What I Gave My Nephew

For Christmas.

The little guy is eleven. He’s my brother’s oldest and he’s also my godson. He’s smart, he’s a scout, he plays all sorts of sports, he’s trying to master that sonorous piece of metal tubing called a saxophone. He’s handy like his dad, and, like all eleven-year-old boys, he’s into explosives. Just kidding – I’m talking about fireworks.

Anyway, I decided it’s time to see if he’s susceptible to the SF bug. Not a hard question; I mean, come on! Eleven is the golden age of science fiction, which lasts until the early teen years or so, and in some of us never quite dies out.

So I went through my stack of 50 or 60 SF paperbacks to see a) what I was willing to part with and b) what would be appealing to an eleven-year-old kid. Here’s what I came up with:

Rocket Ship Galileo by Robert Heinlein
Night of the Dragonstar by Thomas Monteleone and David Bischoff
Planet of the Damned by Harry Harrison
Moreau’s Other Island by Brian Aldiss
The High Crusade by Poul Anderson

There! Now he’s got boys his age building rocket ships, dinosaurs, evil Jedi-warrior assassins, genetic experiments gone awry, and knights in shining armor fighting invading aliens with lasers and starships. The books, despite their titles or themes, are mostly light-hearted, some downright comic, some with a delightful monster-chomping only a kid my nephew’s age could love.

Happy Reading, J!