When was the Golden Age of Science Fiction? The late 1930s to the 1950s, when science fiction became widely popular and many classic science fiction stories were published. The joke answer is that the Golden age of Science Fiction is 14, the age when many science fiction readers become fans. I know I read my first scifi when I was 13 or 14 so maybe they are right. Lately scifi fandom, in which I include not just the fans but writers, podcasters and publishers, want to catch the next generation of fans and have been pushing Young Adult Science Fiction, scifi for kids in their teens and maybe early twenties. I'm not immune to this campaign so I've been reading some of it myself. First, I got Scott Westerfeld's Uglies trilogy. It was light but okay. Then I got Twilight, the first of Meyers' books about a clumsy girl and the vampire who loves her. My first impression of the book was that it was BIG. It was a thick book. Once I opened it I realized it was big inside. Big font. Big line spacing. It reminded me that what publishers are basically selling is a paper product. The more paper they sell, the thicker the book, the more they can charge. The actual arrangement of ink on the page is usually the cheapest part of their product. Twilight is a big book. It might be classified as Young Adult Speculative Fiction but it was great as Old People Going Blind Fiction as well. As an old person going blind I found the font and the line spacing made it a lot easier for me to read than the tiny fonts in real books. I didn't have to put on my special adjustable glasses and put it down a lot because my eyes were freaking. BIG FONTS. It was easy to read. It was a little slow to start. I didn't really find the girl, Bella, interesting. She seemed rather ordinary. There's a vagueness to her that reminds me of superhero comic books. They leave the faces of the superheroes sketchy so the reader can imagine themselves in that role. In the same way Bella is vague so the reader can imagine herself as Bella. It's not even clear if Bella is particularly pretty (except to Edward) but when the vampires appear, going to high school to give themselves a paper trail and a backstory that will allow them to live among humans, there are pages devoted to their beauty. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful vampires. Beautiful and irresistible so their prey cannot resist them. But this family of vampires is vegetarian. They don't eat people but Bella's vampire Edward can barely restrain himself from taking her. The descriptions of the teen vampires are very much how girls, how I, viewed many boys when I was that age. They did seem just as beautiful to me as Edward seems to Bella. I used to sit in class and covertly watch them. Edward's hard flesh was like the hardness of young male flesh as their hormones turned them, almost overnight, into something different, something alien. I hit my teenaged brother a couple of times (he deserved it) and it was like hitting a log. I hurt my hands more than I hurt him. And teenaged boys, beautiful as many are, are often monsters. So the entire metaphor of vampire = teenaged boy = monster = object-of-desire works. Like Shakespeare has multiple layers and can be read for the plots, for the characterizations, for the sex and violence, for the dirty jokes, for the philosophy, for the language, Twilight, as simple as it is, has several layers. The entire Bella/Edward relationship is a metaphor for the relationship between teenaged girls and boys as they fight their instinct to have sex, sex that might destroy them. Maybe it's not like that today with birth control and abortion but when I grew up the struggle between guys and girls was to not have sex. The girl was supposed to be in charge of that but the better guys shared it, fought against their desire to have sex and maybe ruin the life of the girl who gave in. In the same way Edward fights against giving into this instincts and taking Bella, consuming her. As much as he is driven he fights against his desire. He also fights against her desire to become like him, to become a vampire, to lead her into damnation. He believes that he lost his soul when he was transformed and he doesn't want to be the weapon that deprives Bella of hers. The whole thing is a metaphor for sex, at least sex in the life of a Mormon housewife, which was what Meyers was 5 years ago. Meyers has linked various works to each book in the series. Pride and Prejudice to Twilight. Romeo and Juliet to New Moon. Wuthering Heights to Eclipse. Midsummer's Night's Dream to Breaking Dawn. This adds another layer to each of the stories. In Twilight Edward, at first, seems cold and withdrawn, like Mr. Darcy, but that is because, like Mr. Darcy, he is trying to control and conceal his growing desire for an unsuitable girl. I think telling the Romeo and Juliet elements in New Moon would be too spoilery. In Eclipse, there are two guys in love with the same girl, in a relationship very much like Cathy, Heathcliff, and Edgar Linton. And in the final book, Breaking Dawn, first you have two men magically in love with the same girl then two immortal families struggling over a magical child like in A Midsummer's Night Dream. All of the connections are pretty weak but it adds a nice additional layer to the books and that lets you run the similarities and differences over in your mind. The Twilight Saga, like Austen's novels, the Bronte sisters' works and even Romeo and Juliet, are pretty much girl books, the text version of chick flicks. Meyers is writing about love and romance at its most melodramatic extreme. I don't know that a male could tolerate them. Well, unless he got off on the idea of being the superhero protecting an accident-prone, trouble-magnet girlfriend from all the dangers of the world or secretly hanging out in her bedroom, watching her as she sleeps. (Edward takes stalking to a whole other level.) Like Austen's novels, the Twilight novels, especially the first one, have a strong Cinderella element. Most of Austen's heroines are ordinary girls, usually without much money, who get the best, richest, most good-looking guy in the novel. Like Cinderella they get the prince. Just so Twilight is the story of how Bella, the ordinary girl, gets the superhero vampire. So there are at least three layers to the Twilight Saga. It makes it all a little better. Gives you something else to read into it no matter how preposterous the story is. Of course, I loved them, though I am kinda disgusted about that. Teenaged love, the vampire and the virgin. God, how ridiculous is that? Yet as soon as I finish one of Meyers' books I start rereading the parts I like best then reread the whole thing. After six days I'm almost through my third reading of Breaking Dawn. I don't know why her books ring my bells. They make me feel kinda manipulated but still I find them addictive. This summer Meyers also released the scifi book Host which I recommend. It is pretty straight forward scifi about an alien parasite living in the brain of a human and changed by it. The parasite finds herself loving the people that her host loved and driven to be with them. In a sense it's a rewrite of I Married a Monster From Outer Space but without the sex. No sex before marriage in books by Mormon housewives! I've already read it three times too. I try to blame that on the nice big font! Well, at least it's over. It will be a while before Meyers can get another book out and until then I can pretend I have better taste than this. Though I'm not embarrassed about liking Host. That one was okay.

I usually do not read books labeled "young adult." I am an adult, many years away from being young, (except at heart!!), and, with a few exceptions, i.e., the Harry Potter novels and "Where the Wild Fern Grows," I read literature for grown-ups. To my delight Stephenie Meyer has created an extraordinary young adult series - which I love (!!) - "The Twilight Series." "Twilight" is also the title of book one. And what original, delightful novels these are - even for someone who prefers her/his literature a bit more sophisticated. I could not put the first book down, literally...and will begin book two, "New Moon," as soon as I finish writing this review. Believe me, there's a reason that more than 10 million "Twilight" series books are in print. They are addictive! As an aside....I did see both "Twilight films," "Twilight" and "New Moon," which are now playing in theaters or on DVD. The movie versions are outstanding and true to the original storylines. The movie characters really resemble those I had in my mind's eye as I read and imagined what Ms. Meyer's world, and the folks who people it, look like. And the books' characters, especially Bella and Edward, are amazingly well depicted. Although all four books are on the market now - great Christmas presents for those uninitiated in "The Twilight Series" - there are 2 more films in the making to complete the movie series. Isabella Swan is seventeen - a typical teen, good looking but somewhat clumsy. She is adapting herself to her long limbs and changing body. Her parents have been divorced since "Bella," as she is called, was a baby. She and her Mom live in sunny Phoenix, Arizona, where she has few friends. Bella is shy and is somewhat of an outcast amongst her peers. She is a moody and private person. But she gets along with her mother - miracle of miracles for an adolescent girl/young woman. Bella is also this stories narrator, so the reader experiences everything from her point of view. Each year she visits her father, Charlie Swan, the chief of police in rainy, dreary Forks, Washington. These annual visits have been more of a torture than a treat for Bella. The constant rain, boredom and loneliness would get anyone down, except for those used to life in Forks. She has only three friends there - Jacob Black, a Native American of the Quileute tribe, (also a teen - and a handsome one at that), his father, Billy Black, and tribal leader Sam. All three are absolutely fascinating and original characters. They have known Stephanie since she was a toddler. The 3 of them have always regaled her with ancient Quileute legends. Bella's mother, Renee, is about to travel with her new husband, Phil Dwyer, a minor league baseball player, to Florida for spring training. Bella has little choice - she can move with her mother and stepfather to Florida, or go to Dad in Forks. She decides to go to Dad so as not to be a third wheel in her newly wedded mother's marriage. Bella, is not a selfish person. She tends to consider others' needs before her own, a trait that can bring her joy, but can also endanger her life. It is in Washington that major changes effect Bella's world. Once installed at Forks, she is not reticent about expressing her displeasure to Charlie, who would do anything to make his daughter happy - except move away from his home. When she begins high school, the lovely Bella, the new kid on the block, surprisingly finds herself very popular. With all the attention she receives, she is quickly befriended by a several students. Unused to being the center of attention, she is dismayed to find that many boys/young men compete for her favors. And she begins to enjoy living with her easy-going, somewhat introverted father. But Bella, who is more embarrassed than flattered by her newfound popularity, has eyes for only one boy - the dazzlingly handsome, aloof, charismatic, Edward Cullen. He is the most beautiful person she has ever seen, with his golden hair, and his dark brooding eyes - even his voice is mesmerizing. Edward is the youngest son of the mysterious and reclusive Cullen family. He and his four siblings, also noticeably beautiful, sit apart from the others, at a separate table, during lunch....but they never eat. He watches her intently, but alternates between interest in Bella and what appears to be anger at her. When Edward and Bella are assigned to be lab partners in chemistry class, he avoids working with her or even looking at her. As a matter of fact, he is downright nasty. However, when an accident almost ends Bella's life, Edward saves her in a most non-human way. It is than when Bella discovers that Edward and his family are "benevolent vampires" who have vowed never to drink human blood. They hunt animals, and the blood of deer, mountain lions, bears, etc., is their source of sustenance. They don't eat - except for animal blood - so they dine in private. They do not sleep, and of course, they all have the usual vampire super human powers...and then some. They are all extremely sophisticated, accomplished and alluring. They can walk in daylight but their skin gleams and glitters in direct sunlight. These strange and potentially dangerous beings, unlike the characters in most vampire fiction, seem to have hearts and souls. So as not to give themselves away, they are happiest when it rains and is dark and misty outside. The head of the household, Carlisle, is a respected doctor in the community, whose citizens have no idea that there are vampires in their midst, although Jacob and his Native American tribe know. So Bella and Edward grow close as friends, and then they fall intensely in love. They yearn for each other - and although the word "yearn" may sound corny, it really describes their feelings for each other. "Twilight" is labeled "young adult" because there is no culmination of the couple's strong sexual attraction. They do not have a sexual relationship. However, there is much sensuality here and plenty of erotic kissing. Actually, I think the abstinence gives the feeling of more passion than usual - more sexual tension. Edward is a gentleman and also fears that intercourse with Bella might harm her...him being a super strong vampire and all. As Bella says, "About three things I was absolutely positive: first, Edward was a vampire; second, there was a part of him -- and I didn't know how dominant that part might be -- that thirsted for my blood; and third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him." Bella also discovers the reason behind Edward's initial hostility toward her. He is torn between his desire to love her and the desire to devour her. He is afraid his vampire nature might become stronger than his self control. I do not want to give the plot away. Let it suffice to say there are multiple storylines and much danger here - to Bella and her family. And there is love. Plus, the Native Americans are more than what they seem. Whatever flaws there are in this novel, (it IS fantasy fiction!), the magical narrative overcomes them threefold! I am thrilled that I have 3 more books to read in the series. This one is exceptional! Jana Perskie The Twilight Saga: New Moon Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, Book 3) Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4)