Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Eleven adult sci-fi novels to turn teens into genre fans for life

At the B & N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog Ceridwen Christensen tagged eleven works of science fiction and fantasy that were written for grown-ups, but, if read by precocious teens, are likely to turn them into genre readers for life. One title on the list:
Nova, by Margaret Fortune

Sixteen-year-old Lia Johansen is being repatriated from a prisoner of war camp, a goodwill gesture from one interplanetary empire to another. She makes it through security when the countdown timer actives in her head: she’s a genetically engineered bomb, set to blow in 36 hours. When the countdown timer inexplicably stops, she had to start living as the actual Lia Johansen, who has friends on the space station, a life and a history. Her purpose becomes muddy, confusing: if she thinks like Lia, moves like Lia, is she on some level Lia? Nova is a situational extreme, a tug of war between purpose and personality, that can stand in quite easily for the undecided ambitions of our formative years. I have lit my candle at both ends…
Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue