Sci-Fi Books For Pre-Teens? 1419
o2binbuzios writes "I have two pre-teen boys who are avid readers, and I am going through my mental catalog for great sci-fi & fantasy books for them. What are some of the classics (and maybe new additions to the classics) that would be great for them to read? I am asking because some of the 'straight-up' classics I remember actually seem kind of dark & cynical for younger readers. Starship Troopers and some of the other Heinlein are definitely darker and more political than I remember... Foundation Trilogy and psycho-history maybe too dry. Road-trip reading season is upon us — what are the good reads for the kids in the back seat?"
Baroom Series by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Score:4, Interesting)
"Invitation to the Game" (M. Hughes) (Score:5, Interesting)
Brief plot synopsis: unemployment is skyrocketing due to mass mechanization of society, although the unemployed are well taken-care-of due to the same efficient use of resources. It can be dull to be unemployed, at least until you get an invitation on your doorstep mentioning a secret game with a very exclusive list of players.
Mystery/adventure/scifi, very highly rated, but do not read the Amazon editorials (thar be spoilers afoot).
Re:Heinlein juveniles (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't forget Heinlein's Red Planet.
Re:Heinlein juveniles (Score:2, Interesting)
Ender's Game, as many have said is great too but much of it other than the action will be lost on youngish kids.
There are also some great newer books (the following are mainly fantasy) for kids (Bartimaeus Trilogy, Artemis Fowl, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Harry Potter (they've probably read them though), etc.). There are many more but I can't think of them right now.
Valentine's Castle (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Harry Potter, of course (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: E.E. Doc Smith (Score:5, Interesting)
A problem with the Skylark and Lensman series is that they were written when eugenics was still popular in the US, before the NAZIs made such a graphic display of their dark-side implications. The good guys are good guys and the bad guys bad guys largely due to their genetics. The last book of the Lensman series shows that the police/military organization you've been following was actually a secret breeding program, run by behind-the-scenes aliens, to produce a human master race to rule the galaxy and wipe out their ancient enemies.
Whenever I feel like trusting government officials I re-read the section of _The Grey Lensman_ where an "unattached lensman" (a supercop, with carte blanch to do whatever he pleases, no oversight, massive resources, and a gadget that lets him wiretap minds remotely) wipes out a nest of dope dealers by calling in the equivalent of a massive surprise nuclear carpet-bombing on the city they're in, to vaporize them all before they can get away.
Re:Alfred Bester (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow, another Bester/"Stars" fan? I thought I was among the five people left in the world who loved this story. I was about 12-13 at the time I read it for the first of perhaps half-a-dozen times. Now that you've reminded me about it, I'll have to read it again. It's in my now almost fifty-year-old copy of A Treasury of Great Science Fiction edited by Anthony Boucher which I just found on the bookshelf.
I like many of the Heinlein novels from his early period, particularly the ones that were political in nature. His depiction of an America with politics based on fundamentalist Protestantism seems remarkably prescient since the Reagan years. Once sexuality appears on your childrens' horizons, it might be time to read Stranger in a Strange Land.
I was a pretty devout Catholic as a child and remember the impression Arthur C. Clarke's short story "The Star" made. Like the protagonist in the story, it may have marked the beginning of doubt.
Another author that I loved in my youth was "Andre" Norton, the pen name of Alice Mary Norton [andre-norton.org]. When she started writing SF and fantasy, women were so rare in the profession that she took a man's first name to get published. Looking at her bibliography [andre-norton.org], I recall reading a number of books that she wrote in the late 1950's and early 1960's.
Finally if your children like fantasy, I strongly recommend Ursula LeGuin's [ursulakleguin.com] Earthsea Trilogy, another series intended for young readers but with great appeal to adults as well. Le Guin was the daughter of the famous American anthropologist Alfred Kroeber, an influence that's obvious in many of her best works like The Dispossessed.
Piers Anthony (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Try these (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd add Larry Niven's Ringworld series.
Dune (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Harry Potter, of course (Score:3, Interesting)
JK lies though... she didn't plan it all from start to finish, otherwise every book wouldn't introduce something completely new and unheard of before.
Sure it would! That was one of the things that kept the series interesting for me. After the first two I began to detect a pattern: sorting hat, first day of class, Christmas, birthdays ... every year was starting to seem the same. Only then she started throwing us curve balls.
Besides, she never said she had the whole thing plotted out on paper, the way George Lucas claimed to. I think she said she had the last chapter of "Deathly Hallows" completed somewhere during the writing of "Order of the Phoenix." But that's just the absolute end of the story, though -- I've read interviews where she claims to have purposely left lots of interesting details to "reveal themselves" as she went along. Otherwise, she said, it would just be too dull to write the damn things if she knew absolutely everything in advance. She was often pretty distraught to have to kill off certain characters, too, but said that's just the way the story seemed to be heading.
Tom Swift!!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh heck yes! There have been multiple generations of this series. The older stuff like Tom Swift and his biplane perhaps not as interesting but there were at LEAST 3 generations after that! I actually collect some of the really old ones - now nearly 90 years old and have some of the 2nd and 3rd gen ones too, I think there's a 4th newest generation as well.
For stuff that is NOT dark, not super violent, and a decent read for younger people this stuff is great I think. It's like Sci-Fi Hardy Boys. When I was a kid I read every one of them the local library had in multiple cities.
The oldest Tom Swift books are now public domain it seems, holding one that old in your hands is pretty wild but be advised that they aren't terribly "PC" for the modern world, they depict stereo-types pretty badly in the oldest books. A window into that time I guess but I do find it bothersome sometimes. These are popular on eBay...
There was another bunch of books - Zip Zip was in the title. John Schealer was the author of these - I liked them as a kid too. Worth checking out although likely dated now like the old Tom swift books.
Re:Try these (Score:4, Interesting)
i can still tell you the exact time and place i picked up my first sci-fi read.
i was thirteen, in junior high school, and it was Heinlein's "The Star Beast". that was decades ago.
been hooked ever since. don't always have time for it, but always come back to it.
don't live in the parent's basement or fit any other definitions of hardcore nerd- or geek-dom, but picking up that first sci-fi book (and i subsequently read _all_ of heinlein, hebert, asimov, campbell, pournelle, niven and the rest) definitely started me on a path to looking at the world with different eyes.
the guys that write sci-fi (especially in the "golden age") are/were genuine pioneers of thought. fuck disney; they're the _real_ imagineers.
i can't recommend more highly turning your kids on to a "thinking out of the box" genre like sci-fi.
as to which first? don't know; times change, but you see where i started, for better or worse.
hell, i'm just glad someone wants their kids to actually read.
My List (Terry Brooks, Steven Lawhead, etc) (Score:2, Interesting)
I realize you are looking specifically for sci-fi, but since people who like that typically also like fantasy, here were some of my favorites.
* When I was a pre-teen, I really enjoyed Sword of Shannara, and then I followed the series as more came out. Other Terry Brooks books are also great.
* Almost all of Isaac Asimov's stuff. Foundation series, the spacer books, etc.
* Chronicles of Narnia. These were the popular books for elementary kids where I was.
* Some of the Star Wars books were good, but not all. Most were "unoriginal".
* I read the Dune series when I was in middle school, and loved it. But I suspect only the 1st would hold the attention of a pre-teen.
* Michael Crighton books scared me to death when I was a kid. Maybe I was too young when I read those.
* Flatland. Helps you imagine what higher dimensions would "look" like.
* Obviously LOTR + The Hobbit. Non-negotiable.
* I read a lot of books by Steven Lawhead, many of them fit better in the fantasy category, but some were sci-fi like. I *really* enjoyed Empyrion.
* Also, I really enjoyed sci-fi short stories. I felt they worked really well, but you'd have to find a collection.
* Others: Madeline L'Engle, Ray Bradbury. I know he's not sci-fi or fantasy, but I really liked Shogun by Clavell. Hey, Japanese dress like aliens...
I'm currently reading the Hyperion series by Dan Simmons, and I love it, but it's not for pre-teens. Save it for later.
Re:Alfred Bester (Score:3, Interesting)
Not at all. It's just that most people who love it know it as "The Count of Monte Cristo."
Actually, if I had a kid who was into science fiction I'd love to give them "The Stars My Destination" (which I agree is a terrifically entertaining read and a great story in its own right even if Bester did cop the basic plot from Dumas) and then *after* they'd read it rent a movie production of "The Count of Monte Cristo" to see if they recognized it as the same story. I know it took me a surprisingly long time to work that out..
Re:Dark and Cynical? (Score:2, Interesting)
The characters come and go (sadly), but ultimately their goal in life is to accomplish the will of God (i.e. your Christian overtones). And yeah, like Lewis, I agree with the author's theological points. So, I'm biased.
Still these are VERY well written stories.
Other than that caveat, the violence is not any more graphic than Tolkien and no other objectionable elements exist.
I reviewed them more in depth at Conservativebooktalk.com [conservativebooktalk.com].
Re:give 'em all of it (Score:3, Interesting)
I was practically raised by the DragonLance Saga (definitely Weis and Hickman, though don't avoid Knack's The Legend of Huma), which taught me a lot of my morals. Good guys wear silver armour, bad guys wear black. Honour and chilvary are paramount. Tears that honour life are OK, and we must never give up hope.
I think I cracked my first DragonLance novel around the age of eight or nine. Definitely grade A fantasy for the younglings.
As others have mentioned, McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern novels are all great, and Mercedes Lackey has a wide range of novels (The Free Bards is a good one for younger readers). I also recommend my wife's favourite, Diana Wynne Jones and the various Chrestomanci books. She read them as a child and we still read them. Diane Duane's Support Your Local Wizard is another great young adult fantasy novel.
Rather than go on, feel free to check out the books in our library tagged as young adult and fantasy [librarything.com].
Re:A few very basic suggestions (Score:5, Interesting)
My dad introduced me to science fiction by bringing home a "kid's" novel one day. I couldn't have been much older than eight or nine. I tore through it as quickly as I could, sneaking a flashlight under the covers to finish it. It was Tom Swift: The City in the Stars [bobfinnan.com]. As each new one came out, I'd spend my allowance on it (when I wasn't saving for a Lego set).
I was hooked. I made it through the sixth book in the series before I tumbled to the fact that this wasn't the original series. At that point I became a regular at the library and checked out every Tom Swift book they had. That's how I learned about this "interloan" thing.
I'd never been out of the kid's section before but I noticed that the library had this whole other back section that wasn't nonfiction, and wasn't kid's books. I walked back through it and to my amazement I discovered shelf after shelf full of fiction and a fair number of the books had the letters SF written in Sharpie on a label card on the spine. Magic!
I decided to try out my first "Adult" science fiction novel and I thought robots were just the coolest thing (next to spaceships of course, but all decent science fiction had spaceships in it). Robots of Dawn had just arrived, and since the title sounded cool, I grabbed it from the returns rack. I became a lifelong fan of Isaac Asimov after the first chapter. I went back to the library and dug up as many books by him as I could find, not just his science fiction, but the Ellery Queen stories, his science books, as much as I could find in the library's catalog or through the interloan program.
I began reading back issues of Astounding Science Fiction, Analog, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (IASFM!), and discovered other authors. Many of the story intros or commentaries in anthologies had mentioned this Dune novel, so I decided to check it out. I had to renew it because I couldn't read through it in three weeks (it was 1984, the same year the David Lynch movie was released... I was ten). It was a revelation.
From there, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Silverberg, Heinlein, Simak, Gordon R. Dickson, Phillip K. Dick, Sturgeon, Bradbury, Poul Anderson, Piers Anthony, Douglas Adams, C.J. Cherryh, Kim Stanley Robinson, Spider Robinson, Ursula K. Leguin, Joan D. Vinge, Vernor Vinge, and more, and more. But to understand all of these, I had to get their references, and so I began to dig into Dickens and Melville and Shakespeare. By the time I was in Junior High School, I was more widely read than just about any other kid in school.
Don't sell your kids short thinking they're too young for Asimov. Granted, his writings are a gateway drug.
Re:Enders Game (Score:3, Interesting)
Kids keep getting smarter.
No they don't. They just push them harder.
When I was 4 years old, preschool consisted of fingerpainting and coloring, maybe a little bit of ABC and number recognition. My recently-5-year-old finished preschool in May, during which she learned to recognize and write over 2 dozen words (colors, numbers, shapes) as well as basic addition and subtraction.
None of that is surprising. You were not pushed as quickly. 5 years old is about where kids learn to read. That can be pushed back up to about a year for most kids, but no amount of anything is going to result in a 2 year old that can read. Kids aren't changing.
In the near-distant future (200 years? 300 years?) how much further along will kids be? Algebra in primary school?
Kids already learn algebra in private primary schools. Again, you can shift the age a little with aggressive teaching regimens, but we'll never see 7 year olds learning advanced combat tactics.
Don't sell kids short. Unless you have kids of your own, you really don't have enough material with which to reference an evaluation.
Now you're just being silly. Even if I didn't have any children (I have one), that wouldn't disqualify me to speak on the subject of juvenile education.
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
I strongly disagree, at least with the Dune series. I read Dune (although not in English) when I was 11 or 12, and I believe it's the perfect kid sci-fi. It's light, it present political and social ideas with simple examples instead of explanations, it is morally clear cut so the kid will know who's who, and yet introduce him to some exoticism which can open the kid's mind and certainly lead him to dream about this world. I certainly did.
On the other hand, I think foundation is better for a 14 or 15 years old. It's better on the "idea" side, it has more food for thought, but there is a lot less action and heroism. It's certainly more nerdy than Dune.
(Disclaimer, I read both series a long time ago, so I'm relying on a 25 to 30 years old memory... I may be wrong)
Re:A Wrinkle in Time SUCKS (Score:4, Interesting)
It was a fine book when I was 10. Now that I'm 55, it's not so good.
And much though I loved Heinlein's juveniles when I was 10 - 16, today I find them... juvenile.
The first science fiction book I read (and the first all-text "adult" book, too) was A.E. Van Vogt's "The Voyage of the Space Beagle." I was seven.
Douglas Adams is fine for all ages.
Piers Anthony is great when you're 10 - 16, starts to lose it after that.
Orson Scott Card, check.
James Patterson isn't thought of as an SF writer, but his "Maximum Ride" series is excellent juvenile SF -- and not shabby for adults, either.
Just turn kids loose in the library, let them get what they like. It may not be what *you* like, but hey! We each have our own taste in authors and styles.
Re:Jules Verne (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't lower your expectations of your kids; they might surprise you....
You could do what we did. A very prominent wall in our living room is solid-packed bookshelf of several hundred fantasy and SF novels. I told each of our daughters that they were absolutely forbidden to read any of them.
Naturally, they were soon sneaking novels off the shelf and reading them in their room, and I suspect they've gone through at least 3/4 of the library by now.
There was absolutely no filtering other than that it reflects our taste in the genera. They're both Straight-A students (one in university now) and their conversation is consistently astute and challenging and full of fresh ideas, and they're both full of smiles and bounce. Mind you this could also because they told us to pull the plug on free-to-air/cable TV several years ago, so that source of brain Lanacaine was removed.
So to follow the thread, we have the full Pratchett at eye level, Asimov at the top left and Zelazny at the bottom right. The Heinlein juveniles were popular as were the Eddings Belgariad/Malloreon series.
Let 'em read it all; good minds will do the filtering themselves, and do a better job of it than second hand criticism.
Childhood Fantasy (Score:4, Interesting)
The following are all "coming of age" stories which I hope might appeal to your children. Most are winners of the Nebula and or Newberry prizes for literature - which generally means that they can be found in a local library. I will not bother to list all of the wonderful Heinlein novels and stories as they clearly have many champions, though I will plug the anthology "The Past through Tomorrow" which hooked me at age nine and started a life long passion for reading.
David Eddings
Lloyd Alexander
Ursula LeGuin
R. A. MacAvoy
T.H. White
That should keep them busy over the summer.
Re:Try these (Score:3, Interesting)
Give them what you read (Score:5, Interesting)
Chances are they'll like it too. I was 13 when I read LOTR, and Dune. When I was 11-12 I "discovered" Asimov, Heinlein, Niven, Bradburyand other grandmasters, as well as the Star Trek novels. Those guys are famous for a reason.
Might want to try some collections of short stories, and see what they like. You might already have it in your collection. My library, at the time, had YA stickers on books (young adult), and I remember cruising around the library, looking for those stickers for a few years.
I also used to read the first page in a book, and some other random page just to see if I liked it, or the style. Try that with them.
Re:Arthur C Clarke and Doctor Who (Score:3, Interesting)
Snap ! Islands In The Sky probably wasn't the first Sci Fi book I read but it must have been one of the first when I was 8 or 9 or something.
I think the sci-fi books I enjoyed most around 11 - 12 were The Stainless Steel Rat series by Harry Harrison.
Not at all Sci Fi but you absolutely can't go wrong with the Swallows & Amazons series by Arthur Ransome, the setting may be ancient history now but the books are probably the best books I ever read as a kid.
Thirded ! (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been trying to remember what these books were called all morning. I remember absolutely loving "The Castle Of Lyr" when I was 9 or 10, really great characters and a fantastic story. I'd recommend these to any child.
I think there may also have been some sort of animated film of the Black Cauldron 20 years ago or something.
Re:Alfred Bester (Score:2, Interesting)
Douglas Adams (Score:2, Interesting)