The First Time You Read a given Favorite Writer You were...... You Fill In The Rest

[BAYLOR]

A writer that you became hooked from the start .Why were you so captivated and fascinated by what writer wrote ? What was it about the writer and his or her books and stories that so captivated you ? Did this writer touch your life and inspire you in some way ?

This is not limited to one choice It can be more then one writer


Thoughts ?

 

[kythe]

I read my first book by my favorite author when I was 15. I immediately felt drawn into a different world, yet a world in which I felt I had always belonged. It was like coming home...

 

[mgilmour]

I will never forget reading Dune for the first time. I was about 15 and utterly captivated by the world and concepts.

 

[Anudar]

I second you, mgilmour. I was 14 when I've read Dune, it was the first time I was reading Frank Herbert, and it wasn't the last time.

 

[MWagner]

Read the Chronicles of Corum when I was 12. It was so different from Tolkien, Lloyd Alexander, and Richard Adams. Darker, more fantastic. Tragic and weird and lurid. I probably read 20 Michael Moorcock novels over the next few years, including mind-bending stuff like the Golden Barge, The Dancers at the End of Time, and the Cornelius Chronicles. The contemporary fantasy of the day - David Eddings and Terry Brooks - seemed thin gruel in comparison.

Moorcock established my personal benchmark of 'normal' for fantasy, which has left me alienated from the mainstream of the genre ever since. When his books were republished in the 90s under a Dark Fantasy imprint, I realized the Eternal Champion, Corum, Elric, Hawkmoon, and Gloriana were not regarded as normal at all.

 

[Timba]

I know what you mean but cannot put my finger on why a certain author clicks for me as I have many favorites and they seem quite different. As a very young man I loved the Hardy Boys and Tom Swift. As I got into my teens Heinlein and Asimov along with Norton and Poul Anderson worked for me. Later I found Weber, Flint, Moon, Ringo and more and raced through all they had published. Recently I found Laurence Dahner almost addictive. I find I do not necessarily like everything an author has done at the same level but I tend to at least enjoy them. There have, of course, been many others not mentioned here (Herbert, Niven and Pournelle, Arthur Clark to name a few) but off the top of my head I think this highlights what I mean when I say I am not sure what the connection is. Perhaps it is as simple as they all write great stories.

 

[BAYLOR]

Robert E. Howard The Sword and The Phoenix . Conan and his his world drew me right in . Id never read anything quite like this and liked it , Howard's way of describing things vivid and oh so believable . It was like being there in the story with the character . In the end I read everything I could find by him.

 

[Vince W]

Dune by Frank Herbert. I was 12 and utterly hooked. I still am. I'm rereading the Dune Chronicles for Dune's 50th anniversary now. I'm not sure any other book has gripped me in quite the same way.

 

[K. Riehl]

I read The Guns of Avalon, out of order in the series but I still was captivated. A wild blend of a kingmaker game, with fantasy blurring into science fiction into action. You wanted to be Corwin, you wanted to explore Amber, you often had no idea what was going to happen next.

This led to an obsession where I collected everything I could find by Zelazny. 40 years later I still find myself wondering how Roger would have written a given book if he had taken over for current author X.

 

[Randy M.]

First read Lovecraft at 17 or 18. First writer I read after reading Poe who used language in a similar way, but in the service of a universe that was at once threatening and wondrous. His stories took me away from reality and enthralled and sometimes unnerved my teenage self.

In the 1980s I moved away from sf/f/h for a while, but two stories in one of the Datlow/Windling Best of volumes drew my attention: "The Sadness of Detail" and "The Panic Hand" both by Jonathan Carroll. Completely different in tone from the above, a softer authorial voice, writing through understatement, both stories were unnerving for different reasons, though each ultimately touch on the question of the creator and the responsibility of the creator for the creation and the consequences of that creation. Powerful fantasies, the effects of which were reinforced in me by Carroll's first novel, The Land of Laughs.


Randy M.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Frank Herbert would probably have been the first, beating Tolkien by a book - I read LoTR next. I ahd just seen the Dune movie and was inspired to read the book and was blown away.

There have been a lot more since then, but that was the first (probably)

 

[psikeyhackr]

I do not tend to think in terms of a favorite writer. I started reading SF in 4th grade and I focused on the story not the writer.

Star Surgeon (1959) by Alan E. Nourse
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1598180657/?tag=brite-21
http://manybooks.net/titles/noursea1849218492-8.html
http://librivox.org/star-surgeon-by-alan-edward-nourse/
http://www.sffaudio.com/?p=1299

I was hooked on science fiction after that. I don't recall my 2nd or 3rd books but I remember my reaction the first time I encountered and SF book I didn't like. I felt betrayed and began reading the blurbs more closely.

I guess Lois Bujold is my current favorite author but I didn't think much of the first book I read by her, Shards of Honor. The first half seemed very ordinary to me, boy meets girl on alien planet, YAWN. It was Barrayar that really impressed me. The characters are not usually very important to me, they are necessary for the story but is how interesting the story is that matters to me. Bujold made better characters and provided a good enough story and made the technology relevant to the plot.

psik

 

[Moonbat]

The first time I read Banks was Wasp Factory and it wasn't until I read State of the Art that I got really interested.
The first Pratchett Discword I read was Moving Pictures and I wasn't all that impressed, years later (quite recently in fact) I read colour of magic and then on from there, by book 3 or 4 I was hooked, just on book 18 now
The First time I read Lovecraft wasn't too long ago either, probably 4 or 5 years and I was blown away, I love his depth of language and sentence structure.
I'm not sure who else has really had an effect on me, but no more Iain M Banks to read, a finite number of Discworlds to go, and Lovecraft is down to the stories that are not so high quality now. Still I can always re-read them.

 

[BAYLOR]

The Kane Books by Karl Edward Wagner, one day in bookshop I picked up Bloodstone, had no expectations, But then I started reading the book I was hooked from page one , the character Kane was amazing, he was not hero but heroic villain. It was unlike anything id ever read prior. Wagner's story telling and prose, Wonderful stuff . I eagerly read and reveled in every one of the books. But I was disappointed that Wagner didn't writer more Kane stories then he did . I read everything I could find by him all of first rate stuff.

He was a marvelous writer , died in 1994, way too young.

 

[mgilmour]

I remember reading a little book called "Black and Blue Magic" when I was about 8. It was a magical story of a boy that used a special cream to grow wings....it was beautifully written and to this day I still remember the cliff hanger at the end.
A number of years later I was fighting with my friends who would get to read Dune first....there was only one copy in the library. I was about 13 at the time and absolutely hooked on SciFi and Fantasy. The dinner scene is still one of my most favourite in any book.

 

[TitaniumTi]

Yesterday, I finished reading Uprooted by Trudi Canavan, which enthralled me. It has been many years since I read Canavan's Magicians' Guild series, but I remember sinking into those books as well. I rarely encounter books like this now, and I think it's all about the point of view: some writers have a talent for making epic events feel personal, and the personal experience feel significant.

 

[mgilmour]

Yesterday, I finished reading Uprooted by Trudi Canavan, which enthralled me. It has been many years since I read Canavan's Magicians' Guild series, but I remember sinking into those books as well. I rarely encounter books like this now, and I think it's all about the point of view: some writers have a talent for making epic events feel personal, and the personal experience feel significant.

Trudi lives about 30 minutes from my house....I'd love to catch-up with her one day. I must admit that I made it through book 1 of the Magician's Guild series but couldn't read any more. I'm really pleased that her new novels seem to be good reading.

 

[TitaniumTi]

I must admit that I made it through book 1 of the Magician's Guild series but couldn't read any more. I'm really pleased that her new novels seem to be good reading.

That presents a challenge in identifying sources of reader appeal. Stories that hook me may not hook you. In fact, stories that hooked me a few decades ago, or a few months or even a few days ago may not catch me today.

 

[Extollager]

I've told this story before (Aug. 2012, for Mythprint):


When the door of the Coos Bay, Oregon, public library closed behind me that day in (probably) the second half of 1966, my pre-Tolkien world had just moments of existence left.


Once through the doorway, one turned right, to the children's section, or left to the adult section. If, on that day when I was 11, I poked around the children's section first, then the moment that day when I walked across to the adult section (not for the first time) was a turning point in my life.


A memory of the library's eye-catching display: the Ballantine Tolkien paperbacks were set out with the Barbara Remington Middle-earth map and/or the "Come to Middle-earth!" poster. The artwork attracted me powerfully. I liked it (still do). At that moment, it looked science-fictiony to me. I didn't think in terms of a distinct genre of fantasy... yet.

So I checked out and read The Hobbit. It connected with my existing love of Scandinavian mythology and folklore. As a boy, Tolkien desired dragons with a great desire. I desired trolls. (Look at the troll-drawings by Werenskiold and Kittelsen, in the Asbjornsen and Moe collection of Norwegian Folk Tales.) True, Tolkien's trolls talk like Cockneys. But they have the authentic troll-qualities of ill-gotten wealth, largeness, stupidity, coarseness, and dangerous appetite. Yes, I relished the hobbit, the dwarves, the wizard, the dragon-talk. But it seems people usually don't say much about Bert, William, and Tom, though; I for one was delighted: something new for me about trolls.


And in a book displayed in the adult section! Who could have expected such a thing?

 

[Juliana]

The first time I read The Lord of the Rings I was 11 and on a family holiday at the beach. I did nothing but read for three days straight until I finished it, and that particular stretch of coastline will forever hold a hint of elvish magic.

I adored the Narnia books, and wanted something in that line, but as we lived abroad (Brazil) there was a limited availability (at the time - 1980's) of interesting books in English. So my dad in desperation gave me his copy of LOTR. As mentioned, I loved the Narnia books but this took things to a whole other level. I reread it religiously every year, sometimes twice a year (see previous mention of limited book availability!), and spent hours daydreaming LOTR stories which included me as a bonus character. I guess I was writing fanfic in my head...

Needless to say, that one book probably had more influence on me than all my years of school.