 2009.

Meeting Site: Saddle River Valley Cultural Center, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Official Attendance: 16.

Meeting Program: Talk by YA Author.

Notes:

Meeting Memories:

Newsletter Account

The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County met at the Saddle River Valley Cultural Center in Upper Saddle River on Saturday, March 14, 2009. Author Robin Wasserman was the guest speaker.

This month's Ice Nine discussion focused primarily on movies (Big Screen Classics, Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, THE ORPHANAGE, WALL-E, and CORALINE) and television adaptations of superheroes (SMALLVILLE, THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD cartoon). Down in the basement, a small group enjoyed the fractured fairie tale animated video, HAPPILY N'EVER AFTER.

Author Robin Wasserman was the evening's speaker. Ms Wasserman is a second generation fan. Her father was a high school English teacher who read science fiction. She desperately wanted to be a science fiction writer growing up. It was not until later in life that she began to appreciate the works of fantasy which her mother read.

Our guest attended Harvard and graduated with a degree in the History of Science. The background stood her in good stead when she turned to writing science fiction.

There were several stops along the way before she turned to science fiction. The first was an editorial stint at Scholastic. This turned into a period of writing children's and middle grade books as work for hire under her own and house names. Our guest is trying to disassociate herself from the 30 or 40 books she wrote at that time.

Ms Wasserman pushed unsuccessfully for more teen fiction while at Scholastic. While J K Rowling's Harry Potter series was a smash with children, it did not drive sales for older teens. It was the television series, GOSSIP GIRL, and the works of Stephanie Myers that powered the YA explosion. Both works are targeted at teenaged girls, and girls read many more books than boys at that age.

Robin Wasserman was attending graduate school when she successfully pitched her first teen series to Simon and Schuster. This was the Seven Deadly Sins series. It was a teenaged melodrama set in a suburban high school out west. Each of the books focused on one of a group of ethically challenged high school friends.

Her next book was HACKING HARVARD, in which a couple of high school computer geniuses hack the University's computers to get the biggest slacker in their school into the ultimate Ivy League college.

CHASING YESTERDAY was the author's first science fiction book, although it owes more to THE X-MEN and THE BOURNE IDENTITY than to mainstream sf. The books in this series are for a middle grade (ages 12 - 14). Our guest compared the book to DOLL HOUSE, except the heroine has telekinetic powers.

The SKINNED trilogy represents the next level in the author's development. While the story can be short handed as teenaged BIONIC WOMAN meets GOSSIP GIRL, there's quite a bit more going on, particularly in the world creation of the back story. Ms Wasserman charted out dozens of trends in politics, religion, entertainment, technology and more. What she came up with wasn't pretty. She has repeatedly been asked why she wrote a dystopia, but that's where the research led.

The time is about 50 to 60 years from now. The Middle East is a nuclear dessert. California has fallen into the sea. A blanket of dust and gases hides the nighttime stars. Most of humanity died in the wars, the plagues, and other disasters. But the rich lead lives of opulence and their offspring strut around like the cast of 90210.

Lia Kahn had it all. Rich, athletic, smart (her father bought only the best genes for his two girls), popular, she was the Paris Hilton of her high school. Then came an improbable automobile accident. To save his pride and joy, Lia's father made her a skinner, downloading Lia's personality and memories into an artificial body. SKINNED is the story of someone who had everything and then lost it all. Her family and friends turn away from her. She doesn't fit in with the other skinners. The only one interested in her is an antisocial geek with problems of his own.

Robin Wasserman was a fun and interesting speaker on a range of topics.