Top Ten Teen SciFi for the HS Set

SciFi is a difficult subject for a lot of teachers and librarians I find. It is rarely their favorite genre. So here are ten great reads that no student should leave high school without reading, in no particular order.

1. Ringworld by Larry Niven - Eons ago, a race, long gone, utilized the entire material of their solar system to create a habitable ring surrounding its star. The ring is populated with uncounted races and cultures and is many, many times the size of Earth. Louis Woo and his companions have discovered it and intend to exploit it and make their fortune. These would be Conquistadors have definitely bitten off more than they can chew.
   
2. Peeps by Scott Westerfeld - Did you ever wonder about vampires? Legends of blood suckers that walk the night abound in almost every culture of the world. How could they exist? Why would they exist? And if they did exist, why does everyone think they don't? Scott Westerfeld uses Science Fiction to tell a phenomenal adventure story that rings so true you may go to sleep clutching garlic after you've read it.
3. Neuromancer by William Gibson - This is the absolutely frigid cool story of a terrifying future. A future when humanity is clicked into a cyber-spacial world where business is transacted by multi-national countries who pull the strings while nations dance. A future filled with people all but living online. This absolutely killer thriller tells a tale of a time not so far from our own and is a must read.
4. Sagramanda by Alan Dean Forester - India is one of the most populous countries on the globe. It's civilization is eons old. Now it is rapidly becoming the source of high tech labor for the West. What happens when fabulous new wealth, an ancient culture, unimaginable overcrowding and high technology meet? A police detective, a shop owner, a technology embezzler, a hired assassin, a father, a serial killer and a tiger are about to all find out in a town called Sagramanda.
5. World War Z an Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks - This is one of the finest pieces of Science Fiction written in the last few years. What would happen if the world were overrun by zombies? How would civilization cope? Could it cope? In a brilliant novel written as a series of interviews with supposed survivors of the war, Max Brooks ask a question that should be on every American's mind. Can we prepare for real disaster?
6. The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven - A true classic of interstellar empire fiction, The Mote in God's Eye takes an all powerful stellar empire and runs it straight into a truly alien race. This is a war story of the finest sort and at times a mind bending examination of what we are willing to do to protect the status quo.
7. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson - This is arguably the best post apocalypse story ever written. The story pits a single man against a society of night dwelling horrors that live on a diet of blood. It is a story of vampires, survival and horror. It is also a terrific examination of what constitutes a true monster.
8. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov - What is the nature of slavery? What constitutes intelligence? How do we decide if something is a living sentient being? The three laws of robotics are probably the greatest creation of that most prolific of writers Isaac Asimov. I, Robot allows Asimov to once more to twist those three laws and apply them in a classic defense of what constitutes sentience.
9. The Time Machine by Herbert George Wells - Now more than one hundred years old, H. G. Wells masterpiece defines time travel stories and its trappings have suffused our zeitgeist. We fear a future filled with beautiful morons hunted by dark technologists who live underground. This beautiful Victorian tale of a scientist who travels both to the extreme future and the extreme past is haunting in its simplicity and far too familiar today.
10. Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep? by Philip K. Dick - The story that became the movie Blade Runner is a noir thriller of the best variety. A bounty hunter attempts to hunt down and "retire" a group of dangerous androids. This simple story holds a magnifying glass over what makes people become enemies of the state.