Hard SF for 12 year olds?

[brixtonbrood]

Tiny is now 12. Go Tiny! He has celebrated this by spontaneously deciding that he is OK with long form narrative fiction (as opposed to Haynes manuals, WWII plane spotters guides and popular science books with cartoons in

Comments

[bibliogirl]

+1. OK, I was a year or two younger when I started in on the Heinlein juveniles but that's hardly an immense gulf.

[philmophlegm]

I might not be the best person to suggest SF - my tastes veer more towards the space opera* than proper hard SF. I suspect that Vicarage is on the right lines by suggesting Clarke, Heinlein and Asimov**. Clarke's 'Rendezvous With Rama' sounds like a good hard SF place to start though. I liked it. The whole 2001 series as well for that matter.

* If you want space opera recommendations, shout!
** Probably not Foundation though. I think the concepts therein might be better appreciated a couple of years older than 12.

[andrewducker]

At 12 I discovered EE Doc Smith's "Galactic Patrol".

It's technically the third in the series, but as the first two were shoehorned in later, you can safely start there. And it's stupidly big ridiculous Space Opera.

[white_hart]

Joining the "Heinlein, Clarke and Asimov" camp - that's pretty much what I was reading when I was 12.

[zengineer]

Alastair Reynolds, House of Suns for instance. Iain Banks as you say.
Or going from the sublime to the ridiculous EE Doc Smith if you like big spaceships and not too much character development.
Personally I find Clarke a bit dull.