SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

When I was a kid, before Harry Potter and the recent influx of sf and fantasy for kids and young adults, I made my way into sf and fantasy from reading Susan Cooper, the Borrowers by Mary Norton and Madeleine L'Engle to Andre Norton and Anne McCaffrey. Nowadays there is quite a bit more fantasy and sf for children. But there are also a lot of movies and television sf programs. Which is more influential to how you started reading sf and fantasy -- was it books or other visual media that led you to the genre.

When I was young, years ago, you'd have thought SF and Fantasy was illegal from the reaction of most people. That made me interested. :-) Verne, Rider Haggard, Zelazny and Heinlein led to Herbert, Asimov, Leiber, Le Guin, Delany and many, many others. I'm not sure what was the trigger, apart from reading things that weren't really approved of. I know I read first editions of Nine Princes in Amber and Starship Trooper as soon as they got to my well-stocked local library. I read Doc Savage and Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs and HG Wells, among others. I watched Dr Who, Star Trek, Lost in Space, Captain Scarlet, Stingray and Thunderbirds. I think if the TV had been there first, it would have grabbed my attention, but the books came first. Fantasy came much later than SF for me.

For me, it was the desire to read imaginative, creative, original stories.

I had no desire to read about other boys' daily lives. Or about romance, or crime. The old Sherlock Holmes kind of crime might have interested me, but I could appreciate more the Noir and less the CSI kind of thing. Classics I loved. And I realized at one point, that many classics are in fact SF/F.

I never sought after stories with aliens or laser guns or space ships or castles and princesses and dragons. That was never the appeal, and still isn't, to me.

The appeal is in turning the page and finding my mind in a new place. A new idea, a new concept, a beautiful encapsulation or exposition on the human condition that is only really possible through imaginative speculative fiction. I have seen recently the adjective 'speculative' being applied to paranormal romance and other such shallower genres, and I feel that's a crime, but I'll leave that for another topic. Speculative fiction, to me, embodies the best of SF and Fantasy. And it embodies the bleeding edge of creative fiction, constantly pushing the boundaries of what critical, inspired writing can be. But more than all of this, it tells a damn good story. And that is what drew me to the woods, in search of special trees.

I don't remember reading much as a kid. Dad used to read us Ian Fleming's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at Christmas time. But it didn't get me reading.

I tried read The Hobbit in my early teens but couldn't stick with it (wasn't until college that I really got into Tolkien).

What did capture me and make me read a lot was Kurt Vonnegut. I picked up Sirens of Titan at random (probably because of the scantily clad women on the cover...hey, it was puberty time, you know?) from the library one boring summer at my grandparent's house in Oklahoma, and got hooked.

But after I read all I could find of Vonnegut, I kind of stopped reading for a while. I was really only interested in his vivid imagination, his sarcasm and wry humor, and his quiet rebelliousness. His simple prose style helped, I'm sure.

After a long break, I got back into reading starting with Tolkien's work, then Frank Herbert, and finally (probably after the movie Bladerunner came out) Philip K. Dick. Well, that was it for me. SF all the way. Greg Bear came next and since then I've not read much of anything outside of SF.

Fantasy for me was defined by Tolkien, and killed by him. Nothing measures up or even comes close. I've tried a lot of things in that genre, but I really don't like any of it enough to care.

I read the Prydain Chronicles, by Lloyd Alexander, as a child and fell in love with magic and adventure and danger and heroes and good vs evil. My parents also gave me the Earthsea Trilogy as a gift when I was 11 or 12, and those immediately became my favorite books. My dad also read The Hobbit to us as young kids, and I read a lot of fantasy through high school (Riddlemaster trilogy, Deryni series) and have never stopped.

Because magic. And cool new worlds. And danger and good vs evil and guys with swords. And great characters and unforgettable stories and rich emotions.

Micah, if you haven't yet, read The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe, and also his Latro series. They may kill Fantasy for you again, by toppling Tolkien. Perhaps, and then again, perhaps not.

I read a lot of history and science when I was a child. The science inspired me to read science fiction and the history made me want to delve into fantasy.

Kenneth wrote: "Micah, if you haven't yet, read The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe, and also his Latro series. They may kill Fantasy for you again, by toppling Tolkien. Perhaps, and then again, perhaps not."

He's been on my list of someone to read for SF...not sure I'd try his fantasy.

There are an embarassingly large number of highly regarded authors I've somehow never gotten around to reading.

I'm not a big fantasy fan. fantasy for me begins and ends with Tolkien. I like a few others, but sf is my main love. I started to read it after my father introduced me to sf movies like The Day The Earth Stood Still when I was 4. after school began and I learned to read, I read the spaceship under the Apple tree and Heinlein juvies. I was irrevocably set on the path of literary sf in third grade when I read, and now constantly re read The Martian Chronicles.

I was too young to remember. There were SF and fantasy books in the library -- I read, deeply, and was caught.

Growing up in the 70s in the UK it was Dr Who that first got me interested in SF. Then, when I was 11 a film came out called Star Wars that kind of put the seal on it. The first 'proper' SF novel I read was War of the Worlds after hearing Jeff Wayne's musical version.

I came to fantasy a little later - via LOTR & Michael Moorcock when I was a teenager. Then I fell out with it for about 25 years and have only recently started reading it again.

A school teacher read us The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when I was about eight, and then my great aunt gave me The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings at around ten. By then I was hooked, and read everything I could find in the library.

Micah wrote: "Kenneth wrote: "Micah, if you haven't yet, read The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe, and also his Latro series. They may kill Fantasy for you again, by toppling Tolkien. Perhaps, and then again, ..."

Ah, New Sun starts off seeming like a fantasy, but the astute reader will quickly discover it's actually both and more.

One nice thing about not having read a lot of highly regarded writers is, you've got some potentially great stories to look forward to.

Kenneth wrote: "...The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe..."

I read through the Look Inside section of the firt book on Amazon.

Funny thing is, I've been reading the first Black Company book recently (foisted upon me by a friend who is an ardent Fantasy fan). I'm finding it rather bluntly written. That's not a criticism, just an observation. It comes off more as a TV show than a novel. Anyway, I keep thinking "what would this book read like if it wasn't written in such an abbreviated (terse?) style?

Reading the intro to the first book in The Book of the New Sun, I realized that it would sound exactly like Gene Wolfe. ;D

I immediately recommended The Book of the New Sun to my Black Company friends. But it didn't exict me enough to start reading it.

I was given The Neverending Story for Christmas when I was 8. I had always read and liked books but I was still a kid and this was the first 400-page novel with no pictures that I had ever read, and I got through it in a week. Hooked for life on fantasy, and it´s only recently that I´ve been reading some SF.

Kenneth wrote: "Micah, if you haven't yet, read The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe, and also his Latro series. They may kill Fantasy for you again, by toppling Tolkien. Perhaps, and then again, perhaps not."

They're very 'marmite'
You'll either love them or hate them, there doesn't seem to be a middle way

Talk about dating myself... The "All About" series of books (science), the Tom Swift series (2nd series, actually), and Andre Norton started me off, Almost 9000 books later, I'm still going.

Jim wrote: "They're very 'marmite'..."

I wonder what would happen if I tried marmite for the first time while reading it? I mean, if I found I liked marmite, would I automatically like the book, or vice versa?

Hmm, we ponder. ;P

My older brothers always had sci-fi books around, and I read them. Loved the Tarzan series, anything by Andre Norton or Heinlein, Doc Savage books, and lots of others. Just fell in love with worlds so different from mine.

Doc Savage, The Avenger, Conan, Tarzan, J.R.R. Tolkein, C.S. Lewis. Once I started reading them, I never stopped!

I received A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle as a Christmas gift from my aunt when I was 10 years old. [book:A Wrinkle in Time|18131). Ya and know look at me.

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Jim wrote: "Kenneth wrote: "Micah, if you haven't yet, read The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe, and also his Latro series. They may kill Fantasy for you again, by toppling Tolkien. Perhaps, and then again, ..."Yeah, I have had the love/hate experience with recommending New Sun and Wolfe in general. It clicks with people or it doesn't.

I remember watching Land of the Lost on PBS at a very young age and also had a teacher read aloud The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 1st or 2nd grade. Then came A Wrinkle in Time, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. The thing that keeps me reading Sci Fi and Fantasy is the idea that anything can happen and it is always fun to ask, what if...

Playing D&D. Seriously.

Chris wrote: "Playing D&D. Seriously."

I can believe that, I think it did it for a lot of people, or at least spurred them in that direction.

What struck me is that until now I'd never thought of The Borrowers (which I loved) or the Narnia books (likewise) as fantasy.
Obviously they are.

Although I lean toward fantasy more than sci-fi, I enjoy the latter as well.

I remember watching, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" as a preschooler and that initally got me into fantasy ("You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you!" ;)). This film--along with those which came out in the early to mid-80s such as: "Time Bandits," "Dragonslayer," "The Last Unicorn," "Ladyhawke," "The Neverending Story," "Return to Oz," "Legend," "Excalibur," "The Princess Bride," "The Dark Crystal," and, "Labyrinth"--led me further on into fantasy. I was also 'in love' with Showtime's, "Fairy Tale Theater," (the one hosted by Shelley Duvall). Of course, there were the books as well...

I had many "Disney Golden Books" as a preschooler. My elementary's school library had some amazing fantasy books which, for the most part, I cannot recall the titles of and this is unfortunate. But at the age of 8, when I read Lewis Carroll's, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"/"Alice Through the Looking-Glass," I became even more infatuated with fantasy and the reading of it (which of course led me into worlds such as, "Narnia," "Oz," and, "Middle-Earth"). I have always--always--loved fairy tales and I still do (I also love darker twists on them as done in the excellent Neil Jordan film, "The Company of Wolves").

I only ever dabbled in, "D&D" and it was briefly (this was during my pre-teens). As a child and into my teens, I adored a less complex game called, "Dungeon" which "TSR" put out.

Upon my 32nd birthday, my husband surprised me with this game (which had been sitting sealed, unopened, in some store window for 25 years over on the island of Jersey. 'Tis like new, save for the top of the outer box having been faded to black-and-white by the sun.). I was thrilled and wouldn't you know? I am still good and/or lucky at it!

I would become a little more interested in sci-fi upon reading Ray Bradbury and seeing films like: "Night of the Comet," "E.T.," "Flight of the Navigator," "Aliens," and "Enemy Mine" around the age of 9 or 10. (I am a child of the 80s and am darned proud of it! ;))

But still, fantasy reigns supreme to my mind. ;)

I was a dorky little child and I never grew out of it.

In my early days of reading, I loved fairy tales. As I got older, the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books held that bit of mystery, that she just might be a fairy in disguise. From there, I got addicted to the Chronicles of Narnia and never looked back.

I don't remember reading for pleasure that much when I was younger.

But I did watch a lot of sci-fi and fantasy, via the influence of my father.

So when I started reading more, I naturally gravitated to those types of stories.

The mandatory reading assignments, requiring in-depth book reports, in my high school literature courses included The Time Machine by H.G. Wells and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. They introduced me to the Science Fiction genre.

whan I was a little kid my mom read to me. when I learned to read she still read to me. Until she got half way through the "hobbit" and stopped. it was either walk away from the story or work it out for myself.

As with Don, my mother read to me, and with me, from very early. However, teachers who read to my class over the years, really got me hooked. I continued this in my 35 years of teaching, and encouraged others, as well as parents, to do the same. Sharing a joy of reading can be seriously contagious!

Fallen Star Poet wrote: "Although I lean toward fantasy more than sci-fi, I enjoy the latter as well.

I remember watching, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" as a preschooler and that initally got me into fantasy ("You ca..."

Love your movie list from my childhood.

Thanks for mentioning Dungeon!
And I found a copy of Dungeon, the game, for $0.50CDN at a garage sale in my neighbourhood when I was a kid, somewhere around 1984? Unpunched! Having already read LOTR and Narnia, I was in love right away. Went from that and Choose Your Own Adventure books to Fighting Fantasy to D&D (for years), and lots of authors later. But I think I already mentioned that earlier in the thread.

Don wrote: "whan I was a little kid my mom read to me. when I learned to read she still read to me. Until she got half way through the "hobbit" and stopped. it was either walk away from the story or work it..."

Mine went better. My Mum started reading me Narnia, and then after my sister was born when I was 3, I got impatient with the nursing interrupting the reading and figured it out for myself. No forced push, just wanting to get on with the story.

Love your movie list from my childhood.

Thanks for mentioning Dungeon!
And I found a copy of Dungeon, the game, for $0.50CDN at a garage sale in my neighbourhood when I was a kid, somewhere around 1984? Unpunched! Having already read LOTR and Narnia, I was in love right away. Went from that and Choose Your Own Adventure books to Fighting Fantasy to D&D (for years), and lots of authors later. But I think I already mentioned that earlier in the thread.

You are welcome!

"Choose Your Own Adventure" books...I remember them; I was always checking those out at the local county library and I loved them!

The idea of NOT reading sf and fantasy never occurred to me. I graduated from fairy tales directly into reading the Wizard of Oz books and The Chronicles of Narnia. At some point between Kindergarten and 3rd grade, I also read the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander and A Wrinkle in Time. I read basically every fantasy novel in the children's section of the library and many of the science fiction ones as well. As I got older, my dad started recommending his favorite science fiction authors to my older brother and then me. My dad introduced me to Douglas Adams and Anne McCaffrey, among others. My brother introduced me to various fantasy, science fiction, and horror authors like Robert Jordan and Brian Lumley. I have since returned the favor many times over by introducing my brother to George R.R. Martin, Robin Hobb, Scott Lynch, Jim Butcher, etc.

I remember, growing up, that most of the books for children or young adults had a strong fantasy component. I read everything I could get my hands on, and there was a lot of science fiction and fantasy to be had.

I liked the buzz reading fantasy gave me. I like the unknown and remember talking with friends in a caravan when I was about 7. We scared each other with tales of ghosts and goblins and being so young we were quite naive. At that age we had a real sense of wonder about the unknown and of course just about everything was unknown. Fantasy recaptures that feeling. unfortunately our world is too well known in many respects so escaping to another - feeds our imagination. I love that.

I also like the excitement of a well told tale. The page-turning fever that accompanies a good story. Wanting to reach the conclusion, gripped by epic battles and cliff-hanger moments. Again, great stuff.

So in conclusion - the unknown and excitement attracted me to fantasy. Strangely I don't quite get that from Sci Fi.

When I was about 8 (in the 70s) we were not well off but Mum and dad gave me some money to choose and buy my own book from a school book club. I was so excited to have entirely my own choice and so ended up getting Galactic Warlord by Douglas Hill.

I loved every word of the and none of my friends were reading anything like it, it was mine and only mine.

Once you have read a book about a space warrior whose world has been irradiated with an armed alien psychic friend and indestructible bones the secret 7 just don't cut it any more. I was hooked and never looked back.

My love of Sci-fi kept me reading all the time and took me to and through university from a mining town where my teacher told me not to get ideas above my station and just go down the pit like everyone else. Sci-fi meant anything was possible, and kept ,me looking up and to the future rather than down.

Also, because I read so much it meant I was more literate than a lot of those around me. It got me where I wanted to be.

I picked up Robert Heinlein's The Door Into Summer when I was ten years old, and I was hooked for life.

I got into fantasy pretty hardcore just within the last year or so. The thing that did it? A combination of Goodreads and The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss.

I never read much fantasy before joining this site. The only ones I can think of are The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever - Stephen R. Donaldson and Harry Potter (if that counts). Both were rec'd by friends, and I really enjoyed both but never took the initiative to search more out.

Then I joined GR and started being shown all these great sounding, highly reviewed fantasy books and started taking shots. When I finished The Name of the Wind, I knew this genre was for me. It broke down all my preconceived notions of what fantasy was and I don't remember ever feeling as immersed in a book as when I was in Mr. Rothfuss' world.

I have to admit, I'm pretty jealous of a lot of you getting into this genre at such an early age, just thinking of how the hobbit or narnia would have blown me away as a kid. Although I guess I just have a lot of catching up to do.

When I was a kid (in the '80s) I loved Doctor Who on TV. In the UK at the time, if memory serves, they never seemed to repeat old episodes - you just got that year's series and that was that.

Luckily Target Books had novelised most (all?) of the old 60s/70s stories and my local library had all of them. I ploughed my way through them, and then moved on to what was next to them on the shelf.

Scott wrote: "I have to admit, I'm pretty jealous of a lot of you getting into this genre at such an early age, just thinking of how the hobbit or narnia would have blown me away as a kid. Although I guess I just have a lot of catching up to do. "


Depends on the person I didn't really like Narnia even as a kid, Hobbit was great though.

I know personally I found Hitchhikers Guide and Wizard of Earthsea as my first two sci-fi/fantasy series that I can remember and loved them both. Then I just moved around the shelf read some Bova because the titles were like planet names HOW COOL. After a few years finding out about some books published by Baen then I ran into space opera and I was hooked. While this was going on I tried all the popular fantasy series that my friends knew about and except the Hobbit and Harry Potter I just didn't like any of them. Shamefully what got me interested again in fantasy was Eragon I guess it just reminded me hey fantasy has cool things.

I got into sci-fi through the Star Wars movies. I fell in love with the lightsaber battles which transitioned well to swords with movies like Willow.

I think one of the earliest books of Sci Fi that I read was "The Counterfeit Man" by Alan E Nourse. I bought it through Scholastic Books at school. I bought the Lord of the Rings that way as well when I was in the 8th grade. At the time Star Trek had just come out as well. Robert E Howard and the Lancer Editions of Conan were the most satisfying for me. Also Tarzan, John Carter, Asimov (Foundation Trilogy and the Robot stories, Heinlein (Glory Road, Starship Troopers, Podkayne of Mars, The Green Hills of Earth), Clarke (Childhood's End). Also Dune and Lord of Light by Zelazny. I also read James Bond books. At the time Star Trek had just begun on TV, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, the Man from UNCLE and then 2001: A Space Odyssey at the movies! Back then if you were into Sci Fi you were considered a bit weird.

I got into Science Fiction through the Star Trek books. No, not the TV show. No, not the movies. The books. Watching the TV show and the movies came later for me – I like to do things backwards.

I got into fantasy as a result of playing a computer game (Betrayal at Krondor) based on Raymond E. Feist’s books. I enjoyed the game so much that I sought out his books.

Both of these events occurred in my twenties – first science fiction, then fantasy. I did of course read and enjoy books that belonged to both genres as a child, but I wasn’t very genre conscious. I just read whatever I could get my hands on and it never occurred to me to limit myself to a specific type of story.

I think the first science fiction I ever read was "Have Spacesuit - Will Travel" by Robert A. Heinlein.

When I was nine, I stayed up until 11:30 finishing "The Neverending Story" and I had a math test the next day and I didn't care. I was snatched up by the story and it wasn't going to let me go until it was finished with me. To this day, I am always on the lookout for the tale that will whisk me away again.

Jim wrote: "Chris wrote: "Playing D&D. Seriously."

I can believe that, I think it did it for a lot of people, or at least spurred them in that direction.

What struck me is that until now I'd never thought o..."

Yeah I can see your point. I rarely think of the HG Wells stuff as science fiction either. I also tend to lump Lovecraft into a more literary genre for whatever reason.

Jeffrey wrote: "When I was a kid, before Harry Potter and the recent influx of sf and fantasy for kids and young adults, I made my way into sf and fantasy from reading Susan Cooper, the Borrowers by Mary Norton an..."

Just that I could read about fictional worlds and still have the thriller /mystery /drama :]

When I was 9 years old, in 1959 (!), I would walk up and down the children's section in the library browsing until I found six books I liked (that was the limit on a kids library card) and be back next week for six more.

It was a small branch library with a small selection but they did have two Heinlein juveniles---Have Spacesuit--Will Travel and Red Planet. A few Andre Norton. Eleanore Cameron's Mushroom Planet series. Louis Slobodkin's Spaceship Under the Apple Tree.

At 13, I became eligible for an adult card (high school) and could go downtown on the bus the Main Library and access all their SF. And read everything I could.