Kevin's Watch

Rondezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke is the earliest I can remember. (I wish to hell I could find my copy now). Red Planet, The Rolling Stones, and Have Space Suit: Will Travel by Heinlenn are all books I read at probably 7 or 8 years old. The first book I remember reading (adult books mind) was the Wizard of Oz. I also used to love Bruce Coville's juvenile sci-fi. (The Rod stories in particular. I was a little too old for him when the last book in that series came out, but I still loved it )

Skylark and Lensmen series' by E.E. Doc Smith.

My dad introduced me to these when I was 14...I was hooked ever since.

My first? Cancun, spring break 2003.

Star Trek fan, but also some early kids' fantasy, ie The Phantom Tollbooth

Skimming through this thread to see if I'd ever posted in it, I noticed this:

CovenantJr wrote:The first science fiction or fantasy I remember reading is Day of the Starwind by Douglas Hill.

Awesome series. I still love it, and his Huntsman and ColSec series too. In fact, picked up the Last Legionary quartet in a single volume not too long ago. Now if I could only find the Young Legionary prequel, I'd be a happy man.

--A

The first fantasy I remember would be The Hobbit - read to us by Mr Dunn when we were 8 or 9 - I didn't really like it so much. I read the Black Cauldron and the Weirdstone of Brisingamon - when i was 11 and thought they were o.k. but the book that started my collection and really got me into Fantasy was Jack of Shadows - by Roger Zelazny, still one of my all time favorite stand alone books - I read that when I was about 14 and then started on all the rest. I read the first 2 books of the 1st Chronicles in short order and then had to wait for the 3rd to come out. Long time ago now and happy days - I can remember feeling very grown up reading them - and perhaps I was too young to fully appreciate them, Of course I've re-read them several times since.

Movies/Tv: Star Trek (TOS), which was aired on German TV as "Raumschiff Enterprise"

Books: the Lord of the Rings and King Solomon's Mines by H Rider Haggard, which was the first book I read in English
And of course some youthful indiscretions like Lin Carter's Callisto series.
But I really got hooked after "discovering" the Sword of Shannara and TCOTC, back in '78.

Can't remember that far back. My older brother read sci-fi paperbacks and I got to read some of those. We are talking about the 1950's vintage stuff. So I really can't remember which story it was or may have been E.E. "Doc" Smith.

King Kong vs Godzilla. I was hooked on Sci-fi movies right after that. Giant Monsters will always be prominent in my art portfolio because of it.

Dragon Riders of Pern was my first serious Sci-Fi novel. I always considered the Hobbit as fantasy.

My father would introduce me to Lord Foul's Bane at twelve years of age.

The Hobbit for me, read it all on a rainy Sunday - after that I was hooked.

Dont remember first Sci Fi, probably an Iaan M Banks one.

Sorta funny that someone joins the Watch, waits a month, then, for a first post, says:

Scooter wrote:Lord of the Rings， it's good!

Hehe.

Hello there Scooter - welcome, and all that!

The Hobbit for me. The rest is history, although I was slow on the uptake. I read the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, then Covenant, then a big break, then Mordant, Gap, and the rest went from there. So I was a 2-only author reader of fantasy until relatively recently (last 5 years or so).

And now you're reading Earthsea...

Be Welcome to the Watch, Scooter.
Be Well Come and True.

I seem to be one of the few who read LOTR long after reading TCTC. I actually finished LOTR earlier this year.

Have not read LOTR yet *cringe*

My first experience with fantasy would probably be the Narnia books. As for science fiction, maybe Shade's Children by Garth Nix or Catspaw by Joan D. Vinge. This is as far back as I can remember, mind you.

Or maybe The Giver. That one counts as sci-fi, right?

Kaydene wrote:Have not read LOTR yet *cringe*

No need to cringe. I'm glad I persevered and read LOTR, and I have come to admire the world that Tolkien built, but I haven't become a rabid Tolkien fan. What reading LOTR has done for me is make me understand just how needlessly rancorous the Donaldson vs. Tolkien debate is. People get worked up over it for nothing. I treasure both Middle-earth and the Land: both can co-exist peacefully in my mind, and I appreciate each on their own terms. Of course, if you never get around to reading LOTR, I have no problem with that either. Sure, I think it's a worthwhile read, but no need to lose sleep over it.

(I've never read Narnia. Nope, not losing my sleep. )

The first "lengthy" book that really got me into reading was Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIHM, which could be argued is kinda fantasy. But after that, a combination of Star Wars and the Hobbit did me in.

First sci-fi was almost certainly something by Asimov...short stories maybe. My uncle was into him, and got me reading Asimov quite early.

--A

Unsure how far back to the beginning of the thread some of the newer posters have read (I know I'm guilty of not reading threads all the way through), I feel like repeating myself...

Menolly wrote:

aliantha wrote: I remember watching the original Star Trek. The first Star Wars movie came out when I was in high school. But I think I'd read some genre classics before that. Maybe "Farenheit 451" was the first one -- that would've been in junior high, so 1972-ish.

*glad I'm not the only one; A New Hope came out the summer between junior and senior year, and I saw it 17 times in the theatre that summer alone*

I had said earlier that Isaac Asimov was my favorite author for a long time, and he was. But, I did some searching online, and found the first story that I can recall remember causing me to love the genre. I think I read it when I was seven. It's by Ray Bradbury.

All summer in a Day

A Wizard of Earthsea

Maybe before that, Norse, Greek, and Roman mythology... if they count.