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Science Fiction Stories for Teenage Girls?
Sooner Boomer asks: "Not having met 'Mrs. Boomer' yet, I'm buying Christmas gifts for my nieces and nephews. Whether genetics or just good luck, almost all of the young 'uns are girls. I've been slowly introducing them to the classics of science fiction: Heinlein ('Podkayne of Mars', _'Starship Troopers', etc.), Asimov short stories, Ann McAffrey (the Dragonrider books), Alan Dean Foster (the Flynx books and others), Douglas Adams and Terry Prachett, some Neil Gaiman (Stardust, Good Omens), as well as the mandatory Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. This is just a partial list, but what would Slashdot consider to be good (or even essential) science fiction for teen and pre-teen girls?"
Lackey, who wrote the Heralds of Valdemar series, is about as perfect as you can get for a teenage girl--for one thing, three of the first books, Arrows of the Queen, Arrow's Flight, and Arrow's Fall have a teenage girl as the main character. All of them are fun to read, and most of them are at least pretty good books. Light fantasy.
Bujold is the author of the Miles Vorkosigan series, which has something of everything, as well as the Chalion series and a few other books. They're also excellent. The former are usually termed "space opera" (I'd call them "light SF"), and the latter are rather deep fantasy.
Dan Aris
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When I was a preteen girl I loved books by William Sleator. It was only years later that I realized how technologically/scientifically advanced they were-- at the time I just loved the stories. My favorites were The Boy Who Reversed Himself (which to this day shapes how I think about 4+ dimensional geometry) and House of Stairs (which I forgot about completely until I was in Psych 101 and then had to track it down and reread it), though they were all good; great plots and characters and cool SciFi. I can't vouch for anything written after about 1990.
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The Deed of Paksenarrion - by Elizabeth Moon
It is in the Tolkein genre, but more personal, less "grand armies crashing". It's more accessible than Tolkein, but still grand. The hero is an -ine, which makes it a little more appropriate for the nieces. Everyone I have introduced to the book has loved it, including my in-the-Marines brother. And all of my sisters.
If they are in the Christian-way, I can also recommend the Stephan R Lawhead books: The Dragon King trilogy and the Empyrion saga.
My other favorites are more mainstream, and have probably already been mentioned.
One more book to consider is The Count of Monte Cristo. Long, but oh so good. I first read it when I was in sixth grade with a five-day flu, and it has been on my top 5 list ever since.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.
The sci-fi/fantasy genre is pretty large, so you should get your hints from the reader, not from the peanut gallery. Blasters vs. unicorns, dragons vs. starships. Space Opera, satire, philosophy: the scope is just too large.
When I was in college I tried to get various people hooked on the genre and I had the most luck with the Hobart Floyt and Alacrity Fitzhugh trillogy by Daley. The first one (Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds) did the trick. And for some reason, Moorcock's Elric never had much success. Go figure.
Although you do mention Pratchett in your queston, I have to bring up _Wee Free Men_. It was a fun read, the protagonist was a girl "coming of age", and was targetted to the pre-adult reader. And to agree with many of the earlier posts, LeGuin's Earthsea Trilogy was another excellent choice.
- doug
However, if their family is religious, you probably want to avoid a Wrinkle In Time. The religious kooks go crazy over that like they do Harry Potter.
I know I'll be modded a troll or off-topic, but I'm being sincere. Why focus on science fiction? These are those girl's formative years. Why not give them a novel that will help them form a realistic conception of themselves and their relationship to the rest of the world? "Nausea" by Sarte and most of Camus' corpus is all terrific. "The Trial" by Kafka is another great book, and ends with a surreal chapter that leaves you breathless.
After all, I am strangely colored.
This is more fantasy, not Sci Fi, but the Redwall Series were fascinating when I was younger. Written very well, in depth, detailed and very interesting to all sorts of teens. Start with Redwall, and if they like it, the series has like 10 books now I think.
-"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
Shannara? I tell my friends that if you stick Lord of the Rings in a bad photocopier, out comes Shannara. Might as well read the original.
:P
If you are an RPG player, you can practically hear the dice rolling on the table while reading any Weis/Hickman book.
I will admit to avidly reading both of these two series. But please don't make the same youthful mistakes I did! Their glaring atrocities can be overlooked if you're young enough. If you're going to buy the first two series of books, the target readers *must* be under 14! Otherwise the books just are too absurd when you're older.
For a good sci-fi read, I recommend the Hyperion and Endymion series by Dan Simmons. Not a lot of adult-only action, plenty of lofty ideas like Love and evolution. And darned good science fiction with the farcaster portals and time travel.
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