4.
Invitation to the Game, by Monica Hughes
The year is 2154. Robots now occupy most jobs, leaving a large number of permanently unemployed people who are supported by the tax dollars of the few who can still find employment.
Lisse has been in despair since she finished school and failed to find employment. She and her friends are confined to a dirty, violent "Designated Area," which they are forbidden to leave. They have money for shelter and food, but nothing else, so all other things they need must be scrounged for.
One day, the hear about The Game. No one seems to know quite what it is or how one gets to play it, but everyone seems to have heard about it. Then, one day, they receive an invitation to play The Game.
I liked this book, although the ending was a little too easy (but then, it is a young adult novel, written in the 90's before the current spate of more sophisticated YA novels). The book makes some excellent points, like the fact that once something is done, it's very hard to undo (in this case, replacing people with robots).
The solution to the permanently unemployed population is to invite them to play The Game, a virtual reality game set in a beautiful outdoor setting. If the participants pass the test, showing that they can figure out how to survive in this setting, they are sent to the source of the beautiful outdoors, an Earth-like planet on the outer edge of the Milky Way galaxy. Here, humanity has a chance to start again.
