Best Young Adult SF

We broached young adult SF on a separate thread and I had a quick scan through the different threads and couldn't find one specifically devoted to YA science fiction.

Can we assemble a roster of faves, the best of yesterday and today? Recommendations and pans...

Farmer in the Sky
Cycle of Fire
The Runaway Robot

If I think of more I'll add them -but these are definite faves.

I've just gotten into the YA stuff (within the last 6 years - had to take a course to get into it) and there's some good stuff out there, but I read it years ago and will have to refresh my memory. Robert Heinlein had a good juvenile series and I have those in a box somewhere. Couldn't get rid of those. Think I have mentioned him as a fav inanother post.

The H-Bomb Girl by Stephen Baxter (the title touchstone never works)
The Tripods Series by John Christopher
The Changes trilogy by Peter Dickinson - which is at the young end of the range.

I'm not sure I could class Cycle Of Fire as YA. Although there is nothing in it that any parent would object to (I think) it was written as and marketed as an adult novel.

4>I'm not sure I could class Cycle Of Fire as YA. Although there is nothing in it that any parent would object to (I think) it was written as and marketed as an adult novel.

The edition I have looks like a YA pb to me. ;)
I think when you get right down to it, what with Clement being a high school teacher and how important kids are in his books, I think most of his novels are probably YA novels.

There's one by Ken MacLeod that's good. It's included in Giant Lizards From Another Star, but was published separately as part of the Web series of YA sf novels: Cydonia.

Sands of Mars was a favorite of mine. Along with several Heinlein books, Podkayne of Mars, Time for the Stars. Farmer in the Sky (I think. If it's late forties early fifties.) I read these as a juvenile, so to me they are YA, whether they were intended to be or not I don't know.

Of course the Tom Swift, Jr, by Victor Appleton. Definitely YA, if not younger.

I am a big fan of the Hogben family, but somehow I suspect while they made me laugh as a juvenile, they weren't "juvenile" stories. Anything by Kuttner and Moore read by this juvenile seemed like YA, not because it was but because it was so great and worked on so many levels of maturity that it spanned all readers.

I thought Rod Serling was pretty juvenile, also.

Not necessarily science fiction but science-based fiction, I loved the Rick Brant series by John Blaine and the Mad Scientist Club books by Bertrand R. Brinley.

In the sf category:
Secret Under the Sea by Gordon R. Dickson
The Fallen Spaceman by Lee Harding
Islands in the Sky by Arthur C. Clarke
Runaway Robot by Lester del Rey has already been mentioned.
Douglas Hill wrote a number of YA sf trilogies and series.

Gray Magic was a pretty good YA fantasy by Andre Norton.

Several of the Danny Dunn books by Jay Williams are sf as are some of the Miss Pickerel books by Ellen MacGregor. Trying to find them will be a trick. Ebay is probably your best shot.

Feed MT Anderson
Phillip Reeves The Hungry Cities Chronicles
Peter Dickinson Eva
The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm Nancy Farmer (younger end)
S. Gould Jumper - nothing to do w/ the movie except the name....
Garth Nix Shade's Children
Pullman His Dark Materials
Sleator Singularity, Interstellar Pig (younger end)
Card ender's game
This is sticking more or less w/ SF and bypassing a lot of great YA fantasy (see Garth Nix and Isabelle Carmody among many others)

Uglies trilogy by Scott Westerfeld

Loved the first Philip Reeves book in the "Hungry Cities Chronicles", MORTAL ENGINES but the second one didn't work for me and I didn't bother with anything beyond that. My sons both liked his LARKLIGHT novel too.

I think young adult science fiction and the first name that comes to mind is Ray Bradbury. I've slid a few Bradbury books my sons' way and they liked SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, though they found the language too florid...

I just reread Something Wicked This Way Comes recently. I don't think it's a complete sucess, but it's such an odd book, it is worth reading.
It does try too hard sometimes in the prose department.

The sequence in the library where Mr Dark is looking for the kids is very well done, though.

I remember the John Christopher series and the Peter Dickinson one.
Needle and Through the Eye of the Needle by Hal Clement
Enchantress from the Stars by Sylvia Louise Engdahl
Early Andre Norton such as Storm over Warlock, Catseye, and Night of Masks
Dragonsong and Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey
The Psion series by Joan Vinge
Early Heinlein such as The Rolling Stones, The Star Beast, and Between Planets
Sword of Orion and Balance of Trade by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow is an anthem for the current generation. In twenty years, if us old farts are still around, there will be a lot of nostalgic posts in discussion groups, or whatever takes their place, about this book.

The current generation has their own YA favorites and they are not the stuff we cut our teeth on. Which is good not bad. Every generation should have their own coming of age favorites. Most all kids, no matter how polite, really don't think their parents stuff is all that cool.

Sandman and other graphic novels, manga, MMRPGs,(did I forget a letter in there?) and shared online creations are some of the hits so far.

For whatever reasons, and there are hundreds of theories of why out there, YA fantasy outsells YA SF by about 50 to1. There are dozens of YA fantasy series that have left their authors not having to worry about mortgage payments for the rest of their lives. Not so for the YA SF writers.

A Wrinkle in Time and Have Spacesuit Will Travel were my only two must reads that no one has mentioned yet.

The others being Feed, Something Wicked This Way Comes His Dark Materials and Time for the Stars

YA science fiction that has yet to be mentioned :)
the alien series by Bruce Coville
The Wrinkle In Time series by Madeleine L'Engle
The Giver by Lois Lowry.

Re Heinlein's juveniles: make sure you re-read them before passing them along. Looking for something completely different than Keye's The Born Queen, I'm reading Heinlein's Have Spacesuit Will Travel from 1958. I don't think I read it when young, when I enjoyed Farmer in the Sky and Citizen of the Galaxy. No way I'd give HSWT to anyone today -- it reads like a parody of Heinlein.

In the other thread, I was wondering about more recent current authors, particularly in SF. My son quite enjoyed Philip K Dick but it was hard to finish the sentence "if you liked PKD, you'll love..." Neuromancer for sure was a grabber for many and a nice entry point to other SF. (How has it aged?)

I'd like to be able to point to though what's being written now. SF is very much alive and well but saying "read this from several decades ago" suggests the glory days are past.

It seems to me the new space opera, both in length and tone, isn't going to grab teens. Ken MacLeod is too political, and Alastair Reynolds and Peter Hamilton are too long winded.

Little Brother has been getting good reviews by adults but how is it doing with teens?

Stephen Baxter maybe, with the Xeelee series.

Jack Mcdevitt most novels.

I've not yet read Varley's homages to Heinlein. How are they?

"I've not yet read Varley's homages to Heinlein. How are they?"

Goofy.

chris - how about The Host? It is by Stephenie Meyer. All her books are pretty big. But The Host is science fiction and supposed to be pretty damn good. Her Twilight series involves vampires and things.

or how about the outlander series by Diana Gabaldon? it has a lot of romance though. and time travel and scottish stuff

> 17 Stephen Baxter maybe, with the Xeelee series.

They're not exactly YA novels.

> 19 Elizabeth Hand slammed Meyer's Breaking Dawn in The Washington Post here. They don't sound like the sort of books I'd recommend to anyone.

#19

That's next on my TBR pile.

Breaking Dawn? Why? It sounds appalling.

I'm gonna introduce my boys to the first book in Meyer's series, TWILIGHT, just to see if it appeals to them. They're already pretty critical readers so if it don't yank their chain, they'll dump it.

Both my lads are huge fans of the work of Walter Moers. He's a German writer with a gift for creating imaginary, surreal worlds and comic characters. RUMO and CITY OF DREAMING BOOKS are two of his best. More fantasy-based than SF but worth seeking out if you've got a kid on your list with offbeat reading tastes...

At the risk of reinforcing into stereotypical gender roles, I suspect Meyer's novels will appeal more to girls than boys.

Judging from the POST review, I'd say it's a fair statement. It's more likely that my boys would dislike it for the clunky writing or unoriginal characters or because it just doesn't hold their interest.

#8 - I loved Douglas Hill's the Last Legionary series when I was about 12. Haven't thought of it for years, but that probably was one of my earliest introductions to SF.

In a similar vein the man from PIG and ROBOT. I haven't read anything else by Harrison is ti all YA?

I Robot by Asimov would have been another, and the Foundation series also.

I would have though that the market for stories about spaceships / lasers and robots would have been huge in the YA sector - especially after the recent StarWars films but somehow no-one's quite captured it.

Thanks #16 for reminding me of how much I enjoyed Madeline L'Engle and not just A Wrinkle in Time, but the whole series.

And I thought The Giver was wonderful.

I've decided that since I joined LT that reading all the books there were (let alone are and will be) is futile, but I am going to have fun trying.

I've discovered that LT is actually detrimental to book reading. I spend much more time reading the flat panel of my laptop since I discovered these groups than I do reading books.

Damn you, Tim Spalding!

My "nemesis" is laytonwoman3rd. And I do get into this site to add a couple of books and spend an hour - and maybe I have actually added some titles that I have read in the past or maybe I just get lost in here!

Linda was right that I'd like this place, but it is addictive!

i'm not sure how "young" an age level the original poster was working with. As great as, say, Wrinkle in Time is, i read it ~ 10 and our son around age 7 - though it's one of those books that an adult can read too. A HS kid might see it as, i dunno, patronizing (unfairly, but...). Cliff - if you have access to a library..the 3rd "Hungry Cities" picks up nicely, again. The Giver i'd say is more Jr High and the same w/ John Christopher's older classics.

For a moderately open minded household, i'd add in Night Sky Mine which combines vg space opera, AI. social constraints/changes in a far out space environment and a teenage coming of age/coming out story. But it's NOT primarily a story about sexuality - its's just an important subtheme woven nicely into a skien of other. Meilville's Un lun dun; Pat Murphey's wonderful retelling of The Hobbit in space - There and Back again. 10-12th grader would likely enjoy Snow Crash as lot - if the parental units felt comfortable w/ bringing it into the house (My mother blamed a lot on encouraging us to read Kesey at a young, impressionable age ~ 9th grade..blamed my wanting long hair and be a "hippy musician"????? on her bringing that book to the house; parents (myself included) can be weird....). Vernor Vinge's Fire upon the Deep is great fun if a kid has the patience to just handle a bit of length..I don't think there's anything objectionable and a LOT of neat world/society building.

On the other hand...probably not Jack Womack, at least for a HS library (as opposed to a home library). A lot of the Clarke classics work well for Jr High - actually may work BEST at that age; i know they drew me into SF (fantasy had long been taken care of w/ E Nesbitt, E Eager and Tolkien).

A trilogy that I particularly enjoyed recently is theHis Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, which includes The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and Amber Spyglass.

And can we mention Harry Potter... here?

No!

Just kidding.

Didn't think so. He's hard to catergorize, but the series is still a good YA one even if not appropriate for this post.

#27

No, Harry Harrison wrote a lot of adult pulp and satirical books, and then moved onto more serious science fiction.

I still read some of his pulp SF books in the golden age of SF, and thoroughly enjoyed them, particularly "Stainless Steel Rat".

Enchantress from the Stars by Sylvia Louise Engdahl stands at the top of my all-time faves in YA SF. Followed closely by her trilogy now in a single omnibus Children of the Star.

Rite of Passage was a classic that's for sure.

Kevin O'Donnell's Journey's of McGill Feighan series - lots of interesting aliens
Sherri Tepper's Jinian Footseer series - it's kind of on the dividing line between science fiction and fantasy, but I'd put it in the first category myself.

I was totally won over at about 11 by The Happy Planet by Joan Clarke, but it's probably not easy to find. Also my Dad's copy of the vintage classic Kemlo and the Martian Ghosts. Any in the YA age group should also be capable of tackling First Men in the Moon, which was serialized in the kids mag "Look and Learn" in the 1960s.

Bruce Coville My Teacher Fried My Brains
Crispin, AC Starbridge
Gerrold, David Jumping off the Planet
Gerrold, David Bouncing off the Moon
Gerrold, David Leaping to the Stars
Gould, Steven C. Wild Side
Koontz, Dean Robot Santa
Kress, Nancy Yanked
Nye, Jody Lynn Taylor's Ark
Nye, Jody Lynn Medicine Show
Palmer, David Emergence
Pournelle, Jerry Starswarm
Pratchett, Terry Only You Can Save Mankind
Scalzi, John Zoe's Tale
Sheffield and Pournelle Higher Education
Sheffield, Charles Putting Up Roots
Sheffield, Charles Billion Dollar Boy
James Van Pelt Last of the O-Forms
Varley, John Red Thunder

The Girl with the Silver Eyes by Willo Davis Roberts is another.

rojse - is it good?

bobmcconnaughey - i pretty much read them all around the same time (6th to 7th grade). lol

#41

I am slightly biased, as Harrison was one of the first adult SF authors that I first read. However...

The Stainless Steel Rat stands out because it is actually fairly original - it's about a con artist who gets forced into working for a group of secret police. It's exciting, fairly funny, and great central character too. Not the most intelligent reads, but certainly quite fun.

Do the Stainless Steel Rat books count as YA? I note also that Gandalara mentioned Varley's Red Thunder (there are two sequels, incidentally - Red Lightning and Rolling Thunder) as a YA. The protagonist is a teenager, but I don't know that the book was written, or marketed, as YA.

I tried a Harrison book once, it was about a civilization dominated by intelligent dinosaurs whose greatest competition were humans. It exceeded the limits of my admittedly weak imagination and I just couldn't finish it. I cared not one whit for either the dinosaurs or the people. It did not do an effective job of bringing the two species into conflict (there was a lot of conflict, like I said, I just didn't care) in a way that I became emotionally involved. Reads that don't capture me emotionally are tedious and unless I have some external requirement to read such, don't.

I have heard good things about Stainless Steel Rat and at some point may take it up.

Ah yes. West of Eden. I wasn't too impressed by that either. His earlier stuff is better. Well, more fun.

That's it!

Thanks so much! This is a wonderful thread!

I just started a blog for YA SciFi and I need all the recommendations I can get.

youngadultsciencefiction.blogspot.com

#44

I really liked West of Eden... An interesting central idea, and the depiction of a completely different society was extremely interesting. A little formulaic, though.

#47
If you paste the whole URL, you can make that a link.

I recently listened to the audio book of Interworld by Neil Gaiman which certainly lands firmly in the realm of YA SF. I think it would appeal more to boys than girls but I still enjoyed it. It kind of played with a lot of cliches but I think it was told in a very engaging manner.

On a totally different topic I happened to like Twilight and the other books a lot along with many, many other people. I would have to agree that it is something with more girl appeal than boy appeal, but I've seen comments from teen boys that enjoyed it so I could be wrong.

I haven't read The Host yet though, but I know it is intended for adults not teens or young adults as Twilight & Co. was.

Thanks! Here it is-

http://youngadultsciencefiction.blogspot.com/

#43

Fair point . . . I don't think they *were* marketed at YA, but (like Steven Gould's Jumper and Wildside) their teenage protagonists and relatively straightforward plots (ingenious, improbably talented teens and eccentric adults take on the mundane world and win) put them pretty squarely in that category for me. I find it hard to imagine an adult reader truly enjoying Red Thunder *except* as an homage to the YA science fiction of their youth.

#43 and #51, the Red Thunder series is a deliberate homage to Heinlein's body of early work, of which the juveniles are a major part. Adults like to read it to find all the allusions to different books they recall from their adolescence. And some of us still like reading YA sf in general. I think I see The Telzey Toy and a lot of early Andre Norton in your library, ABVR! I haven't read the others, but I thought Red Thunder was a fun romp very much in the Heinlein vein.

Lots of interesting titles mentioned. I read Heinlein, L'Engle, etc. as a child. I know Clare B. Dunkle has written mostly YA fantasy, but her last book was definitely SF, IMHO. Have you read The Sky Inside?
http://www.librarything.com/work/4486980

Anyone planning to read Meyer's "Twilight", or give it to someone, might be interested in this:

This book justifies Bad Book Month all by itself.

The stats are amazing, but the quotes at the end... priceless.

Hi all
I'm trying to get the word out on my very small press's first two YA fantasy novels (older teens.) MOONSTONE, by Marilee Brothers, and BITE ME, by Parker Blue, are the first books in planned series. Both are by debut YA authors. Both are garnering nifty reviews in the blogosphere.

I'm happy to send review copies to any blogger, librarian, etc. Just let me know.

Thanks,
Deb Smith
Bell Bridge Books
www.bellbridgebooks.com
debbsmith@aol.com

#54

I would like to see that done with "The Host", also by the same author.

I'm pretty much with Ian - a lot of books mentioned here aren't YA SF - even though they may be read and enjoyed by teenagers. When I was a teenager I was reading and enjoying Silverberg that doesn't make his books YA similarly Snow Crash and A Fire Upon The Deep are in no way YA. If you widen the net out that far the search becomes meaningless as you will be including so much of the SF field (and nearly all the vintage SF).

Looking at the TOR Starscape (their YA) imprint they have books written for adults like Dogland by Will Shetterly along with other more juvenile sounding titles. It even includes Robert Jordan's The Wheel Of Time series (each volume split into two) published as YA.

Considering that the golden age of SF is often considered to be 13 I wonder if there is any real need for specifically YA SF as a large market segment? Obviously there will always be writers who do books more suitable for the young end of the market (Andre Norton for example) and books for below teenage will always be written and marketed differently, but the existence of a YA market targeted at teenagers (with its own shelves) may put off some of the inquisitive experimenting with books from the normal SF shelves.

Eddings' fantasy series have been republished in the UK as YA. Which is probably about as accurate as marketing gets...

Although I find that the concept of YA SF is a valid one I find it hard to categorize the novels I have read into that category. I started out with Tom Swift jr when I was 7 and kept going from there. One series I did enjoy as a YA was the Perry Rhodan series (one I have yet to see mentioned here). Frankly I find that most YA are more than capable of enjoying SF from Burroughs the Martian series to almost anything by Asimov or Clarke.

In fact I find that I am enjoying rereading the things I did as a kid and trying to recapture that sense of wonder and enjoyment I had in my teens.

I agree. I always thought, as an adult, that Childrens or YA titles meant it should be an almost simple read for me, but I was greatly mistaken. I thoroughly enjoy these books, finding them as challenging to read as any novel; it's just that the main characters are kids.

I'd recommend a YA title to anyone of any age - they're as good or bad as any "adult" novel.

The Ear, the Eye and the Arm (mutant detectives) by Nancy Farmer
The House of the Scorpion (clones) by Nancy Farmer
A Wrinkle in Time (space and time) by Madeleine L'Engle
The Giver (utopian society) Lois Lowry
Jumper (teleportation) Steven Gould
City of Ember (survival) by Jeanne DuPrau

A number of all ages books like Farenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Ender books, Dune, and Phillip Pullman's series (Golden Compass, etc.) also are good for this age goup.

I second Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion. I want to read The Ear, the Eye and the Arm, but alas it's out-of-print here and that means a special order.

Some recent YA sci-fi I've enjoyed:
Odin's Voice series - Susan Price. The third and final one came out here recently, and boy was there a pay-off. Really gripping stuff.
Riding Tycho & sequel - Jan Mark. Everything else of Mark's I've disliked, but this is excellent. Thematically similar to The Giver, but bleak.
The Knife of Never Letting Go - Patrick Ness. We've been passing this around at work. Has a great first sentence and a frustrating cliffhanger at the end! The other one we're all keen on at the moment is Gemma Malley's The Declaration. I'm looking forward to getting to read the sequel.

48>
Harrison's Eden books were OK where they were showing the sauroid civilisation but once it got caught up in the conflict between the two species it degraded less than gracefully, imo

since i'm not clever enough to cross link from another thread...

Phillip Reeve - Hungry Cities Chronicles - post apocalyptic inter city conflict..but the cities are mobile...3 books at least

Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials is certainly SF
Garth Nix Shade's Children,
Sleator - Interstellar Pig, The Boy who reversed himself ..and
HM Hoover for younger..9-13

Lowry..though of her many books, i think The Giver is the most overrated..she has a LOT of great non-sf fiction..ieNumber the Stars

Peter Dickinson - the Changes trilogy
Diane Duane's mix of SF/Fantasy
O'Brien Z for Zachariah,
Le Guin - earthsea sequence,
John Christopher,
the Firebirds Anthology ed Sharyn November,
Pat Murphy's there and back again,
some early Mahy.....
(i deleted a few that were noted just above..but am repeating and bolding a few that I mentioned earlier because i think they're oft overlooked.

Early Andre Norton would be good;The Time Traders, Galactic Derelict,
Star Guard and Star Rangers are prime examples.
Heinlein's Glory Road and Past Through Tommorrow.
A. Bertram Chandler's John Grimes Tramp Captain and John Grimes: Survey Captain
Harry Harrison's Bill The Galatic Hero
L. Ron Hubbard's 10 book Misson Earth series.
Some newer books from Military Sci fi
Robert Buettner's Orphanage
David Weber's On Basilisk Station
Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet Series
Tanya Huff's Valor's Choice
John Scalzi's Ghost Brigades
Most of these where not written as YA for the most part, but I'm sure that young adults ( junior high school and up) would enjoy these.

Nooo. How can you recommend Elron's Mission Earth drekology? It's appalling. I managed the first three, but then my brain started leak from my ears...

And honor Harrington YA? In fact, why on earth would you recommend military sf to teenagers?

67: iansales
I enjoyed The Missson Earth series, it was a no brainer No better or no worse than the mindless sequals upon sequals that fill the selves of book stores today. And as far as military Sci Fi goes, most of it is written for the 13 to 18 age group. They are looking for struture, adventure and belonging to the group. Military Sci Fi is an outlet for these things.
As far as Honor Harrington, On Basilisk Station, Has a Strong female charactor who is set up to fail because she is good at her job and embarassed her "superiors". Her problems have a modern ring to it if you talk to women in todays military.
Also on second look Ghost Brigades shouldn't be on the list.

Killing people is not "adventure". War is not "adventure". If you want to teach teenagers that anyone different is by definition an enemy, and the best response to them is to exterminate them... There are better YA novels that are real adventures. And why would any teenager want to belong to an imaginary group?

As for Harrington - you don't break the system, you change it. Otherwise it'll always stay the same. Besides, Harrington is such an unbelievable character whatever credibility she might possess as a fictional construct quickly becomes bankrupt. I managed nine of the books before giving up in disgust, and I'm only surprised I didn't jack them in sooner.

69: iansales

I'm surprized you made to the ninth Harrington. I couldn't get passed the second. I found the first one interesting for the stated reasons. Not great literature, just a little pleasent read to pass a winters night.

Haha. Hoist by my own petard. They were fun but grew increasingly annoying. I found Elizabeth Moon's Familias Regnant books better, but even they started to pall after a while.

Ian how did you manage to read three of the Mission Earth books? I cannot think of any situation in which I would recommend them apart from Bonfire Night. I think I read two. They were the worst books I had ever read. Even apart from the quality of the writing I would have thought they would have been unsuitable for the YA market due to content.

I was young and foolish... I know someone who read all ten. He's still on meds.

I think kids would really enjoy the Sector General Hospital series by James White, which includes Hospital Station, Ambulance Ship, Star Healer and others. These have the challenge and excitement of military SF, but the focus is on healing, xenobiology, and unraveling exotic alien medical puzzles.

People might also consider my Y/A Ratha's Creature and sequels to be biological/paleontological science fiction.

re:spoiledfornothing:

the Diana gabaldon books might not be suitable for teens, they do a have quite graphic sex scenes.Older girls might like them though..

re:anti-twilight stuff:

I read most of these books and as I have always been partial to the odd vampire story, quite enjoyed them, so was interested to see the venom with which these books have been attacked. THe main problem seems to be that it supposedly teaches young girls to get into an abusive relationship....And I started to buy that opinion , til I remembered that , Edward is a Vampire....all humans are food-it doesn't matter if he is in love with one, the whole thing that seems t be the same in most vampire novels is that have some kind of aura/magic or whatever which turns their prey into amiable victims(or makes them love them and want to die).

anyway...this could probably go on to one of the twilight threads...

re: iansales-Eddings
Well I did go through the belgariad and a teen and loved it, but when the newer books were published a few years back, I just couldn't getinto them, the story just seeme dot get a bit boring...

"Heinlein's Glory Road and Past Through Tommorrow."

These are not the Heinlein books I would recommend for a teenager. I would instead suggest some of the many excellent juvenile titles he produced: Have Space Suit - Will Travel, Citizen of the Galaxy, Tunnel in the Sky. Podkayne of Mars, Red Planet, The Rolling Stones, Farmer in the Sky, Starman Jones, Space Cadet, Star Beast, and Between Planets.

Some of his non-juvenile work would be good too: The Puppet Masters, The Door into Summer, Double Star and Orphans of the Sky for example.

75: jazzycat - do you mean they might not be suitable for young girls (kids still in gradeschool and maybe jr. high), but teens might like them? because it sounded like you said it said they aren't suitable for teenagers (13 and over. though 13 is still on the young side. 14 isn't though, i don't think), and if that's what you said, i have to disagree.

I agree about Glory Road as not Young Adult. Rolling Stones with the twins, Citizen of the galaxy with it's youthful protagonist, Space Cadet too. Heinlein has many that are Juvenile Fiction, I beilve it was termed in his writing days. But he definitely has non Juvenile fiction that it would probably be very wrong to have younger people try and Grok.

I'm currently reading Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi and so far it's looking young adult suitable, maybe even aimed at the YA market.

Another book I read that I think would be fun for a young adult who's not afraid of a little quantum physics talk, would be Thrice Upon a Time by James P. Hogan.

I agree with many of the books already listed. A lot of classic SF seems like it would be suitable - generally light on the sex, drugs, and language, and big on positive "can do" points of view. There's plenty of that to be had on movies and tv, I would think.

I felt that Scalzi, who was mentioned before in this thread was a little bit over yound adult levels. We talk about going from death late in life to body transference? renewed youth, dealing with the loss of spouses, a great deal of sex.

These all seemed like adult themes to me.

#82 -

I haven't read Scalzi's other works, only Zoe's Tale. I'm about 1/3 through the book and there's no sex, the renewed youth is only mentioned as Zoe's parents getting new bodies when they left the military (and the reason seemed to be because of the mod's for military service). Zoe talks about losing her biological mother and father, but from a teenager's point of view.

It could be the book takes off in another direction later on, but the tone seems pretty well established. However, if the author in general is not young adult, then maybe one book out of many isn't so great an idea. I also realize that I think of young adult and teenager through early twenties, and maybe that's not the publishing definition of young adult.

I confess that I don't know the definition of Young Adult. My thoughts would be that the piece should be appropriate for young people over ten years in age. Certainly no sex.

I tend to think of Young Adult as being junior high or young high school age (freshmen).

That said, I certainly read plenty of books - even YA books - with sex in them during that time, although probably not as graphic as what shows up in Outlander (that one I saved til I was 16! ;) )

The Dragonrider books spring to mind as particularly titillating to my 11 year old self, although I suspect in retrospect that it was not actually /that/ sexual.

I must admit, I have trouble thinking of preteens as adults, young or otherwise. I tried doing a search, although the definition seems all over the place. In some places I saw it as 18 or 19 to 29. Other places say a teenager. In one place I got a chuckle when I saw it defined as 5-18 years of age. I'm quite sure I never looked at a 5 year old and thought "young adult".

81:According to his blog Zoe's Tale was specifically written for the young adult market.

Zoe's Tale is absolutely and 100% Scalzi's Young Adult book. Just search his blog, or the internet for reviews, you'll see.

87,88 - Well, there you see. I came to the same conclusion and I hadn't read anything Salzi had to say about the book. I had sort of been wondering...

I think it's a great idea if authors tackle this group. The fantasy folks have been busy with books featuring younger protagonists, while a lot of SF writers have aimed at more adult content and sophistication. Both are needed if SF is to draw in new younger readers and retain them. Kudo's to Scalzi.

edited for annoying extra apostrophe.

I'll have to check it out. Is it first person? I remember Old Man's war as being first person.

This is a great topic. I'm enjoying it.

Nobody has mentioned it, probably because it wouldn't be considered 'great' science fiction, but there are quite a lot of media-adapted science fiction (i.e. games) aimed at the YA audience (mostly teenagers).

Halo, Warhammer 40k, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.

Twilight is YA - what age segment is it aimed at? it isn't science fiction though, more urban fantasy

#91

Do you mean science-fiction themed games, or novelisations based on major SF franchises?

rojse- both. There are just tons of books out there - just stop by your local B&N and you'll see them all.

Read Jumper yesterday, and will recommended it to those that like their YA SF, and those that thought that the movie released last year by the same title was rubbish.

re: 79 spoiled for nothing:
THe diana Gabaldon books are Definately for Adults, though the romance part of them may appeal too teen girls from about 14. As I said the sex scenes are pretty graphic and frequent as I recall -.I'm not saying they can't read them, and I'm not a prude, but they are not actually aimed at teens.

I just read the novella After the Siege by Cory Doctorow.
YA protagonist, very powerful story for young adults to read.

Could be an interesting balancer against the Military SF/Military Adventure recommendations also on this thread.

Actually, here's the url: http://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-_Overclocked_-_After_the_Siege.h...

Does anyone know if Doctorow's Overclocked collection of short stories (where this is included) is suitable for young adults?