Hard SF for 12 year olds?

[brixtonbrood]

Tiny is now 12. Go Tiny! He has celebrated this by spontaneously deciding that he is OK with long form narrative fiction (as opposed to Haynes manuals, WWII plane spotters guides and popular science books with cartoons in).

I waved the Martian under his nose again after he didn't fancy persevering with it a year ago, and he finished it in 36 hours, and he grabbed a collection of Stephen Baxter's Xeelee stories from a library display and devoured them too.

So what I want is big hard science fiction with gripping plots and big ridiculous spaceships, but without content that's unsuitable for a twelve year old who thought that the problem with Pacific Rim was that it had too much character developement. So the obvious choice of Iain M Banks is probably the wrong answer.

Any brilliant ideas?

Comments

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

Go for the 40s and 50s classics. Clarke and Heinlein juveniles, and the Asimov shorts. Its the best time to read them

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

+1. OK, I was a year or two younger when I started in on the Heinlein juveniles but that's hardly an immense gulf.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I might not be the best person to suggest SF - my tastes veer more towards the space opera* than proper hard SF. I suspect that Vicarage is on the right lines by suggesting Clarke, Heinlein and Asimov**. Clarke's 'Rendezvous With Rama' sounds like a good hard SF place to start though. I liked it. The whole 2001 series as well for that matter.

* If you want space opera recommendations, shout!
** Probably not Foundation though. I think the concepts therein might be better appreciated a couple of years older than 12.

[andrewducker]

At 12 I discovered EE Doc Smith's "Galactic Patrol".

It's technically the third in the series, but as the first two were shoehorned in later, you can safely start there. And it's stupidly big ridiculous Space Opera.

[white_hart]

Joining the "Heinlein, Clarke and Asimov" camp - that's pretty much what I was reading when I was 12.

[zengineer.livejournal.com]

Alastair Reynolds, House of Suns for instance. Iain Banks as you say.
Or going from the sublime to the ridiculous EE Doc Smith if you like big spaceships and not too much character development.
Personally I find Clarke a bit dull.

[pmcray.livejournal.com]

"Anathem" is basically a YA novel. Vinge, perhaps?

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Way too much character development for him in Anathem!

I'll echo the EE Smith and Heinlein. Wait a few years for Haldeman and Herbert. Reynolds would be good too. I also have a soft spot for Clarke.

[timscience.livejournal.com]

To be honest when I was twelve I became obsessed with E.E. "Doc" Smith. You won't be short of space battles. I tried to come back to it about 5 years ago for nostalgia reasons and found it pretty much unreadable.

Wait till he's at least 14 before giving him any Ballard.

[coth.livejournal.com]

I've just come to your journal after reading your comment re Lloyd's on Andrew Ducker's. I'd be interested to know what Tiny read next - I'm not sure I would recommend any writer published more than a decade ago for a modern child.

I might have offered Becky Chambers, A Long Way To A Small Angry Planet, although the spaceship isn't very big.