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Science Fiction Books for Teens and Young Adults

Travel to another time, another world, outer space or a mix of all three with these science fiction titles.

In this book list: 

Science Fiction Titles

Dystopian Fiction Titles (Can you survive in this world?)

Apocalyptic Fiction Titles (It's the end of the world!)

Science Fiction

Cover of Heavenly Tyrant (Iron Wido
Xiran Jay
Zhao
2024

After suffering devastating loss and making drastic decisions, Zetian finds herself on the seat of power in Huaxia, but she has also learned that her world is not as it seems. Revelations about an enemy who dangles one of her loved ones as a hostage force Zetian to share power with a dangerous man she cannot simply depose. Book one: Iron Widow

Cover of No Time Like Now
Naz
Kutub
2024

A teen finds himself in a race against time when he learns he's given away more years than he has left to live in this thought-provoking speculative romp inspired by A Christmas Carol.

Cover of Relit: 16 Latinx Remixes o
Sandra
Proudman
2024

These sixteen stories by award-winning and bestselling YA authors center a Latinx point of view in an empowering anthology that reimagines classics through fantasy, science fiction, and with a dash of magic.

Cover of The Space Between Here & N
Sarah
Suk
2023

Perfect for fans of They Both Die at the End and You've Reached Sam, this gripping, atmospheric novel follows a teen with a mysterious condition that transports her to the past when she smells certain scents linked to specific memories.

Cover of Strictly No Heroics
B. L.
Radley
2023

Normal teen, Riley, must navigate crushing on her best friend, starting a new summer job, and not being squashed during the next supervillain showdown.

Cover of Tasting Light: Ten Science
A.R. Capetta and
Wade Roush (editors)
2022

Ten speculative short stories by leading young-adult authors imagine what the world could be through the lens of technologies emerging today. In tales buzzing with possibility, hope, innovation, anger, and tenderness, Tasting Light offers a dazzling challenge to connect with open minds, hearts, and senses in a fast-changing world.

Cover of Reclaim the Stars: 17 Tale
Zoraida
Córdova
2022

In this collection of stories by acclaimed young adult authors, the Latin American diaspora travels to places of fantasy and out into space.

Cover of The Upper World
Femi
Fadugba
2021

During the worst week of Esso's life, an accident knocks him into an incredible world-a place beyond space or time, where he can see glimpses of the past and future. Rhia's past is filled with questions, but Dr. Esso's not here to help Rhia. He's here because he needs her to help unravel a tragedy that happened fifteen years ago.This powerhouse, mind-bending debut follows two teens, a generation apart, whose fates collide across time-and outside of it.

Cover of Walking In Two Worlds
Wab
Kinew
2021

Bugz is caught between two worlds. In the real world, she's a shy and self-conscious Indigenous teen who faces the stresses of teenage angst and life on the Rez. But in the virtual world, her alter ego is not just confident but dominant in a massively multiplayer video game universe. Betrayal threatens everything Bugz has built in the virtual world, as well as her relationships in the real world, and it will take all her newfound strength to restore a friendship and reconcile the parallel aspects of her life.

 

Dystopian Fiction

Cover of The Art Thieves
Andrea L.
Rogers
2024

It's the year 2052. Stevie Henry is a Cherokee girl working at a museum in Texas, trying to save up enough money to go to college. The world around her is in a cycle of drought and superstorms, ice and fire, but people get by. But it's about to get a whole lot worse. When a mysterious boy shows up at Stevie's museum saying that he's from the future--and telling her what is to come--she refuses to believe him. But soon she will have no choice.

Cover of Fledgling: The Keeper's Re
S. K.
Ali
2024

This is the first book in a gripping duology that introduces a fractured world on the brink of either enlightenment or war. Nada of Lower Earth is convinced the Crown Prince's alliance with Upper Earth will launch an invasive, terrifying form of tyranny, she sets out undercover to light the spark of revolution. When Raisa, betrothed to the Crown Prince, goes missing a week before the wedding, all eyes turn to the rebels, including Nayf, Nada's twin brother, a fugitive on the run. In Nayf and Raisa meeting, the long-simmering animosity between their worlds slowly burns away into something unexpected.

Cover of Snowglobe
Soyoung Park and
Joungmin L. Comfort (translator)
2024

In a world of constant winter, only the citizens of the climate-controlled city of Snowglobe can escape the bitter cold--but this perfect society is hiding dark and dangerous secrets within its frozen heart. Chobahm lives for the time she spends watching the shows produced inside Snowglobe. Goh Around, starring Goh Haeri, Snowglobe's biggest star--and, it turns out, the key to getting Chobahm her dream life. Chobahm has been chosen to take Harie's place. Only, life inside Snowglobe is nothing like what you see on television.

Cover of The Chaperone
M.
Hendrix
2023

Girls in New America must have a chaperone with them at all times. Because of this, Stella is never alone. She can't go out by herself or learn about the world. She can't even spend time with boys except at formal Visitations. Still, Stella feels lucky that her chaperone, Sister Helen, is like a friend to her.

Once Stella glimpses both real freedom and the dark truths behind New America, she has no choice but to fight back against the world she knows, risking everything to set out on a dangerous journey across what used to be the United States.

Cover of The Meadows
Stephanie
Oakes
2023

Eleanor believed acceptance to the Meadows would better her life, but the seemingly perfect institution hides a dark agenda, and after her graduation, Eleanor grapples with her experience as she uncovers the fate of her lost love, Rose.

Cover of Hell Followed With Us
Andrew Joseph
White
2022

Benji, a 16 year old trans boy, is living in a post-armageddon world and is on the run from the cult that he was raised in. He joins a group of queer teens and follows the directions of their leader. Benji has to make difficult decisions when he learns of their hidden agenda while hiding secrets of his own.

Cover of Nubia: The Awakening
Clarence A. Haynes and
Omar Epps
2022

Zuberi, Uzochi, and Lencho are refugees from Nubia who are living in New York which is in a climate crisis. As they discover their own powers, all three teens must grapple with inheritance, duty, and survival.

Cover of Hunting By Stars (A Marrow
Cherie
Dimaline
2021

French has been captured by the Recruiters, confined to one of the infamous residential schools. Meanwhile the other survivors, his found family, are hunting for him, determined to rescue him and French has to decide just how much, and whom, he is willing to sacrifice to survive and be reunited with Rose and the others.

Cover of Internment
Samira
Ahmed
2019

In a terrifying, futuristic United Sates, Muslim Americans are forced into internment camps, and 17-year-old Layla Amin must lead a revolution against complicit silence.

Cover of Scythe (Arc of the Scythe
Neal
Shusterman
2016

In a world where disease has been eliminated, the only way to die is to be randomly killed ('gleaned') by professional reapers ('scythes'). Two teens must compete with each other to become a scythe--a position neither of them wants. The one who becomes a scythe must kill the one who doesn't.

Cover of Shatter Me (Shatter Me ser
Tahereh
Mafi
2011

Ostracized or incarcerated her whole life, seventeen-year-old Juliette is freed on the condition that she use her horrific abilities in support of The Reestablishment, a post-apocalyptic dictatorship, but Adam, the only person ever to show her affection, offers hope of a better future.

 

Apocalyptic Fiction

Cover of The Nightmare Virus
Nadine
Brandes
2024

When dream technology goes wrong, a virus spreads across the globe, trapping people in a universal dreamscape. They call it the Nightmare Virus. Cain Cross is determined to find a cure . . . if he can decipher his brother's chicken-scratch formula notes. But when he gets infected, he has only 22 days until he's trapped in the mental prison forever. Now, every time he falls asleep, he must fight in a Nightmare Arena until he earns his freedom to live in the "new world" that exists only in the mind.

Cover of The Only Light Left Burnin
Erik J.
Brown
2024

After a long and treacherous journey south, Andrew and Jamie have finally found safety in the Florida Keys. But they soon learn that safety doesn't always mean happily ever after. Book one: All That's Left In the World

Cover of Sky's End (Above the Black
Marc J.
Gregson
2024

Plummet into a kill-or-be-killed competition where a scrappy underdog hell-bent on revenge must battle colossal monstrosities and claw his way to the top. Exiled to live as a Low under the merciless rule of the Meritocracy, sixteen-year-old Conrad refuses to become heir to his murderous uncle. But when behemoth sky serpents attack the floating island of Holmstead and devour Conrad's ailing mother, Conrad cuts a deal to save the only family he has left.

Cover of At the End of the World
Nadia
Mikail
2023

Seventeen-year-old Aisha hasn't seen her sister June for two years. She has no idea where she is, but that hasn't stopped her from thinking about her every day and hoping she's okay. But now that a calamity is about to end the world in nine months' time, she and her mother decide that it's time to track her down and mend the hurts of the past. They don't have any time to spare - if they don't resolve their issues now, they never will.

Cover of The Q
Amy
Tintera
2022

When the president's son, Lennon, is kidnapped and pushed out of an airplane over the Q, a vast quarantine zone, Maisie gives him a seventy-two hour vaccine and together the two teenagers attempt to fight their way through the Q in order to survive.

Cover of The Bones of Ruin (Bones o
Sarah
Raughley
2021

An African tightrope walker who cannot die gets involved with a mysterious society that's convinced the world is ending and is drafted into the fight-to-the-death Tournament of Freaks, where she learns the terrible truth of who and what she really is.

Cover of The Electric Kingdom
David
Arnold
2021

When a deadly Fly Flu sweeps the globe, it leaves a shell of the world that once was. As swarms of infected flies roam the earth, few survivors navigate the woods of post-apocalyptic New England, meeting others along the way, each on their own quest to find life and love in a world gone dark. 

Cover of The End
Mats
Strandberg
2020

How would you spend your last days if you knew exactly when they'd run out? Seventeen-year-old Simon wants to spend his last weeks with ex-girlfriend, Tilda, who dumped him. Lucinda, diagnosed with cancer, longs to connect again but doesn't quite know where to start. Reaching out to her former best friend Tilda seems like a good first step. Then Tilda is found dead and accusations start circling that Simon is the killer.

Cover of I Hope You Get This Messag
Farah Naz
Rishi
2019

News stations across the country are reporting mysterious messages that Earth has been receiving from a planet--Alma-claiming to be its creator. If they're being interpreted correctly, in seven days Alma will hit the kill switch on their "colony" Earth. True or not, for teenagers Jesse Hewitt, Cate Collins, and Adeem Khan, the prospect of this ticking time bomb will change their lives forever.