New to Sci Fi? 16 Amazing Young Adult Sci Fi Books To Read
Updated: Sep 30, 2022
If you ask Facebook, Bookstagram, or BookTok, YA fantasy is all the rage. Fae, mermaids, sexy vampires, and conflicted angels are more popular than ever.
But what if I told you there was another genre out there that can transport you to fantastical worlds? One that combines futurism, technology, and fantasy elements into a single majestic, innovative genre?
Enter YA science fiction. If you're a newbie to this genre, here are my 16 essential reads I think you need to try!
Survivors of the Rising Sea
Nicole Adrianne
As the oceans rise higher, Vikings and pirates battle for dominance.
Middle-class Viking Margot is stuck in a dead-end job, working for a powerful, thankless boss. When a sudden workday storm leaves Margot shipwrecked and floating in the raging sea, she's ecstatic to be rescued—until she discovers her rescuer is a mafia pirate.
Margot is shaken to the core to learn her boss—one of the community enforcers appointed to drive criminals away—is working hand in hand with the highly illegal mafia. But after Margot is thrown into her enemy’s world, she realizes her life could have a greater purpose than endless servitude.
Will she break away from her rescuer and return to a demanding, fruitless job beside her beloved boyfriend...or leave it all behind to become an outlaw herself?
No matter what Margot decides, hearts—and bones—will be broken.
If you're craving the danger of The Hunger Games and the morally grey dystopia of Neal Shusterman's Arc of a Scythe, then you'll be addicted to Nicole Adrianne's thrilling new tale of survival.
Download Survivors of the Rising Sea to start the emotionally gripping adventure today!
Nyxia
Scott Reintgen
Every life has a price in this sci-fi thriller—the first in a trilogy—that has the nonstop action of The Maze Runner and the high-stakes space setting of Illuminae.
What would you be willing to risk for a lifetime of fortune?
Emmett Atwater isn’t just leaving Detroit; he’s leaving Earth. Why the Babel Corporation recruited him is a mystery, but the number of zeroes on their contract has him boarding their lightship and hoping to return to Earth with enough money to take care of his family.
Forever.
Before long, Emmett discovers that he is one of ten recruits, all of whom have troubled pasts and are a long way from home. Now each recruit must earn the right to travel down to the planet of Eden—a planet that Babel has kept hidden—where they will mine a substance called Nyxia that has quietly become the most valuable material in the universe.
But Babel’s ship is full of secrets. And Emmett will face the ultimate choice: win the fortune at any cost, or find a way to fight that won’t forever compromise what it means to be human.
Seven Crowns
E.V. Everest
A crown is dangerous. A crown split seven ways is deadly.
Sixteen-year-old Ana is far from royalty. She’s a foster kid with a dead mom and a deadbeat dad. The only thing she wants is to escape—her hometown and her grief.
Ana’s plans are derailed when a dangerous family secret is revealed. She is the sole heir to a fallen dynasty on a world where seven families share the crown. Her family was murdered one by one, leaving six families to rule. Now, someone knows Ana’s location. With assassins closing in, Ana’s life and the crown are at stake.
With the help of a handsome hobo, Ana escapes to the place where it all began—a faraway world where magic and technology coexist. Ana must navigate a tangled web of friends and foes to unmask her would-be assassin before it's too late.
Travel to a glittering, dangerous world with political alliances and ballgowns, perfect for fans of The Hunger Games and Cinder.
Aurora Rising
Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
From the New York Times and internationally bestselling authors of the Illuminae Files comes a new science fiction epic...
The year is 2380, and the graduating cadets of Aurora Academy are being assigned their first missions. Star pupil Tyler Jones is ready to recruit the squad of his dreams, but his own boneheaded heroism sees him stuck with the dregs nobody else in the academy would touch...
A cocky diplomat with a black belt in sarcasm
A sociopath scientist with a fondness for shooting her bunkmates
A smart-ass tech whiz with the galaxy's biggest chip on his shoulder
An alien warrior with anger-management issues
A tomboy pilot who's totally not into him, in case you were wondering
And Ty's squad isn't even his biggest problem--that'd be Aurora Jie-Lin O'Malley, the girl he's just rescued from interdimensional space. Trapped in cryo-sleep for two centuries, Auri is a girl out of time and out of her depth. But she could be the catalyst that starts a war millions of years in the making, and Tyler's squad of losers, discipline cases, and misfits might just be the last hope for the entire galaxy.
NOBODY PANIC.
The Illuminae Files
Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
For fans of Marie Lu comes the first book in an epic series that bends the sci-fi genre into a new dimension.
“A truly beautiful novel that redefines the form." —Victoria Aveyard, bestselling author of Red Queen
This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do. This afternoon, her planet was invaded.
The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than a speck at the edge of the universe. Now with enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to evacuate with a hostile warship in hot pursuit.
But their problems are just getting started. A plague has broken out and is mutating with terrifying results; the fleet’s AI may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a web of data to find the truth, it’s clear the only person who can help her is the ex-boyfriend she swore she’d never speak to again.
Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, maps, files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.
Save Yourself
S. Breaker