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DS11 likes science fiction and reads at graduate school level (ok, that's just a guess lol, but he can read basically any level book you give him). I'm trying to find new book ideas for him for Christmas but I've never been a fan of science fiction - any suggestions for books that are for adult-level readers but ok for an 11 year old to read? I think he's read most of the sci-fi type books you find on the teen shelf at the book store.
Thanks,
polarbear
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I remember reading Isaac Asimov when I was ten, but I was also reading Stephen King, so perhaps that needs to be factored into the memory of what I read. And I'm sure what I thought was riveting science fiction then is probably rather humorous now...
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Arthur C. Clark; Ray Bradbury; Isaac Asimov; Robert Heinlein's "juveniles", such as "Starship Troopers" and "Tunnel in the Sky" (much of his other stuff is loaded with adult situations and themes), H.G. Wells...
I read a lot of other incredibly well-written and thought-provoking science fiction at that age that I am dying to recommend, (such as Ursula le Guin's "The Dispossesed", "The Left Hand of Darkness" and "The Lathe of Heaven", for starters) but I'm pretty sure that my parents would not have considered them appropriate for an 11 year old if they had read them.
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aculady, can you tell me why your parents wouldn't have approved of the Ursual le Guin etc - did they contain too much violence, or sex, or both? I'm fairly liberal on the violence in fiction with ds, he doesn't scare easily and takes it for what it is - fiction. Sex, not so sure he's ready to go there lol!
Thanks,
polarbear
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Most of Ursula leGuin's books that were not specifically written with children in mind deal extensively with gender roles and identity, sexual mores, and their interaction with religious, social, and political institutions, among other themes (such as the nature of freedom, justice, knowledge, and wisdom...) There isn't necessarily any graphic sex in these particular books (there is in some of her other titles), but there are certainly situations in most of her adult-targeted books where characters have to deal with sex and sexuality. "The Left Hand of Darkness" is about first human contact with a humanoid race that is genderless and asexual most of the time, but in which individuals periodically go through a sexual phase which lasts about a week, and which unpredictably results in the individual being either male or female for that time. "The Lathe of Heaven" might give some nightmares if your child is the type who worries about nuclear annihilation. If you are a fast reader, I'd suggest previewing them yourself to get a feel for whether your child is up to dealing with the concepts and whether the books raise questions that you feel comfortable talking about with your child at this point.
If your child likes fantasy, as well as SF, leGuin's "Earthsea" books are some of the best stuff out there, and I don't recall any potentially objectionable content, unless you object to the idea of magic.
Last edited by aculady; 11/19/11 05:18 PM. Reason: clarification
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A few more ideas:
The Cyberiad, by Stanislaw Lem
Mortal Engines, by Stanislaw Lem
The Star Diaries, by Stanislaw Lem
A Perfect Vacuum, by Stanislaw Lem
Imaginary Magnitude, by Stanislaw Lem
Fiasco, by Stanislaw Lem
The Futurological Congress, by Stanislaw Lem
War With The Newts, by Karel Capek
The Dying Earth series, by Jack Vance (more fantasy than science fiction but monolithic in terms of importance and plain old reading fun)
The Demon Princes series, by Jack Vance (the "demons" are interstellar criminals, not demons, if that matters)
The Stainless Steel Rat series, by Harry Harrison
The Deathworld series, by Harry Harrison
Bill The Galactic Hero, by Harry Harrison (a picaresque sci-fi comedy adventure based on "The Good Soldier Svejk"; contains a passing reference to a house of prostitution but is otherwise unobjectionable)
The Chronicles of Amber series (much more fantasy than sci-fi), by Roger Zelazny
The Uplift series, by David Brin
G�del, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (not exactly sci-fi but includes fiction and essays on science), by Douglas R. Hofstadter
The Mind's I (more thought-provoking essays that include sci-fi), edited by Hofstadter et al.
Striving to increase my rate of flow, and fight forum gloopiness. 
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Did he read the Ender series already? They are written at probably a middle-school age level, but I still to this day enjoy them.
LOTR and The Silmarillion are classics.
I just finished a series by David Moody. The first book is called Hater. It's got an apocalyptic, zombie vibe.
I don't read a lot of Sci-Fi so that's all I got.
Oh, also, DH likes the Terry Pratchett series.
~amy
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Don't get Heinlein's juveniles and his later adult work mixed up -- not only do the latter they have adult themes, they have *very weird* adult themes (reading _Sail Beyond the Sunset_ at 16 was quite the experience -- combining it with _Friday_ at 14 was probably not the best idea, although I was too young, too clueless, and too much of a social outcast in HS to really get into trouble). The juveniles are entirely appropriate for middle schoolers, and _Have Spacesuit, Will Travel_ introduced me to what remains my favorite genre.
Golden Age SF (30s-50s) should be safe on the sex front, have acceptable levels of violence, but while I gobbled those up in middle school these days I cannot take the sexism and the racism. Asimov might be the exception (I so loved Susan Calvin!).
I'd second all of lucounu's recommendations and add:
The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
Agatha H. and the Airship City, by Phil and Kaja Foglio
(if he likes comics the comics version predates the novel, and is available online)
The Harper Hall trilogy (Dragonsong/Dragonsinger/Dragondrums), by Anne McCaffrey
Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
(Card's other stuff should be taken carefully, Speakers for the Dead gets more mature, Xenocide is just plain weird, and I found Songmaster and the one Alvin book I read very disturbing in my late teens).
If you asked your son what his favorites/least favorites/weirdest reads have been it might be possible to tailor more recommendations (I skimmed some of the contents of my shelves with an eye to giving some to my son, and realized that what I thought of as "young" had some rather mature themes for a 7yo).
Oh, and does he like fantasy?
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My son just suggested C.M. Kornbluth and Frederick Poul's "The Space Merchants".
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WOW!!! Thanks so much everyone for all the great suggestions - they are sooo so very helpful, and very much appreciated!!!
polarbear
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If you asked your son what his favorites/least favorites/weirdest reads have been it might be possible to tailor more recommendations (I skimmed some of the contents of my shelves with an eye to giving some to my son, and realized that what I thought of as "young" had some rather mature themes for a 7yo).
Oh, and does he like fantasy? SiaSL, I love your idea about asking him about his "wierdest" reads - I've asked about his favorite/least favorite before, but never thought to ask about wierd, which I think would be a question he could really get into! My ds is camping with Boy Scouts this weekend so I can't ask him today, but fwiw he loved Ender's Game (he also read it in something like 1/2 a day - which is another challenge with books - finding a book that takes more than 1/2 a day to read - he really loves reading when it's a book he's interested in, so he devours it and then gets depressed because he finishes it and there's nothing left in the house to read - picture me banging my head against the wall frequently lol!). He read War of the Worlds but didn't like it - when we talked about it, my impression was he just didn't like Wells' writing style. He's not particularly into fantasy. polarbear
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SiaSL, I love your idea about asking him about his "wierdest" reads - I've asked about his favorite/least favorite before, but never thought to ask about wierd, which I think would be a question he could really get into! It is the best way I can think of to filter themes that a child might find disturbing in reading materials targeted to an older audience. Some will have less impact on a younger child, who will filter it all out, than on a teenager, who is more likely to get influenced by something that touches on themes that start being relevant to him/her. Reason why the group sex in Heinlein's _Stranger in a Strange Land_ at... 12? 13? was less of a problem for me than the promiscuous teenager (turned incestuous mother) in _To Sail Beyond the Sunset_ at 16 (yes, late Heinlein is *that* weird). Also reason why all those dead/tortured kids bothered me a lot less as a teen than they do now that I am a mother  . If your son liked _Ender's Game_ look into the _Ender's Shadows_ series. I haven't read them yet (_Enfer's Game_ was a favorite, but _Xenocide_ was close to "hit the wall, do not open again" for me and I dropped the series, and the author) but people who persevered with Card liked it.
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[quote=SiaSL] but fwiw he loved Ender's Game (he also read it in something like 1/2 a day - which is another challenge with books - finding a book that takes more than 1/2 a day to read - he really loves reading when it's a book he's interested in, so he devours it and then gets depressed because he finishes it and there's nothing left in the house to read This is a sad problem... I force myself to ration out books now because I Hate when they are done. Amazon gets more of my $$ than I should care to admit. The kindle is probably my most favorite thing ever, lol.
~amy
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G�del, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (not exactly sci-fi but includes fiction and essays on science), by Douglas R. Hofstadter
The Mind's I (more thought-provoking essays that include sci-fi), edited by Hofstadter et al. I cannot recommend GEB too highly. Also, most things by Bach. http://www.amazon.com/Jonathan-Livingston-Seagull-Richard-Bach/dp/0380012863
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Harry Harrison's "Stainless Steel Rat" series is a good possibility, although you may want to vet it yourself first; Jim DiGriz is a cheerful criminal in a society where there is almost no crime remaining. It's a hedonistic romp through the galaxy, with his own perfectly rational justifications, of course, but he is not violent and in fact hires on with the intergalactic police to catch a violent criminal they're having a hard time with. For all but the first book, he is working for the good guys, but he keeps his fingers in the till along the way.  I can't recall exactly how much sexual reference there may be, but I don't think it was much, overtly. If he's into any kind of fantasy, there is Piers Anthony -- the Xanth series is horrifically punny; the Apprentice Adept series part SF and part Fantasy and lots of fun, about a planet that is scientific with a hidden alternate reality of magic; the Incarnations of Immortality series is about the beings that inhabit the personas of Death, Time, Fate, War, Nature, and Good and Evil, also quite fascinating and fun; the Geodyssey series takes one family from the beginnings of prehistoric man all the way to post-apocalypse -- the same people feature in each chapter but move along in Earth's history, if that makes sense -- it's great if you're interested in the progression of civilization and language, and a good story to boot. There is also Robert Asprin, the Myth series, if he's into punny fantasy.
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Some Piers Anthony is definitely adult-themed and some is overtly erotica. The Xanth books are pretty "kid-safe", and great for people who like puns. The "Bio of a Space Tyrant" series is not "kid-safe". "Eroma" is not. At least some of the "Relationships" collections are not.
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Some Piers Anthony is definitely adult-themed and some is overtly erotica. The Xanth books are pretty "kid-safe", and great for people who like puns. The "Bio of a Space Tyrant" series is not "kid-safe". "Eroma" is not. At least some of the "Relationships" collections are not. And I seem to recall significant roles for succubi in the aforementioned "Incarnations of Immortality" series.
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Oh dear, yes -- I forgot about that part. Sorry. I need to have a better memory for these things, as I keep trying to find books among my collection that might interest DS9 and coming up short on something that I hadn't thought of. But then, Ender's Game startled me in places (mostly the Peter ones) when we started reading that! I had read it several times myself, but I wasn't a child at the time.
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I'd also consider Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie as well.
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John Wyndham's the Chrysalids, the Day of the Triffids, Village of the Damned. Especially the Chrysalids, which I read at 13 (had to wait until my English --as a second language-- was good enough to read regular books) and then again at 43. I still like its post-apocalyptic cliche, sort of like chicken soup for the geek...
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In fact, one of his books (that I unfortunately picked up in the library as an adolescent, having liked his Xanth books) features a four-year-old girl who likes to have (explicit) sex with adults, and also a very explicit scene of necrophilia. I have stayed away from him ever since.
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Hey, I just joined, so I just found this thread. If I may offer a recommendation, check out former publishing agent-turned-middle school novelist Nathan Bransford's "Jacob Wonderbar." It's the first in a proposed series and so far, has been getting some great reviews. He has a (very entartaining) blog and forum for aspiring writers as well. I lurk there a lot but haven't yet gotten up the gumption to post much anything. Haven't read the book but if it's anything like Bransford's funny surfer-dude personality on his website, it's guaranteed to garner quite a few grins  maybe for the adults too More comic sci-fi (if he's into that) include Terry Pratchett's Discworld series and of course, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Not exactly young-adult/middle-grade per se, but classics both, and high-ranking favorites of the high-school-aged Internet crowd. Good luck with your search and... don't panic. 
Last edited by simplegifts; 01/19/12 02:24 AM. Reason: added another suggestion
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Sorry if this has been suggested already, but ran across "City" again the other day, by Clifford D. Simak, and it is quite thought provoking. A blast from the past. (From my phone)
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In fact, one of his books (that I unfortunately picked up in the library as an adolescent, having liked his Xanth books) features a four-year-old girl who likes to have (explicit) sex with adults, and also a very explicit scene of necrophilia. I have stayed away from him ever since. Yeah, I tried to direct my dd13 toward his Xanth series when she was about 10. She was done reading HP and LOTR and wanted something else in the general sci-fi genre. She honed in on the Incarnations of Immortality series and, while I admit that it has a good story line to start, I was concerned about the two pieces I recalled from the first book: a suicide and the baby who was a child of incest. I did let her read them after discussing my concerns but she decided that they contained things she didn't want to read herself as she got further into the series. eta: This isn't exactly sci-fi, but dd13 did move a bit from that genre after her Piers Anthony experiment. She really enjoyed some of Michael Crichton's books such as Jurrasic Park and the Andromeda Strain. I think that she was a bit older when she read those, though (about 12).
Last edited by Cricket2; 01/19/12 11:32 AM.
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Why wouldn't you consider Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain to be science fiction?
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My DS11 who likes science fiction and fantasy recently enjoyed:
Animal Farm
Lord of the Flies
Ender's Game (I got him the first 3 books in the series for Christmas. ETA: I justed noted that one poster thought the 2nd and 3rd were maybe not appropriate. I don't know, not having read them myself . . . DS11 did mention the third one Xenocide as being weird)
The Hunger Games (there are 3 or 4 books in the series)
The Old Man and the Sea (obviously not at all sci fi, but I was surprised how much he liked it)
The Henderson boys and the Cherub series by Robert Muchamore
Last edited by Verona; 01/19/12 08:18 PM.
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Someone mentioned Podkayne of Mars above in this thread. My older D was kind of traumatized by that book because Podkayne (main character) does not survive. I had forgotten this (loved that book as a teen), so just something to be aware of.
Another good book is "Lotus Caves" by John Christopher. I think it may be out of print, but it is so easy to find used copies of books in great shape on the internet that I thought I would mention it.
(By the way, does anyone else find that they can't see any dates for posts on threads out here? I have NO idea how old the original thread is...).
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Why wouldn't you consider Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain to be science fiction? IDK, I guess that I considered Jurassic Park at least to be something like a thriller/action type of genre although I'm not sure if that is a legitimate book genre. I can see the sci-fi arguement holding water, though, too. Someone above mentioned the Hunger Games. Both of my girls liked the first two books in that series quite a bit but were disappointed with the third, and final, book. There is a Hunger Games movie coming out as well I understand.
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The third book of the Hunger Games series is quite dark. I personally (as an adult) was so dismayed by the ending of the third book that I won't go see the movies. My kids are teens, so no issues with them reading them, but I might think twice before giving them to a tween because of that third book.
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The third book of the Hunger Games series is quite dark. I personally (as an adult) was so dismayed by the ending of the third book that I won't go see the movies. My kids are teens, so no issues with them reading them, but I might think twice before giving them to a tween because of that third book. I thought that all of them were rather dark. My kids' biggest issue with the third book, and I tend to agree, is that it didn't end in a satisfying way (say the way the HP series did) and the author tended to change/develop the characters' core personalities in a way that didn't seem totally believable (Katniss especially). I can certainly see the types of things that go on in those books modifying one's world view, but it seemed like the main character become someone she wasn't likely to be. Sorry for the derail and I'm sure that not everyone will agree with me.
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I wanted to mention that DS has really enjoyed some William Sleator books lately. The Lexile scores are not terrifically high, generally in the 700s to 800s with a few higher or lower, but they seem to be well-constructed stories and he loves them. Ones he's liked:
The Green Futures of Tycho
Interstellar Pig
Singularity
House of Stairs
Anyone else discover these?
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I just wanted to add a couple of books I have discovered:
Michael Reisman's "Simon Bloom, The Gravity Keeper" and "Simon Bloom, The Octopus Effect" are really terrific Junior Fiction SF books. Highly recommended for the scientific-minded! Science as magic, three 11-yr-old kids take on some evil grownups with really awesome physics and biology powers gained from the "Teacher's Editions" of physics and biology (one in each book) and save the world.
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DS just started the gravity keeper - haven't gotten his review yet, but I thought it looked good too. Same vein as the george and the secret key books
DeHe
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I wanted to mention that DS has really enjoyed some William Sleator books lately. The Lexile scores are not terrifically high, generally in the 700s to 800s with a few higher or lower, but they seem to be well-constructed stories and he loves them. Ones he's liked:
The Green Futures of Tycho
Interstellar Pig
Singularity
House of Stairs
Anyone else discover these? No! These look great. Hopefully the library has them, but they look intersting enough to buy. He goes through fiction as such an alarming rate, I try to save the purchasing for stuff that DS will go back to, so I usually want to try it first, but sometimes it's clear from the description it's worth it! DeHe
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