Your introduction to Fantasy/Scifi

[Joshua Jones]

I started relatively young... My education included quite a few classics, and I always had an interest in space and science. I was something like 7 and diagraming a cross section of the Saturn 5 rocket, if that gives you an idea of how interested I was. So, when this interest was noted, Jules Verne was added to my reading. My first one was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, unabridged, of course, when I was 8. I finished it in two days. I was, and still am, completely enthralled with the idea of using science in fiction. Then, when I discovered literary fiction in college, I saw an opportunity to combine my philosophical interests with writing, while still including science... That is when I decided that I was going to get something written.

So, it was a strange combination of Jules Verne, Nathaniel Hawthorne, a thorough reading of classics, and my somehow being deeply interested in science and philosophy while still being very religious. This morphed into a love of SF.

 

[Joshua Jones]

Toys yes! Of course, I’m surprised it wasn’t mentioned til now...my fave toys I can remember if not actually a”sci-fi” toy-aka Star Wars or Atari space invaders were the sort to which I could make believe a fantasy world-aka dinosaurs(loved them) barbies(no I didn’t play house, I played adventure!) and LEGO’s. I also especially liked to draw/color and make “worlds” out of space rocks-remember those?

LEGOs were my thing as well. It was post-Verne, but I made this huge spacestation (three or four stories, covering the entirety of my dresser, with a dock for my Explorien Starship and fighter bay) and elaborate characterization for the LEGO people.

 

[dask]

These accounts are enjoyable to read.

Hugh mentioned reading Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian books around age 14. I mentioned above how important my 11th year was in my reading history. My 14th was also a big one. That year (1969-1970) of my life was when I read a lot of ERB and Lovecraft for the first time, and it was also the period in which Ballantine began issuing its famous fantasy series edited by Lin Carter, which had the effect of introducing me to many authors who, at the time, were to intrigue me, or if getting me more excited about them: Lord Dunsany, for example, whom, alas I can hardly read any more.

SFwise, I was pretty well acquainted with Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and perhaps a few other standard names.

The 1969-1970 year (late July-June, roughly) was also the period in which I learned that fandom existed. Marvel comics published several letters by me around this time, and at that time they included full mailing addresses. An established fan living in the same state as I (Oregon) got in touch, so, around late 1969, I had my first fanzine in hand, and wanted to make my own. I'd already drawn my own comics for years, by the way. But now I wanted to join forces with a friend and to produce a fanzine that would exist as multiple copies, not just as (in the case of my home-made comics) a few sheets of paper stapled together, one unique issue. About this time I began to order books and back issue comics through the mail. Any comics people out there remember the name of Howard M. Rogofsky?

Oh yeah, I ordered a lot of back issues from Howard Rogofsky.

 

[Extollager]

I was just recalling another thing that got me thinking about SF: Toys. Not only did I have a huge 1999 toy when I was 4, by five I had a Super Joe, the 8" SF spin off of GI Joe/Action Man (that were already going SF just before with the "Invaders" toys). I think playing with aliens, astronauts and spaceships is likely to get a lot of SF juices flowing. Books are a kind of replacement as you outgrow toys but desire an imaginative world to play in.

What about Matt Mason, with his Moon Crawler, space staion, etc.? Anyone remember those from the late 1960s?

 

[dask]

What about Matt Mason, with his Moon Crawler, space staion, etc.? Anyone remember those from the late 1960s?

No, but I got my first G.I.Joe the first year they came out. The sailor G.I. Joe. Still have it somewhere.

 

[2DaveWixon]

I was just recalling another thing that got me thinking about SF: Toys. Not only did I have a huge 1999 toy when I was 4, by five I had a Super Joe, the 8" SF spin off of GI Joe/Action Man (that were already going SF just before with the "Invaders" toys). I think playing with aliens, astronauts and spaceships is likely to get a lot of SF juices flowing. Books are a kind of replacement as you outgrow toys but desire an imaginative world to play in.

"Outgrow toys?"

???

But now you mention it, I do recall having a toy spaceship when I was very small.
I have no idea if it was a spinoff of some book or film. But I thought it was neat because it was reversible -- that is, it was built as two globes a couple of inches in diameter, with a point of sorts on each end, and with two bars holding them together...and what I appreciated was that the bars were hollow, and I could run a string through one of them, attach one end of the string to a tree -- and make the spaceship "fly" by raising or lowering the other end of the string!

I wonder whatever happened to that?

Understand, it was just a toy; it didn't make me an SF fan... I just like it as much as the other toys I played with -- the Lincoln logs, the small green plastic Army men, small toy cars, the small cowboys with their horses (which the cowboys could ride because they all had bow legs...).

I played with all of those toys at the same time, mixing them up as needed by the part of my mind that was organizing small cities and wars among the toys... (Now I recall that I even dug down enough to get underneath the sidewalk, and some of my "wars" involved the "caves" I created... It wouldn't surprise me if some of my old Army men are still down under that sidewalk....

 

[Ambrose]

My mother took me to London in the early 1950s, and bought me a copy of I, Robot - which I still have. Thereafter the local public library was my avenue into sf. Simak early made a hit, which has persisted for years. Then there were the Doc Smith books. Later I used those with my dyslexic son, reading a sentence and he reading the next, and moving up to paras and then pages. It worked!

 

[Astro Pen]

I borrowed a copy of The Silver Locusts (The Martian Chronicles) from a friends father and I was in. Followed by Asimov's Pebble in the Sky.
The Drowned World extended a the boundaries for me in terms of literature and Ossian's Ride took me to Ireland, a rare location for sci-fi.

I started writing a few years back, testing a newly installed word processor. I didn't want to type "the cat sat on the mat" so I made something up and stopped 80,000 words later Realizing I could create characters that would then surprise me was a revelation.
By half way down page one I knew some previously undiscovered magic was taking place, prior to that I had been an artist and never considered writing, but is was a duck to water thing once I started. Now two and a half novels and around fifty short stories later it turned out to be a reinvention. Though I have neglected the painting lately.

 

[JimC]

I think the first for me was 'Pebble in the Sky' by Asimov, somewhere around 1951 or 1952. 'The Rolling Stones' by Heinlein was probably second, around 1952.

I liked 'Stones' because Hazel Stone reminded me of my Grandmother (so did her doppelganger Ginny Heinlein when I met her many years later). With 'Sky', it was the Robert Browning quote that made it stick in my mind.

 

[Danny McG]

 

[2DaveWixon]

Ah, yes -- PEBBLE IN THE SKY. That was one of those books I got as a freebie for joining the SF Book Club, and I had already read it a couple of times before the Club discovered that I was only eleven... (They kicked me out but said I could keep the books they'd already sent me...which, now I think on it, was probably a pretty good piece of forward-looking PR, on their part; because it kept me coming back for more SF....)
(Four years after being kicked out, I rejoined, getting another four free books...and before too long, they discovered I was a minor...again!)("discovered," again; NOT "a minor" again...!)
They kicked me out a second time, but once again, I got to keep the freebies they'd sent me...
Third time the charm? I was still a minor when I joined for the third time; but that time they never kicked me out...)(I wonder if they never discovered ("again") that I was still a minor? or did they just give up on trying to keep me out?)

Years later, when I had lived a lot of life and was working for Gordy Dickson, helping to get him some money by making deals for reprints -- I found myself wheeling and dealing with people at the SF Book Club...it was a weird feeling!

 

[BAYLOR]

Thats quite a story Dave. You fooled them there times, awesome !

Pebble in the Sky was the first Asimov novel I read, It led me to the Foundation books.

 

[Extollager]

…. joining the SF Book Club, and I had already read it a couple of times before the Club discovered that I was only eleven... (They kicked me out but said I could keep the books they'd already sent me....

Dave! What a story. But how did they find out? I don't remember ever seeing, in their ads, that minors couldn't join. There must be a story here -- possibly that you wouldn't be able to tell, not having the info from their end.

I know I was ordering paperbacks as a kid. I suppose Mom wrote checks for me. (I think that's how I got my copy of The Hobbit and the first three Martian books by Burroughs.) Maybe the books came to our house with her name on the package, but I'd have thought it was mine. There were other books, too, that came to me but were paid for by a check signed by one of my parents. I didn't have my own checking account when I was in junior high or high school.

 

[JimC]

You guys get me to thinking about the days before my hair turned gray....
The second half of 'Second Foundation' was was serialized beginning in the November 1949 issue of Astounding as 'And Now You Don't'. Heinlein's 'Gulf' was also in that issue. That was the issue for which the Table of Contents had been listed in a predictive Letter to the Editor a year earlier in November 1948. Though I remember Arkady Darrell's face was on the cover, and I know some of the stories that were actually included in the 49 issue, I don't remember the names of all the stories predicted by the reader's letter the year before. Will someone with a better memory prompt me, please?

Edit -- I wonder who the real life model was for Arkady's portrait?

 

[Don]

The Runaway Robot by Del Rey in elementary school.
Poe, Bradbury, and others in later classes.
Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, and others from a Science Fiction Book Club.

 

[MarcUK001]

I watched Star Trek, Blakes 7, Space 1999 on TV and i was already Star Trek Novel, Arthur C Clarke, Asimov and a few others.

 

[BigBadBob141]

My first three books from Nuneaton library were:
"Way Station" by Clifford Simak.
"Faber SF 1" ed by Edmund Crispin.
"Faber SF 3" same.
I think I would have been ten or twelve at the time.
These three were closely followed by "The Best Of F&SF"(several volumes)," Analog"(a few volumes) , "Faber SF 2" , "Fall Of Moon Dust" & "The Sands Of Mars" both by Arthur C. Clarke.
"After Doomsday" by Poul Anderson.
P.S. This was in the mid Sixties!
P.P.S. My first adult horror in the late Seventies were some of the Pan Horror series, "The Shining" by Stephen King, "The Rats", "The Fog", "The Survivor" & "The Spear" all by James Herbert!

 

[Rodders]

I started with movie tie in books starting with Star Wars. After reading Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye, after that I start reading Alan Dean Foster books. My first proper Sci fi memory was reading 2010 when the movie came out.

 

[Ori Vandewalle]

I don't remember specifically. I feel like SF/F has always been a part of my life. Like, I have no memory of not knowing that Darth Vader is Luke's father. My earliest memories, though... Star Trek was always on in the house, and I have a very clear memory of Odo dodging a phaser blast by shapeshifting in what I think was the DS9 pilot. As far as books, earliest ones were probably classics like The Giver, A Wrinkle in Time, The Hobbit, and A Wizard of Earthsea.

 

[Elckerlyc]

I can't say, really. I remember listening to a radio play when I was a boy (aged....?) about a voyage to Mars that (naturally) went horribly wrong. And watching a TV-series when I was 12 about people in a train compartment being transported to another place or time and later a episode og the Twilight Zone, which I barely understood.
Was I hooked by that time? I don't think so, but there was at least some familiarity with the genre. I started reading SF when I was about 16. When I went to the library I always made sure that at least one of the books I took home was SF. Being Dutch,, this would be 3 Dutch books. English books were categorized as non-fiction or study material, which was limited to (an additional) 5 books. So kind of them librarians.