For avid readers, the last year and a half might have felt familiar, like a scene from a beloved fantasy or sci-fi novel, the kind where brave children and young adults are tasked with rising up in the face of an oppressive, post-apocalyptic world. 2020 may have even left some wanting to revisit the action-packed worlds of beloved novels from childhood like The Hunger Games, Divergent, or The Maze Runner. After all, they just don't make YA sci-fi novels like they used to.

However, one young local author has set out to make sure the sci-fi genre is evolving.

Zoe Hana Mikuta published her first novel, a high-stakes sci-fi adventure set in a postnuclear future, a world where giant robots are worshiped as gods and used as tools by the elite to keep those on the margins at bay. This is the world of Gearbreakers, one Mikuta began envisioning during her senior year of high school.

"I really wanted to do something [with] mechas," she said, referring to a genre that centers on giant robots or machines, as she reflected on her inspiration for the novel.

As a younger teen, she was a fan of the fantasy and sci-fi genre, finding herself particularly drawn to the Percy Jackson series; however, the characters, almost always white and straight, and did not reflect Mikuta or the world around her. "I wanted to see characters that fit my demographic," she said. "[So I wrote] characters I wanted to see in my mid-teens. You've got to write for yourself first."

In writing for herself, Mikuta has created characters that also resemble other readers, ones not often seen in the sci-fi literary canon. "They're half Korean," she said of Gearbreaker's two protagonists, Sona and Eris. "I didn't have that growing up," she explained. (Mikuta is also half Korean.)

What makes Gearbreakers groundbreaking is that both main characters are women of color and members of the LGBTQ community. (Happily, though, more novels are coming out that feature POC and LGBTQ characters.)

Not only does Gearbreakers feature beautiful diversity, but the story itself is riveting, a page turner that sucks readers in, reminding so many of us why we fell in love with literature in the first place. With action, suspense, and heart, Gearbreakers quickly becomes the type of novel readers struggle to put down. You may even find yourself reading under the covers with a flashlight, just to find out what is going to unfold next.

While Mikuta set out to create an engaging and futuristic world full of characters who resemble her, she informed me that neither character seems to share much in common with her personality. "Personality-wise, the characters are very different from me," she said.

However, if she had to choose one character she relates to the most, "I'd say maybe Sona... She is my exact demographic, and she's a terrible flirt," she said with a laugh.

She also prefers not to include much inspiration from real-life friends and family in her work. "I don't want to put any of my friends in the book directly, because bad things happen, and I don't want bad karma. The characters are very different from people I know."

From the library to the big screen?
Not only has Mikuta created unique and compelling world, but she has done so while balancing college classes. She may be a published author, but she is still just an undergraduate student at the University of Washington! She built the world of Gearbreakers in her university library, in just fifty-minute chunks a day.

When asked about her process, Mikuta laughed. "I'm classically very bad at planning ahead. The only way I can know what's going to happen is when I start writing. I just start out with a vibe," she said.

Quickly, Mikuta was able to turn that vibe into a whole world, and within four months she had finished her first draft and signed with an agent. Then the whole process sped up, and within two years Gearbreakers was published, whereupon she began work on the sequel, which is about to undergo one last round of edits before publication can begin.

Along with demands for a sequel, the film rights to Mikuta's first novel were also picked up last spring. For the author who published her first novel before even stepping into her twenties, anything seems likely, especially a blockbuster movie in the not-too-distant future.

"It's definitely not the basket I'm putting all my eggs in. It's all still very early on, but it would be so cool," she said about a Gearbreakers movie. But she added, "I'm always a little worried about diverse books in Hollywood and how they're going to do that."

Finding clarity
Writing a book was a growing experience for Mikuta. As she worked on her first novel, she found herself coming of age along with it.

When it came to the Queer romance between Sona and Eris, she was hesitant at first.

"I was halfway through the first draft," she said. At the time she identified as straight. Feelings of imposter syndrome began to set in, as she remembered thinking, "Oh my god, I'm very straight and just fetishizing these relationships."

Now, she identifies as Bisexual, "and how I feel about girls feels different than how I feel about guys," she explained. Writing a Bisexual main character helped Mikuta to understand the difference in attraction, and the validity of both female and male attraction. "I can just be, like, this is how sapphic relationships feel to me and how non-sapphic relationships feel to me," she said of the different relationships portrayed in the book.

Mikuta hasn't been the only one to find clarity in the pages of Gearbreakers. "Just the other day one of my aunt's friend's kids got the book," she said. "They told my aunt, 'I'm questioning my sexuality, and it's nice to have a story like this.' That's the reaction I feel the most." Learning about one's sexuality, like writing a novel, is a process, and the more the media handles the topic in an inclusive and positive context, the easier the journey becomes.

Novels with racial and sexual diversity normalize the experiences of children that are often left out of the pages of beloved texts. While there are still systems in place that prioritize white, straight stories, novels like Gearbreakers are the foundation of the literary revolution. Mikuta definitely sees the impact her novel is having in terms of representation. "In this day and age, there's a lot of bad in the world, but I feel like Gearbreakers, especially, has a lot of hope."

Hope, fundamentally, is the vibe of the novel. "That's kind of what they're coming of age into, the thought that it's not all bad — as bad as the world is, there's still these good moments. That's really the coming-of-age vein I'm trying to lead in Gearbreakers."

Maybe hope is the answer to why YA sci-fi novels continue to be so pivotal to our growing-up years. In a time when the world can feel confusing, when identity is called into question, and many of us start to realize we are on the outside of "normalcy," these stories provide us with hope. They remind us, no matter how different we are, we can still be the heroes.