I’m reading Michael Dante DiMartino’s Rebel Genius entirely because he was — along with Bryan Konietzko — the creator of The Legend of Korra, which two years after it finished still ranks as my favourite animated series. So I’ll check out that comes from either of them (eagerly waiting for Bryan Konietzko’s Threadworlds next year).

Rebel Genius is a children’s / Young Adult novel. I’m pretty shoddy at telling the difference between those two categories and ‘Adult’ novels in general, I guess the audience is probably for 10–14 year olds, given the main character is 12. But seeing the audience of DiMartino and Konietzko grew up with Avatar: The Last Airbender from 2005–2008 and Korra from 2012–2014, that would put their devoted fans — of which there are many — in their late-teens to early-twenties.

The story is of a young orphan, Giacomo who may or may not be an archetypal Chosen One. I’m about half-way through and so far the story is sitting in this narrative. Anyone who reads my blog knows I largely read women authors and fiction stories (by which I mean sci-fi and fantasy) with women and girls at the centre. This is obviously neither of those, and it’s entirely because of Korra that I’m reading it. And to be honest, it’s making me miss Korra. A brown, bisexual woman growing up through four seasons of traumatic events, ending with her finding love with her best friend Asami, remains a profound work of art in film and television. Rebel Genius feels a little pedestrian and unimaginative coming after that.

Sure, it’s an unfair criticism from me to expect Michael to forever make stories of Korra and the Avatar world. That’s not what I’m saying here — as much as I’d love a whole series of The Adventures of Korrasami. What I feel is missing in Rebel Genius is the self-evident propositions around identity, desire, representation that were made in Korra and are so far absent here. Having a young, headstrong, cisgender, hetero (presuming these last two because unless a character is explicitly marked, the default is implied) boy walk into his ‘natural talent’, where the majority of supporting characters are also male, and the two significant female characters serve largely to support him and his journey … I’ve had enough of these stories for a lifetime. I look for stories that directly or indirectly propose ways of thinking about the world that might lead us to a much more egalitarian future, like Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy, or Ysabeau S. Wilce’ Flora Segunda series, or Korra. And being explicit here, I think science-fiction and fantasy have the potential for sophisticated understandings of the world up there with philosophy.

So, I think kids who are currently getting a kick out of Avatar would probably also enjoy Rebel Genius — there’s a lot of similarities between Giacomo and Aang. The other lot, who find themselves in Korra, not so much.