Advanced middle-grade / young-adult science fiction, available in print and ebook versions. More Info.

“Danger! Possibly Infectious to Young Minds!”

So says Randy Stafford in his reader review of Skye Object 3270a posted at Amazon.

I haven’t been paying much attention lately to the book listings, so I was gratified to discover that Skye Object, my young-adult science fiction novel, has garnered some very nice reader reviews at Amazon and Library Thing. It’s a fast-paced adventure aimed at advanced middle-grade readers–and if you know any of those, please consider making the book a holiday gift. It’s available in print as well as ebook versions.

Signed copies of the print book are available at my website, but the best deals are at Barnes & Noble or Amazon. Powell’s carries the book online as well, but prices are higher there.
Here’s the short description:

Skye was found as an infant, adrift in a lifepod in an isolated star system. Now she’s a bold teen who wants to know where she came from. Helping in her search for answers are best friend Zia, handsome young astronomer Devi, and the courageous Buyu Mkolu. Their adventure will take them from their high-tech home to an alien wilderness and then up, to the dangerously fascinating zone of high orbit.

Here are links:

Barnes & Noble (USA)
Amazon USA
Amazon UK
Booktopia (Australia)
Powell’s Books (USA)

And here are some of the nice bits from readers who’ve posted their opinions:

From Library Thing Early Reviewers

“Excellent story… Once you start the book, you will not be able to stop.” — roadway2000

“This reads very quickly and I was through it before I realized… All in all an excellent story.” — Gord.Barker

“Skye Object 3270a is certainly one of the best books I’ve read and I encourage anyone who enjoys an adventurous story to pick this one up.”—KaelebsMomma

“I ended up reading this straight through in one sitting.”—cwallen

From Amazon US

“I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It combined the best of both science fiction and young adult: likeable teenage characters struggling to find their place in a high-tech alien world.”– Joe Vasicek

“An excellent book for the young adult reader.”– Jill from Pgh

“In short, Nagata, I think, has a good chance with this work to accomplish her goal of infecting the next generation with the meme of science fiction, the love of plausible speculation and the wonder of science. And adults like me will be happy to follow along.”—Randy Stafford

My assignment: find five books similar to my own middle-grade science fiction novel Skye Object 3270a.

Why? Book View Café is going to be doing a Library Thing Early Reader promotion when the book launches at BVC.

I never guessed how hard this simple assignment would be.

I wanted to find books that were recent, popular, science fiction, set in space, with similar-aged protagonists. Here’s the list I finally came up with, which includes books from the ’90s and books not set in space and, I’m sure, some significantly older protagonists:

The Prometheus Project: Trapped – Douglas E. Richards
Quarter Share – Nathan Lowell
Jumper – Steven Gould
Alien Secrets – Annette Curtis Klause
Singing the Dogstar Blues – Alison Goodman

I know there are more books of the type I’m looking for being published among the indies, but I wanted titles a goodly number of readers might recognize. It’s kind of disturbing though, just how rare this sort of book seems to be.

UPDATE: Right after I posted this, @SPrineas on twitter suggested Catherine Jinks’ Living Hell which is definitely space-based; @cbmawn suggested Scott Westerfeld’s Succession; and @jennreese suggested PJ Haarsma Softwire series. So there are books out there, leaving the question: Why are they so hard to find?

Over at the Book View Café blog, Sherwood Smith has some interesting–and unsettling–thoughts on young adult and middle grade science fiction, starting with the question “Where is it?” The post provides a great summary of where we are, and the comments have some very interesting points to offer.

The main subject of the post though, is the release of Vonda McIntyre’s middle grade science fiction novel Barbary. Here’s how Sherwood describes it:

This book is solid science fiction, but it does not follow the old formula at all. At the center is 12-year-old orphan Barbary, who has been kicked around foster homes for a while. Now she’s got a ticket to a space station, to be adopted by her mother’s best friend—and this family has a daughter Barbary’s age, Heather.

But Barbary can’t get on the shuttle—she keeps getting kicked off by V.I.P’s for no reason that anyone will explain. Something weird is going on in space, but Barbary doesn’t care about that because she has a secret that she is terrified will be revealed—she has to get on that shuttle. So she tries to scam her way on board, and so the story begins.

If you’ve got a middle grade reader, check out Vonda’s Barbary at Book View Café.