Overread
Searching for a flower
After some chat about reading and influences in Brians reading of Lord of the Rings thread I figured this would be an interesting question to ask.
So what were your first experiences of fantasy/sci-fi worlds - what drew you into the worlds of make-believe; and for some even sparked that fire to write your own and not just read.
Mine would be my father who, oddly, has little interest in reading fantasy or sci fi in general (he's much more likely to read something botanical or at present something on antiques). However when me and my siblings were young he'd read to us. Started with those made up stories that are never written down and, by some strange coincidence, often involve a number of children with very similar names to ones self doing all kinds of things.
However in time we moved on to Narnia (which we went through twice over but never really made it as far as the Last Battle) and then to the Hobbit and thence to Lord of the Rings. I recall that whilst I was often most interested, my siblings were not so much and would be a constant source of annoyance that they'd be messing around and interrupting!
So I got what was probably the most "traditional" introduction into fantasy from those two powerful works. Oddly I never really followed that interest (though did read Dark Side of the Sun - and still think I'm about the only person in existence who's first experience of Sir Terry's writing isn't Discworld) until many years later at Uni when I decided it was time I read the Lord of the Rings myself - and then after that a legion of other fantasy works; including the first big sci-fi which was Dune (which I got at the time along with a computer game - and remains the only time I've seen a game bundled with a physical book that inspired it)
So that's a bit of my past and introduction into fantasy and sci-fi - now what's yours
So what were your first experiences of fantasy/sci-fi worlds - what drew you into the worlds of make-believe; and for some even sparked that fire to write your own and not just read.
Mine would be my father who, oddly, has little interest in reading fantasy or sci fi in general (he's much more likely to read something botanical or at present something on antiques). However when me and my siblings were young he'd read to us. Started with those made up stories that are never written down and, by some strange coincidence, often involve a number of children with very similar names to ones self doing all kinds of things.
However in time we moved on to Narnia (which we went through twice over but never really made it as far as the Last Battle) and then to the Hobbit and thence to Lord of the Rings. I recall that whilst I was often most interested, my siblings were not so much and would be a constant source of annoyance that they'd be messing around and interrupting!
So I got what was probably the most "traditional" introduction into fantasy from those two powerful works. Oddly I never really followed that interest (though did read Dark Side of the Sun - and still think I'm about the only person in existence who's first experience of Sir Terry's writing isn't Discworld) until many years later at Uni when I decided it was time I read the Lord of the Rings myself - and then after that a legion of other fantasy works; including the first big sci-fi which was Dune (which I got at the time along with a computer game - and remains the only time I've seen a game bundled with a physical book that inspired it)
So that's a bit of my past and introduction into fantasy and sci-fi - now what's yours