Digital Learning Commons: Literary Genres: Science Fiction

Notable Science Fiction

Alien Invasion

Flying by Carrie Jones
Seventeen-year-old Mana's boring life in a small town is interrupted when the hot guy she has a crush on begins spitting acid during the big game and the cheerleader finds out she is an alien hunter.
The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
Cassie Sullivan, the survivor of an alien invasion, must rescue her young brother from the enemy with help from a boy who may be one of them.

Apocalyptic Fiction

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
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.
Partials by Dan Wells
A war with Partials--engineered organic beings identical to humans--has devastated the human population due to a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, and Kira, a sixteen-year-old medic-in-training, discovers that a connection between humans and Partials may be the key to saving both races.
Gone by Michael Grant
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.

Biopunk

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
Seventeen-year-old Jenna Angeline Fox wakes from a long coma with no memory of who she is, and is sent home with her mother and inexplicably hostile grandmother where hours of video recordings of her childhood help spark her memories and send her on a horrifying quest to learn what really happened to her.
Origin by Jessica Khoury
Pia has grown up in a secret laboratory hidden deep in the Amazon rain forest and is genetically engineered to be immortal and be the future of the human race, but on the night of her seventeenth birthday, Pia discovers a hole in the electric fence that surrounds her sterile home and sneaks outside the compound for the first time in her life.
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
Tally lives in a world where your 16th birthday brings aesthetic perfection: an operation which erases your flaws, transforming you from an 'Ugly' into a 'Pretty'. She is on the eve of this important event, and cannot wait for her life to change. But then she meets Shay, and her whole outlook is different.
Unwind by Neal Shusterman
Three teens embark upon a cross-country journey in order to escape from a society that salvages body parts from children ages thirteen to eighteen.

Cyberpunk

Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Cinder, a gifted mechanic and a cyborg with a mysterious past, is blamed by her stepmother for her stepsister's illness while a deadly plague decimates the population of New Beijing, but when Cinder's life gets intertwined with Prince Kai's, she finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle.
Feed by M. T. Anderson
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.
Warcross by Marie Lu
When teenage coder Emika Chen hacks her way into the opening tournament of the Warcross Championships, she glitches herself into the game as well as a sinister plot with major consequences for the entire Warcross empire.

Dystopian Fiction

The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf by Ambelin Kwaymullina
Taking refuge among other teens who are in hiding from a government threatened by their supernatural powers, Ashala covertly practices her abilities only to be captured and interrogated for information about the location of her friends.
Proxy by Alex London
Privileged teenager Sid has a proxy, Knox, who receives punishment for Syd's wrong doings, when Syd kills one of his friends in a car crash, it is Knox who is sentenced to death. When the two boys realize they must work together to beat the system they flee looking for answers.
Legend by Marie Lu
In a dark future, when North America has split into two warring nations, fifteen-year-olds Day, a famous criminal, and prodigy June, the brilliant soldier hired to capture him, discover that they have a common enemy.

Hard Science Fiction

The Martian by Andy Weir
Astronaut Mark Watney is stranded and completely alone on Mars, with no way to even signal Earth that he's alive, but Mark isn't ready to give up and drawing on his engineering skills and determination, he faces each obstacle with resourcefulness, but will it be enough for him to survive?

Space Opera

Dove Arising by Karen Bao
On a lunar colony, fifteen-year-old Phaet Theta does the unthinkable and joins the Militia when her mother is imprisoned by the Moon's oppressive government.
Star Wars: Moving Target by Cecil Castellucci and Jason Fry
Princess Leia must lead a ragtag group of rebels on a treacherous decoy mission against the evil Galactic Empire.
Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke
When young Zita discovers a device that opens a portal to another place, and her best friend is abducted, she is compelled to set out on a strange journey from star to star in order to get back home.
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Young Ender Wiggin may prove to be the military genius Earth needs to fight a desperate battle against a deadly alien race that will determine the future of the human race.

Superheroes

Hero by Mike Lupica
Fourteen-year-old Zach learns he has the same special abilities as his father, who was the President's globe-trotting troubleshooter until "the Bads" killed him, and now Zach must decide whether to use his powers in the same way at the risk of his own life.
Runaways by Brian K. Vaughan
A group of six young mutants, having discovered their parents are all super-powered villains and members of a secret organization known as the Pride, run away from home and embark on a series of adventures, fueled by their desire to thwart their legacy of evil. Their parents, however, are determined to bring them back into the fold--even if it kills them.
Zeroes by Scott Westerfeld
Told from separate viewpoints, teens Scam, Crash, Flicker, Anonymous, Bellwether, and Kelsie, all born in the year 2000 and living in Cambria, California, have superhuman abilities that give them interesting but not heroic lives until they must work as a community to respond to a high stakes crisis.

Steampunk

Nadya Skylung and the Cloudship Rescue by Jeff Seymour
When pirates capture a cloudship and its crew, it is up to young Nadya and her friends, all orphans, to rescue the only family they have ever known.
Airborn by Kenneth Oppel
Matt, a young cabin boy aboard an airship, and Kate, a wealthy young girl traveling with her chaperone, team up to search for the existence of mysterious winged creatures reportedly living hundreds of feet above the Earth's surface.
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
In an alternate 1914 Europe, fifteen-year-old Austrian Prince Alek, on the run from the Clanker Powers who are attempting to take over the globe using mechanical machinery, forms an uneasy alliance with Deryn who, disguised as a boy to join the British Air Service, is learning to fly genetically-engineered beasts.
Castle in the Stars: the Space Race Of 1869 by Alex Alice
What if man journeyed into space in 1869, not 1969?

Weird Fiction

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor
From the creators of the wildly popular Welcome to Night Vale podcast comes an imaginative mystery of appearances and disappearances that is also a poignant look at the ways in which we all struggle to find ourselves...no matter where we live.
Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan
In the early hours after Halloween of 1988, four twelve-year-old newspaper delivery girls uncover the most important story of all time. Suburban drama and otherworldly mysteries collide in this ... series about nostalgia, first jobs, and the last days of childhood.

Resources

The Hugo Awards
The Hugo Awards are a set of literary awards given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year.
The Nebula Awards
The Nebula Awards annually recognize the best works of science fiction or fantasy published in the United States.
100 Must-Read Young Adult Science Fiction Books
A comprehensive list of outstanding contemporary science fiction for teens from Book Riot.
Best Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2018
A list of the best YA sci-fi and fantasy books of the year.

Hugo Award Winners and Nominees

Paper Girls, Vol. 3 by Brian K. Vaughan
Call Number: Graphic Novels
Newspaper deliverers Erin, Mac, and Tiffany finally reunite with their long-lost friend KJ in the prehistoric past, where they uncover the secret origins of time travel, and use any means necessary to get home.
Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor
Call Number: Fantasy
Now stronger, feistier, and a bit older, Sunny Nwazue, along with her friends from the the Leopard Society, travel through worlds, both visible and invisible, to the mysterious town of Osisi, where they fight in a climactic battle to save humanity.
Ms. Marvel, Vol. 5: Super Famous by G. Willow Wilson
Call Number: Graphic Novels
Look out world, Kamala Khan is officially an Avenger!
Paper Girls, Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan
Call Number: Graphic Novels
In the early hours after Halloween of 1988, four twelve-year-old newspaper delivery girls uncover the most important story of all time. Suburban drama and otherworldly mysteries collide in this ... series about nostalgia, first jobs, and the last days of childhood.
Black Panther, Vol. 1: A Nation Under Our Feet by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Call Number: Graphic Novels
T'Challa confronts a dramatic upheaval in Wakanda that will make leading the African nation tougher than ever before!
Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson
Call Number: Graphic Novels
Marvel Comics presents the all-new Ms. Marvel, the groundbreaking heroine that has become an international sensation! Kamala Khan is an ordinary girl from Jersey City - until she is suddenly empowered with extraordinary gifts.

Nebula Award Winners and Nominees

Zeroboxer by Fonda Lee
As seventeen-year-old Carr 'the Raptor' Luka rises to fame in the weightless combat sport of zeroboxing, he learns a devastating secret that jeopardizes not only his future in the sport, but interplanetary relations.
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
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.
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Katniss Everdeen, having survived the Hunger Games twice, learns she and her family and friends are in danger because the Capitol holds her responsible for the unrest and races against time to protect those she cares about and the people of District 12.
Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
Continues the story of Austrian Prince Alek who, in an alternate 1914 Europe, eludes the Germans by traveling in the Leviathan to Constantinople, where he faces a whole new kind of genetically-engineered warships.
The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
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
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.

Science Fiction

Characteristics

Subgenres

Authors

Classic Works of Science Fiction

Science Fiction Poll

Notable Science Fiction

Resources

Hugo Award Winners and Nominees

Nebula Award Winners and Nominees