After Mike's comment on last week's sci-fi booklist, I realized that I should probably have posted this one first. It's definitely not the last word on the subject of what the greatest works of sci-fi for teens are. These are mostly books that I recall with great fondness from my teen years. Several are out of print and may not be that easy to find. Also, I'm sure that there is a whole slew of newer material of which I'm completely unaware. Basically, this is the list I would have come up with if someone had asked me at 15 what I considered to be the coolest works of sci-fi.
Space Cat -- Okay, I know that Space Cat is intended for a younger audience, but I really don't think anyone is ever too old for Space Cat. Also, the science is a little out of date; we now know, for example, that venus does not have a breathable atmosphere and telepathic plants, nor are there any felines living on Mars. This is actually a series of at least four books, and unfortunately it appears that only the first one is still in print.
A Wrinkle in Time -- Really cool and a bit scary. Children travel through space and other dimensions to rescue their father and save the universe.
Dogsbody -- Besides being wonderfully written, this book is extremely unique. A powerful extraterrestrial (actually extrasolar, since he lives inside a star) is condemned to be reborn on earth as a dog. Despite the sci-fi premise, most of the book is about his life as a dog interacting with other dogs and people and the evil cats who conspire against him. Since he has a dog's brain, much of his behavior is doglike, and in fact, the story could almost stand on its own without the sci-fi elements, but the combination of the two genres (sci-fi and animal lore) makes for something unlike anything I've ever read before.
Danny Dunn and the Smallifying Machine -- A huge number of Danny Dunn novels were published in the 1960s. This one was one of my favorites. The science is a little out of date nowadays, and the books are no longer in print. I read every one. The stories are riveting and there is always an element of humor. If you happen to remember the show My Secret Identity, which aired on Fox in the 1980s, you'll immediately notice that it follows the same basic premise as these books, except, of course, that Danny Dunn never had superpowers.
Children of the Atom -- Clearly this 1950s novel was the original inspiration for the X-Men. A professor discovers that various children throughout the country are secretly mutants, all having huge intellects (rather than superpowers). He gathers them together at a private school for gifted youngsters founded for just this purpose. Then they are persecuted and feared for being different by members of the community. Yep, that sounds familiar. It's also interesting to see how different our values were back then. For example, the school nurse sends a student to a counselor, and when the counselor feels that the student is not forthcoming enough, he tries to inject him with truth serum. Apparently that was not such a big deal back then.
The Tripods -- This is actually a series of four books. Centuries from now, earth has been taken over by aliens, which no one has ever seen directly, but they travel the land in huge tripods. Once puberty has been reached, every person is forced to have a mind-control device implanted in their head. The series follows three boys as they first flee to the White Mountains to escape the tripods, then work together with the resistance to infiltrate the aliens' lair and learn about them and then finally to defeat the aliens. It's really quite a saga.
Rains of Eridan -- Everything by H. M. Hoover is great. This is one of her better known and easier-to-get books. She is one of the few women to write science fiction, and that gives it a unique flavor.
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide -- Douglas Adams' works are fun for all ages, but I find that the humor is most appreciated when you're young. As far as I know, this is the only trilogy to be comprised of more than 3 books.
Saturday, the Twelfth of October -- I can't speak highly enough of this book. I recently read it a for the second time twenty years after first reading it, and it was still great. A girl is mysteriously transported back in time where she spends about a year living with a paleolithic tribe. My impression is that a lot of research and anthropological knowledge went into this book. It's similar in many ways to Clan of the Cave Bear but was written much earlier. It's unfortunate that this book is almost impossibe to find anymore.
Dolphin Island -- This is a great Arthur C. Clarke novel. A boy runs away from home and ends up on an island working together with dolphin researchers working to crack the dolphin language.
Tunnel in the Sky -- This and Saturday, the Twelfth of October are tied for greatest book on this list. If you read only two, these are they. Tunnel is by Heinlein, so it's guaranteed to be good. High school students find themselves stranded on an alien world, which they were only supposed to visit for a few days to hone their survival skills. Cut off from earth, they form a new society. (Much more optimistic than Lord of the Flies.) I was only 12 when I read it, so I was kind of confused by the stupidity and cluelessness of the protagonist's parents. I was just a little too young then to fully comprehend that that was a realiistic portrayal of parents in general.
Slaughterhouse Five -- Time travel, humor, green aliens shaped like plungers, World War II, and ponderings on the existence of free will. What more could you want?