Teen picks for sci-fi & fantasy readers
We asked our Teen Advisory Board for their best recommendations for teen readers who love fantasy and sci-fi. Here are their responses.
‘I haven’t read a lot of fantasy but I would say Ida by Alison Evans, which has a contemporary and speculative feel, or The Darkest Minds trilogy by Alexandra Bracken which has some sci-fi and dystopian elements. I’m also looking forward to reading Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff.’
- Kirrily
‘The Skulduggery Pleasant books by Derek Landy creates an intricate and original fantasy world with complex and flawed characters that I grew to love, and hate, during the series.’
- Dylan
‘I would definitely recommend China Mieville if you’re looking for sci-fi with a weird twist. Embassytown is incredible!
- Stella
'There’s a lot of great alternate or speculative fiction, like The Hunger Games. Many of them use their settings settings to create complex stories and characters. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld uses a drastically different world to explore public image. Two fantasy series that deal with magic in interesting ways, offering worlds with major differences but politics similar to the real world, are Laws of Magic by Michael Pryor and The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud.’
- Joe
Further suggestions?
You can browse more teen picks in this collection, including Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows, described as Game of Thrones meets Ocean’s Eleven, and Marie Lu’s Warcross, which is set in a futuristic vision of Tokyo that’s intertwined with VR.
Two of our Board members read so much sci-fi and fantasy that they each wrote about eight books they loved. You can find Mia’s picks here, including classics such as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Tracy’s picks here, including the brilliant stand-alone novel, Invictus.
Members of our board were also recently gifted early reading copies of Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone – one of the most hotly-anticipated YA novels of 2018. We can’t wait to hear what they think.
