Science Fiction

 

Science fiction…a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology.

 

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (YA FIC ADA)
Escaping Earth just before it is demolished to make way for a new galactic highway, reluctant galactic traveler Arthur Dent embarks on a series of off-beat and occasionally extraterrestrial journeys, accompanied by a variety of unusual companions. First in a series.

 

Diary of Pelly D by L.J. Adlington (YA FIC ADL)
When Toni V, a construction worker on a futuristic colony, finds the diary of a teenage girl whose life has been turned upside-down by holocaust-like events, he begins to question his own beliefs. Look for the companion  novel Cherry Heaven.

 

Feed by M.T. Anderson (YA FIC AND)
In a future where most people have computer implants in their heads to control their environment, a boy meets an unusual girl who is in serious trouble.

 

The Kindling by Jennifer Armstrong (YA FIC ARM)
In 2007, a small band of children have joined together in a Florida town, trying to survive in a world where it seems that all the adults have been killed off by a catastrophic virus. First in a series.

 

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (YA FIC ASI)
Dr. Susan Calvin, the first great practitioner of the new science of robopsychology in 2008, looks back on her career with U.S. Robotics on the occasion of her retirement fifty years later, telling stories of how the mechanical race developed.

 

Drought by Pam Bachorz (YA FIC BAC)
Even though she knows the Congregants need her blood to survive, Ruby longs for escape from the Congregation and the early-nineteenth-century lifestyle the community practices.  However when her new Overseer promises her a modern world, Ruby’s resolve to stay weakens.

 

Ship Breaker by Paulo Bacigalupi (YA FIC BAC)
In a futuristic world, teenaged Nailer scavenges copper wiring from grounded oil tankers for a living, but when he finds a beached clipper ship with a girl in the wreckage, he has to decide if he should strip the ship for its wealth or rescue the girl.

 

Spacer and Rat by Margaret Bechard (YA FIC BEC)
Jack's predictable existence on Freedom space station is transformed when Kit, the Earthie rat, enters his life and enlists him and a sensitive robot in an effort to outwit the Company.

 

Exodus by Julie Bertagna (YA FIC BER)
In the year 2100, as the island of Wing is about to be covered by water, fifteen-year-old Mara discovers the existence of New World sky cities that are safe from the storms and rising waters, and convinces her people to travel to one of these cities in order to save themselves. First in a series.

 

The Awakening by Michael Carroll (YA FIC CAR)
Ten years after the disappearance of superhumans, thirteen-year-olds Danny and Colin begin to develop super powers, making them the object of much unwanted attention. First in a series.

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (YA FIC COL)
In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss's skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister's place. First in a series.

 

Matched by Ally Condie (YA FIC CON)
Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her, so when Xander appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows he is her ideal mate--until Ky Markham's face appears for an instant before the screen fades to black.

 

Wither by Lauren DeStafano (YA FIC DES)
After modern science turns every human into a genetic time bomb with men dying at age twenty-five and women dying at age twenty, girls are kidnapped and married off in order to repopulate the world.

 

Brain Jack by Brian Falkner (YA FIC FAL)
In a near-future New York City, fourteen-year-old computer genius Sam Wilson manages to hack into the AT&T network and sets off a chain of events that have a profound effect on human activity throughout the world.

 

Dark Life by Kat Falls (YA FIC FAL)
When fifteen-year-old Ty, who has always lived on the ocean floor, joins Topside girl Gemma in the frontier's underworld to seek and stop outlaws who threaten his home, they learn that the government may pose an even greater threat.

 

House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer (YA FIC FAR)
In a future where humans despise clones, Matt enjoys special status as the young clone of El Patron, the 142-year-old leader of a corrupt drug empire nestled between Mexico and the United States.

 

Interworld by Neil Gaiman (YA FIC GAI)
At nearly fifteen years of age, Joey Harker learns that he is a Walker, able to travel between dimensions, and soon joins a team of different versions of himself, each from another dimension, to fight the evil forces striving to conquer all the worlds.

 

The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman (YA FIC GOO)
Honor, living with her mom and dad on Island 365 in the Tranquil Sea, an environment controlled by the Earth Mother Corporation in a post-apocalyptic world, becomes more fearful as she grows older and realizes that her nonconformist parents are putting the entire family at risk.

 

Gone by Michael Grant (YA FIC GRA)
In a small town on the coast of California, everyone over the age of fourteen suddenly disappears, setting up a battle between the remaining town residents and the students from a local private school, as well as those who have "The Power" and are able to perform supernatural feats and those who do not. First in a series.

 

Double Identity by Margaret Peterson Haddix (YA FIC HAD)
Thirteen-year-old Bethany's parents have always been overprotective, but when they suddenly drop out of sight with no explanation, leaving her with an aunt she never knew existed; Bethany uncovers shocking secrets that make her question everything she thought she knew about herself and her family.

 

Turnabout by Margaret Peterson Haddix (YA FIC HAD)
Melly and Anny Beth agree to participate in Project Turnabout, a scientific experiment in which they are given a shot that will make them grow younger, but when other participants die after receiving the second shot, Melly and Anny Beth refuse the shot and set out on their own.

 

Siberia by Ann Halam (YA FIC HAL)
After spending two years at a prison school, thirteen-year-old Sloe sets off on a trek across frozen wastelands, tending to the secret "seeds" of wild animals her mother left in her care, trying to reach a new life for all of them.

 

Worldshaker by Richard Harland (YA FIC HAR)
Sixteen-year-old Col Porpentine is being groomed as the next Commander of Worldshaker, a juggernaut where elite families live on the upper decks while the Filthies toil below, but when he meets Riff, a Filthy girl on the run, he discovers how ignorant he is of his home and its residents.

 

Rash by Pete Hautman (YA FIC HAU)
In a future society that has decided it would "rather be safe than free," sixteen-year-old Bo's anger control problems land him in a tundra jail where he survives with the help of his running skills and an artificial intelligence program named Bork.

 

The Lab by Jack Heath (YA FIC HEA)
When Agent Six, a member of The Deck, a group fighting against their corrupt society, discovers that he is the product of an illegal experiment by the evil Lab, he takes dangerous steps to discover the truth about himself.

 

Living Hell by Catherine Jinks (YA FIC JIN)
Chronicles the transformation of a spaceship into a living organism, as seventeen-year-old Cheney leads the hundreds of inhabitants in a fight for survival while machines turn on them, treating all humans as parasites.

 

Stuck on Earth by David Klass (YA FIC KLA)
On a secret mission to evaluate whether the human race should be annihilated, a space alien inhabits the body of a bullied fourteen-year-old boy.

 

Epic by Conor Kostick (YA FIC KOS)
On New Earth, a world based on a video role-playing game, fourteen-year-old Erik persuades his friends to aid him in some unusual gambits in order to save Erik's father from exile and safeguard the futures of each of their families. First in a series.

 

The Goodness Gene by Sonia Levitin (YA FIC LEV)
As son of the Compassionate Director of the Dominion of the Americas, Will, along with his twin brother Berk, has been groomed for leadership in a society that values genetic fitness, but he encounters information which causes him to question that society as well as his own identity.

 

I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore (YA FIC LOR)
In rural Ohio, friendships and a beautiful girl prove distracting to a fifteen-year-old who has hidden on Earth for ten years waiting to develop the Legacies, or powers, he will need to rejoin the other six surviving Garde members and fight the Mogadorians who destroyed their planet, Lorien.

 

Black Hole Sun by David Macinnis (YA FIC MAC)
On the planet Mars, sixteen-year-old Durango and his crew of mercenaries are hired by the settlers of a mining community to protect their most valuable resource from a feral band of marauders.

 

The Declaration by Gemma Malley (YA FIC MAL)
In 2140 England, where drugs enable people to live forever and children are illegal, teenaged Anna, an obedient "Surplus" training to become a house servant, discovers that her birth parents are trying to find her. First in a series.

 

The Unidentified by Rae Mariz (YA FIC MAR)
In a futuristic alternative school set in a shopping mall where video game-playing students are observed and used by corporate sponsors for market research, Katey "Kid" Dade struggles to figure out where she fits in and whether she even wants to.

 

The Reminder by Rune Michaels (YA FIC MIC)
A teenage girl who hears her dead mother's voice makes a startling discovery after breaking into her father's industrial robotics lab and finding his latest secret project: a lifelike replica of her mother's head that looks, talks, moves, and even smiles just like her mother.

 

Birthmarked by Caragh O’Brien (YA FIC OBR)
In a future world baked dry by the sun and divided into those who live inside the wall and those who live outside it, sixteen-year-old midwife Gaia Stone is forced into a difficult choice when her parents are arrested and taken into the city.

 

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson (YA FIC PEA)
In the not-too-distant future, when biotechnological advances have made synthetic bodies and brains possible but illegal, a seventeen-year-old girl, recovering from a serious accident and suffering from memory lapses, learns a startling secret about her existence.

 

Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (YA FIC PFE)
Through journal entries sixteen-year-old Miranda describes her family's struggle to survive after a meteor hits the moon, causing worldwide tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. Check out the companion book The Dead and the Gone.

 

The Last Book in the Universe by Rodman Philbrick (YA FIC PHI)
After an earthquake has destroyed much of the planet, an epileptic teenager nicknamed Spaz begins the heroic fight to bring human intelligence back to the Earth of a distant future.

 

Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve (YA FIC REE)
In the distant future, when cities move about and consume smaller towns, a fifteen-year-old apprentice is pushed out of London by the man he most admires and must seek answers in the perilous Out-Country, aided by one girl and the memory of another. First in a series.

 

Unwind by Neal Shusterman (YA FIC SHU)
In a future world where those between the ages of thirteen and eighteen can have their lives "unwound" and their body parts harvested for use by others, three teens go to extreme lengths to uphold their beliefs--and, perhaps, save their own lives.

 

GemX by Nicky Singer (YA FIC SIN)
Sixteen-year-old Maxo Strang, the most perfect human ever made, suddenly discovers a "crack" in his face, which leads him to expose his community's dark underworld of secret scientific research and the city's corrupt supreme leader.

 

The Comet’s Curse: A Galahad Book by Dom Testa (YA FIC TES)
Desperate to save the human race after a comet's deadly particles devastate the adult population, scientists create a ship that will carry a crew of 251 teenagers to a home in a distant solar system.

 

Fourth World by Kate Thompson (YA FIC THO)
Fifteen-year-old Christie and his older stepbrother, Danny, travel to the home and mysterious laboratory of the elder boy's scientist mother, where they learn a shocking truth about the nature of her experiments. First in a series.

 

The Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde (YA FIC VAN)
While playing a total immersion virtual reality game of kings and intrigue, fourteen-year-old Giannine learns that demonstrators have damaged the equipment to which she is connected, and she must win the game quickly or be damaged herself.

 

Skinned by Robin Wasserman (YA FIC WAS)
To save her from dying in a horrible accident, Lia's wealthy parents transplant her brain into a mechanical body. First in a series.

 

Double Helix by Nancy Werlin (YA FIC WER)
Eighteen-year-old Eli discovers a shocking secret about his life and his family while working for a Nobel Prize-winning scientist whose specialty is genetic engineering.

 

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (YA FIC WES)
In an alternate 1914 Europe, Austrian Prince Alek is on the run from the Clanker Powers who are attempting to take over the globe using mechanical machinery. To survive, he forms an uneasy alliance with Deryn, a girl disguised as a boy in the British Air Service, who is learning to fly genetically-engineered beasts.

 

The Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (YA FIC WES)
In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings a required operation that transforms you from a repellent Ugly into a stunningly attractive Pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. But is paradise really as perfect as it seems? First in a series.

 

To check the status of a book or to place your name on the waiting list, please use the Library Catalog at www.skpl.org, call the library at 789-1555 or ask at the Reference Desk.

List created by for the South Kingstown Public Library by Brandi Kenyon. Last updated 05/11.