Singing the Dogstar Blues by Alison Goodman is a brilliant Australian novel for young adults about an alien bonding with a human over shared feelings of loss.

Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson is a fantastic novel about the early colonisation of mars, with a high degree of technical accuracy.

The Martian by Andy Weir is amazing, and it should be read by everyone and anyone.

Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein is the original military sci-fi novel with a very fleshed out political dissertation embedded within the pages.

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov is an anthology of short stories that tells the tale of human-robot relations.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein is a really weird and awesome story about a human raised on Mars by aliens coming to Earth and discovering religion.

2001: A Space Odyssey is a weird case, because the movie came first, but Arthur C. Clarke wrote both the movie and the novelisation of the same name. Watch the movie, then read the book.

Rendezvous with Rama, also by Arthur C. Clarke, is a fantastic story about an expedition to an alien megastructure that has entered the solar system that’s getting a film adaptation very soon.

The Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell is a very gritty military sci-fi series with a hopeful outlook on the future and very, very good space combat tactics.

The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey are very, very good sci-fi novels with a TV adaptation.

Beyond the Aquila Rift is an anthology of short stories by Alister Reynolds that has some fantastic stories inside it.

Artemis by Andy Weir is a heist story set on a near future lunar colony, and is excellent.

Granted it's been almost a decade since I read it, but PTerry's Strata might fit the bill.

I recommend Doraemon – a children's series about a robot cat who goes back in time from Generic Sci-fi Future to live with a book-dumb boy and ultimately help him avoid a horrible future fate. One of the main draw of the series is the vast array of cool and funny futuristic gadgets the titular character has a habit of using – a door that opens to literally anywhere and flashlights that grow and shrink the body all Alice in Wonderland like, to name two examples.

I'm afraid I don't have much sci-fi on my bookshelves, and what I do have is probably a bit old for a 12-year-old. Like, Asimov is awesome, and Greg Bear is awesome, but even when there are robots, the focus isn't really the shiny toys? And I might have started reading McCaffrey at about 12-13, but I probably shouldn't have. {= P

Hold on, I saved some Animorphs. That's got the occasional space romp. And, oh, Madeleine L'Engle! That's definitely in the demographic range, though less future-tech, more questioning the nature of reality as we know it. But it's fun, though!

~Neshomeh generally prefers to watch sci-fi and read fantasy.

They're, I think, reasonably canonical high-tech nearly-Utopia. I'd give the starting reading order as Player of Games into Excession (which has some fantastic AI spaceship banter and is, IMO, best in the series, but generally needs some context).

More to follow when I haven't just woken up and so I stand a chance of remembering half the stuff I read in middle school.

• Tomash

It might be a little much for a twelve-year-old, but the Arc of a Scythe series fits the "Death is abolished, there's no scarcity, and AI is floating around" to a T. However, the main concept is rather dark. Essentially, in order to reduce overpopulation, there's a special group of assassins called "scythes" who do all the killing.

--Ls