Epic typo!
All (or almost all) of the entire 1950s run of Galaxy magazine is available in the Internet Archive. A number of stories and authors already mentioned are there, and there’s a lot of other good stuff.
The Fireman, the early novella version of Fahrenheit 451.
Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters (serialized, but IIRC heavily edited by H.L. Gold)
The Stars My Destination (serialized)
And then there’s the occasional humor piece like Extracts from the Galactick Almanack (illustrated hilariously by Don Martin).
And the covers are usually very cool.
We’re recommending books with unrepentant rapist protagonists now? Don’t get me wrong, I love TSMD, but I’m an adult and can handle moral ambiguity. Not sure a 12 y.o. can.
cmyk writes:
> A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury.
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> All You Zombies by Heinlein.
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> The Jaunt by Stephen King.
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> There Will Come Soft Rains by Bradbury.
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> The Last Question by Isaac Asimov.
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> A Pail of Air by Fritz Leiber.
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> The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin.
These are, of course, short stories. They’re good short stories, but they’re still short stories. If you were to promise someone seven science fiction books for a present and then handed them Xerox copies of seven short stories at Christmas, they might be disappointed. There are short story collections by each of these authors containing those stories. A set of collections, one containing each of those stories, would make a good present. There are also anthologies containing good short stories by these authors and many others.
Well, not any of them… some are very harsh. I don’t remember the name right now, but that one where Mark gets tortured in Jackson’s Whole is definitely not for kids. Mountains of Infinity I think would be good, for example; some harsh issues but nothing I can’t figure dealing with at that age.
Another vote for Verne, although at that age I enjoyed the “normal” travels more than the more sciency stuff (less pages of incomprehensible explanations, what can I say). I’ve always loved maps; I loved looking up in the Atlas all the places that Strogoff and Fogg went to.
While Asimov’s Lucky Starr’s stories are definitely more focused on the younger readers, I was perfectly happy to be reading them at 12.
I just tried to imagine that bitch of a librarian my town had back when I was 12, having to deal with children asking for Asimov, Verne or Heinlein. Watching her head explode could have been… interesting.
Poul Anderson “Time Patrol” serials, Asimov "I, Robot"series, and anything Robert Heinlein. Jules Verne “20,000 Leagues” and “From the Earth to the Moon”. Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide” series. Alan Dean Foster’s “The Blackhole”. Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Game.” Ray Bradbury’s “The Martian Chronicles”.
More on the Fantasy side, but Piers Anthony’s “Xanth” series and maybe consider the “Apprentice Adept” series. And there’s Brian Jacques “Redwall” series - excellent young adult series, I enjoy them even now in my 40s. Margaret Weis/Tracy Hickman “Dragonlance”, “Deathgate Cycle”, and “Darksword” series. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” and maybe TLotR.
More Modern books - My younger cousins ask for these books and they are geared towards young adults, but I haven’t read much of these: “Hunger Games”, Maze Runner", “Harry Potter”, “Divergent”.
I fully agree with the suggestions so far—Heinlein, Christopher, Bradbury, etc.
H.G. Wells certainly deserves some more nods. War of the Worlds and The Island of Doctor Moreau are classics and very accessible, although the latter can be a bit short.
I haven’t read much of his work, as I’m startled to realize, but I seem to remember rather enjoying Poul Anderson around that age.
For another angle, there’s always a Weird Science comic collection. There’s even a nice hardback collection of several EC comics stories like “Judgement Day,” and the Adam Link “I, Robot” tales.
Michael Crichton
As you can guess from my UID, I am going to recommend Asimov’s Foundation trilogy. I read them as they came out when I was about 13-15 and it hooked me on Sci-Fi. And Heinlein. Farmer in the Sky and The Roads Must Roll, although I am disappointed that we are in the future they were written about and there are no farmers up there and the only moving sidewalks are in airports.
Much contemporary science fiction (and I am still an avid reader of it) either have too much sex or are too dark for most 12 year olds. My granddaughter read and really enjoyed the Fabelhaven series and so I read it and rather enjoyed it too. She was about 15 at the time. Someone mentioned the Wizard of Earthsea series and I thoroughly endorse that and anything else by LeGuin. Two books I read as a young teen I still remember: Needle by Hal Clement and Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham.
I have fond memories of William Sleator stories, even if they aren’t as enjoyable to me as an adult.
I would get those fat anthologies from the library, too, and I always enjoyed having a big book of short stories. If a story’s good, it’s good. If it’s bad, you have another one to look forward to in ten pages. BUT. I don’t read so much for escapism worldbuilding as I think most science fiction fans do, so there’s that.
Or, if you want to count the Hitchhiker’s Guide series as science fiction, that’s almost a sure thing, I think.
Keith Laumer. The Retief series is great fun with intergalactic diplomacy. If the kid has something of a military bent there is also the Bolo series.
Roger Zelazny’s Amber series.
I’ll second Harry Harrison as a great writer.
How did I forget Keith Laumer! Yes, you should be able to start on Laumer at twelve. I think the Retief and Imperium stuff, anyway.
Maybe L. Sprague de Camp or Harry Turtledove, too. I have this volume of de Camp’s The Wheels of If & Turtledove’s fanfic sequel to it. I never finished the Turtledove side, myself, but I think the original book was all right. I don’t recall anything very adult in it.
Or maybe a social-sciences take – Danny Dunn and the Skinner Box, Danny Dunn and the Stanford Prison Experiment, Danny Dunn and the Marginal Propensity to Consume, Danny Dunn and the Electoral Demographics . . .
I don’t know Danny Dunn. Is it like Tom Swift?
Obviously I support reading Harry Harrison’s The Stainless Steel Rat…
Most of the rest of the suggestions above I concur with.
Would add (because I’m a fan), the David Weber/Jane Lindskold trilogy A Beautiful Friendship, Fire Season, and Treecat Wars, set in David Weber’s Honorverse but several hundred years earlier and focused on young adults. The protaginist is female, but I think it would still be enjoyable to a young man interested in space and alien worlds (and alien-human contact).
They are like Honey I Shrank The Kids.
I’ve not actually read any Tom Swift. I understand it’s like The Hardy Boys with gadgets. Tom solves mysteries, and catches spies, right? Nothing like that in Danny Dunn. I think there was only one book where there was an actual villain, as such. It was mostly things like getting shrunk, or getting lost while exploring a cave.
No, Tom Swift is an inventor. Danny Dunn is just a bright kid who has adventures with adults’ inventions.
Redwall is great (albeit fantasy). Xanth is…well, Piers Anthony has some profoundly fucked up ideas about sex, and while Xanth books aren’t pornographic, there’s plenty of salacious underage nudity and the like. 12-year-olds are the least disturbing demographic to read them, but be aware.
I liked most of what’s been mentioned.
I’d also plug Arthur Clarke’s short stories. I imagine some are dated, but I still find “the nine billion names of God” haunting.
Some more recentish authors include Connie Willis, Vernor Vinge, David Brin, Greg Bear, and Greg Egan. (Egan’s novels aren’t great, but his short stories are awesome.)
Well, Danny Dunn does invent a few things himself, just nowhere near on the scale of his uncle’s inventions. For instance, he created the first “homework machine” in the eponymous book, a rig that let one person write with two pens on two pages at once (in slightly different handwriting), so he could do his best friend’s math homework, and the friend could do his English homework.
Not his uncle, his mother’s employer.