When I was that age, I can recall that I was reading novelizations of age-appropriate sci-fi movies, like Black Hole or Tron or Escape to Witch Mountain (all disney movies, I think). I don't know if these were any good, but they might fit into that bad quality sci-fi. No space battles in those ones, though. I have no idea if novelizations of movies are still something that's done, but if there are sci-fi movies that he likes, check and see if there's novel versions of them.
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