Seeking Science Fiction Recommendations

[beamjockey]

Someone I know has turned to me for help. Her male cousin

"is turning 13 I think… I always buy him books. He is really smart, more geeky than dreamy and likes science fiction. Any suggestions??"

I don't know more about his reading habits than this.

I have a few clues, but haven't read extensively in recent SF. I could recommend a bunch of books that were great 20 to 60 years ago.

I'm looking for suggestions for books published recently-- let's say in the 21st century-- that are a nearly-sure bet to interest someone who fits the description above. Books that would make a suitable gift.

(At 13, he's probably ready to read some SF published for adults, but really good young-adult stories are also worth considering. And I gather there are a lot of good ones around these days.)

Comments

[murphys-lawyer.livejournal.com]

Diane's sort-of-rewriting the early ones to make some of the tech more relevant to current teens (IIRC the second book featured an Apple II). E-book versions are due later this year. I'd have more details but the web-site's down at present.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

And the important behaviors of that computer have so little to do with what it was when it left the factory that I don't mind that bit of updating at all :-).

I don't remember if there were cell-phone problems in early books (I mean things that were problems that a cell phone would have solved). That's another thing potentially worth updating for YA.

Then again, I grew up on Wind in the Willows and Stuart Little and things -- which were quite old even when i was young. But maybe stuff that's mostly SF suffers more when parts of it seem out of date. (For that matter, Heinlein juveniles were quite dated when I read them. I didn't mind Kip working as a soda jerk, even though I'd never seen a drugstore soda fountain; I knew about them as a historical thing.

[nathan helfinstine (from livejournal.com)]

If memory serves, there weren't cell-phone problems, because the two main protagonists establish a telepathic communication link quite early in the series.