September 2025
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    My 13 y/o daughter has really been into sci-fi lately and wants to read more. She has currently read all of Harlan Ellison's short stories, and particularly loved I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream. I got her 2001 A Space Odyssey and she loved that as well. She is really into stories about AI / sentient robots. I have a few sci-fi series (Dune series, The Locked Tomb series, The Expanse series, The 5th Wave, Hunger Games, the Star Wars books) but none of those really hit for her.

    So does anyone have any ideas that will scratch that same itch for her? It doesn't have to be YA per se, but maybe nothing with adult content in it? In other media, she also likes robots like Hal 9000 from 2001 A Space Odyssey, TARS/CASE from Interstellar, Otto from WALL-E, Wheatly and GLaDOS from the Portal games, etc.

    Thanks!

    by FearTheGinger

    6 Comments

    1. Not a robot, and yet in Robert A. Heinlein’s **The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress**, a sentient computer is a co-conspirator in the rebellion by earth’s penal colony on the moon.

    2. Comfortable_Spell682 on

      Try THE COMPANION CHRONICLES, five or six short novels…

      about a synthetic companion forced to go on the run.

      First one’s called SOME ANIMALS.

      I forget the author.

      Good YA sci-fi thrillers…

    3. Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries

      Anne Leckie’s Imperial Raadch books

      *The Jinn-bot of Shantiport* by Samit Basu

      *A Closed and Common Orbit*, *A Psalm for the Wild-Built* and *A Prayer for the Crown-Shy* by Becky Chambers

      *The Tea Master and the Detective* by Aliette de Bodard

      *Service Model* by Adrian Tchaikovsky

      *Saturn’s Children* and *Neptune’s Brood* by Charles Stross

    4. OptimisticOctopus8 on

      I read Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky recently, and I would say it’s appropriate for a 13yo. It’s about a robot that must strike out on his own after his human master meets an unfortunate end – only to discover that almost all of the humans are gone, and he can’t find another master!

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