The Sword and Laser discussion

This has probably been done many times in our forums, but the death over the weekend of Patrick Moore, a popular BBC broadcaster, astronomer & author, got me thinking about the first sci-fi books I read.

In my case in was Patricks "Scott Saunders Space Adventure" series followed by the Last Legionary series by Douglas Hill, both in the late 70s'.

Neither series will have aged well and I'd be surprised if any of you have heard or read them, but they do hold a special place in my reading history.

What else started people along this path...?

I think my first science fiction book was Jurassic Park, and I read it in 1994, I was 8. I also remember because it was one of the first books I read after my mom died and since it was so different (for me) it helped me to keep my mind occupied.

I know that many people may saw this but I think my first sci-fi book may have been Enders Game. I was reading Mercedes Lackey who is mostly fantasy.

When I was young, I read everything; mysteries, greek mythology, books of science experiments and magic tricks, even my older sisters' teen romances. When I was 11 (1974) the library "book bus" came to my school and the librarian recommended Rocketship Galileo by Robert Heinlein. I wish I could thank that lady today because it set the course of the rest of my life in many ways.
That same year my family went to the Hobbit House restaurant for New Year's Day. The place mat was a map of Middle Earth which I was fascinated with. My sister got me The Lord of the Rings for my next birthday and I've also loved fantasy ever since.

Martin, I never read any of Patrick Moore's fiction but I remember enjoying his astronomy books when I was a teenager. I was saddened when I heard of his death.

in 7th grade, 1983'ish, we had to read the hobbit. since then it has been pretty much nothing but sci-fi/fantasy.

I honestly can't remember the first sci-fi book I also read Douglas Hill's Last Legionary series along with some of his other stuff. I still have a few of his books around and I reckon they've aged better than you probably think.

Fantasy wise it was The Hobbit and Dragonlance that got me hooked as an early teen.

I had mono as a teenager and was sick in bed for three weeks. My dad, who was a cop at the time, got a bag full of books with the covers ripped off from a grocery store where he was working special duty at. I got a heck of an entry into the genre from that bag: Lord Valentine's Castle, Shadow and Claw, The Sword of Shannara, Foundation. Never looked back.

Sci Fi, was probably something like Pern - an accidental move across from pure Fantasy whilst at university. No, tell a lie, I remember reading Starforce Red Alert at middle school, but I think I still read it as fantasy. Fantasy is all my mother's fault for reading the Hobbit to my 8 year old big sister, which I promptly listened into! :)

I remember Momo as the first novel I got to read complete as child, and later The Neverending Story and The Princess Bride as my childhood book treasures. I guess my love for fantasy genre was developed as same time as my reading addiction. I think my first sci-fi was Brave New World as a high-school reading.

I recently read some author (I think it was China Mieville, but I may be mistaken) says he answers the question "when did you start reading fantasy?" with "when did you stop?", which I think is a wonderful turnaround. Most of us read fantasy as kids, even if 'only' of the Roald Dahl type.

I was a huge fantasy reader, initially Tolkein and CS Lewis, then Alan Garner and Tanith Lee's younger books, like East of Midnight, then the fantasy series that were coming out in the 80s such as the Shannara books and the Belgariad.

In middle school I had a friend who was a big SF fan, especially Asimov. He got me into those, and my dad had a bunch of old paperbacks with lurid 60s covers - EE 'Doc' Smith, Michael Moorcock, Lin Carter, Leigh Brackett and all of Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars, Venus and Moon books. Most of those are more 'space fantasy' than SF, but I began to move more and more to SF through my teens.

The Redwall series by Brian Jacques was my introduction in reading fantasy, audio books and adult books, where in grade school I had friends reading it, and a teacher who had all the book, even ones that had not come out yet that he got in England.

For science fiction, it would have to be The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, where I got a copy as a gift in 4th grade. I did not understand it, but later love it.

Paul 'Pezski' wrote: "I recently read some author (I think it was China Mieville, but I may be mistaken) says he answers the question "when did you start reading fantasy?" with "when did you stop?", which I think is a w..."

That is a great quote. To be honest, even reading historicals, for example, is reading fantasty in some ways because they're not where I am now. In many ways Georgian Bath is as alien to the modern person I am, as Middle Earth or Pern.

Although I was introduced to the fantasy world pretty much at birth, being read the hobbit and similar stories before bed. The first Fantasy book I read on my own was Piers Anthony's Ogre Ogre when i was about 8. Since then I have been throughly hooked on the fantasy genre.

I remember reading The Neverending Story as a kid, although I'd tag it as Fantasy, more than Sci-Fi. I think my first hard SF was Dune. I must have been around 10 years old at the time, because the movie had just been released.
I still think it's one of the most remarkable books of all times, sci-fi or not.

The first book I remember buying with my own money was a used copy of Lewis Carroll's Alice books at a school used-book sale/fundraiser when I was in about 5th grade. I had always like comics and read. I remember reading Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke in middle and high school and going from there. I met Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison in college so I've always been into sf/fantasy (along with other stuff) but must admit more sf than fantasy, which this club is helping me with!

There was a scholastic book series called Animorphs in grade school which might have started me on sci-fi

Then things really kicked off when i found hitchhikers guide and enders game

I was turned onto science fiction in the UK by classic SF movie seasons on BBC2 and Dr Who. That inspired me to read the Target paperback versions of Dr Who and then onto things like the Lensman series and on into Arthur C Clarke. Fantasy came later and I think it was the Pern books that took me there.

My first Sci-Fi book was Martian Chronicles. I read it because my sister had to read it in school and when she was done, she said it was good, so I read it and that's history.

Not 100% certain, except that it would have been a media tie in. Leading candidates would be Heir to the Empire, The Star Trek TNG book Spartacus, or Jurassic Park

Can't quite remember it specifically, but I believe my first real fantasy was maybe "The Lion,The Witch, and the Wardrobe" by C.S. Lewis. Not a clue about sci-fi, though.

I think my first fantasy book was Pawn of Prophecy. That series really got me into fantasy.

For Sci-Fi, I actually have started only recently reading them. For a long time I just felt that I didn't "get" them but after starting to listen Sword & Laser, I have read couple Sci-Fi books.

My early reading career is somewhat foggy, but the first 'fantasy' book I can clearly recall was 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell at age 8 (1990). Most of the allegory went over my head at that time, and I kept reading 'Napoleon' as the ice cream flavour(s). The next book I read after that was The Similarion by Tolkien.

My first laser was Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" maybe by age 10 (1992).

Mapleson wrote: "My early reading career is somewhat foggy, but the first 'fantasy' book I can clearly recall was 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell at age 8 (1990). Most of the allegory went over my head at that time..."

"Animal Farm" read at age 8?! Wow, I remember I watched an animated film based on it as child and that it scared me a lot. Well, according to my father it made me cry like a baby (poor Boxer)

The first book that launched me into fantasy was Dealing with Dragons. Who doesn't love runaway princesses, wizards, witches and dragons.

I was just thinking about this.

For me, it was my first "reader" in grade school, those textbooks which have stories that impart some sort of lesson, usually moral. I was probably in first grade, so this would've been circa 1971.

The story that hooked me was an unassigned one. (I read all the stories in the book.) It was about two brothers who were astronauts exploring a strange world. (This was cool to me because I have a brother and astronauts were big back then. My dog was even named Eagle, after the lunar lander.) I don't recall the specifics of the world, except that it was weird. Suddenly they hear a growling sound from over a nearby hill, and a strange vehicle roars into view!

The passengers are totally strange, with some sort of weird grass growing out of their heads, and their eyes! Why, they each had two eyes! And only one head! And on the side of their vehicle were the words "Dune Buggy." Which meant the "brothers" were a two-headed alien with a single eye in each bald head.

Mind. Blown.

This thing was probably two or three pages long, yet it packed so much implicit information into its scant verbiage. It showed me how to look at the world like it was new and alien -- not that I was jaded at 7 years old, but I wasn't seeing everyday things with wonder. It pointed out how people who are seemingly so different from us are really the same underneath. And it introduced me to what I would later come to know as the "O. Henry ending," the twist at the end. Although I couldn't articulate it, even at that young age I realized the author was playing tricks with language and using my assumptions to lead me astray.

I began reading voraciously after that, seeking out science fiction. By the time I got to 7th grade and we took the comprehensive reading and vocabulary assessment test, I was reading on a college graduate level.

All thanks to a random flash fiction aimed at little kids that some writer probably spent all of 20 minutes on. :D

Oh lord I truly don't remember the first fantasy book I ever read...too many years have passed ya know? Plus my mom said i was a bookworm from birth and would devour books like other kids did candy. Maybe Wizard of Oz or Alice in Wonderland? The more i think about it it was probably Wizard. But i know the Pern books were among the early ones...the DragonLance books were in there too...oh and Dune too...so those series got me started but my love turned to obsession with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in high school and college respectively. So I credit all of them as getting me into my sword and sorcery addiction :)

Magic the Gathering turned me into a fantasy nerd at a young age, I think I was 9. MTG was in its infancy.

The first sci-fi I read was a couple years later, by William Sleator. I remeber specifically The Green Futures of Tycho and Singularity. These two books made my world seem very small, and yet full of infinite possibility.

Legacy of the Sword by Jennifer Roberson, Conan the cymerian or the Kane's saga.... those are the books that have brought me into the world of sword&laser. But I was too young to remember the exact order

I remember liking sci-fi and fantasy type cartoons and so forth as a young kid, but I didn't get into reading the genre until I saw Star Wars when I was 10. That was 1994. After that, I binged on Star Wars novels for quite awhile. At the time, there were more novels being published than I could keep up with, not that I didn't try.

Then, I saw The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001 and that finally pushed me into the realm of fantasy a couple years later, starting The Hobbit.

My parents have never been big into sci-fi or fantasy so my discovery process required outside influence. Now, I read mostly fantasy, but still like to mix in some sci-fi.

In college I worked with a guy who was also an avid reader. I was reading classics and modern thrillers, but he was always reading fantasy novels. There was a bookstore in the mall adjacent to where we worked. We often went there on our lunch break to buy new books. One day I asked him to out some books for me and after thinking about it, he picked out The Eye of the World, Wizard's First Rule, and Magician: Apprentice. I devoured those and later recommended Dune and Game of Thrones.

I'm reading the stories of how everyone got started and I just can't hold the tears when I read the sad tale of late-bloomers

My mom was always a reader when I was growing up. She introduced me to R.A. Salvatore, David Weddings and Issac Asminov. However, I didn't become a Science Fiction fan until college when I found Drizzt D'ourden, who I somehow missed earlier in life, as well as the Wheel of Time series and Raymond Fiest and Robin Hobb.
I think beside anything that has Drizzt as a character my favorite series is the Coldfire trilogy by C.S. Friedman.

My introduction to Sci-Fi was brought about by a recommendation of a bookstore employee to my parents. For Christmas when I was 9, my parents followed that recommendation and bought me a Robert Heinlein box set. The first book was "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel" and I tore through it in a matter of hours. To this day I still enjoy Heinlein's books, but have since gone on to many others, most notably William Gibson. About a year later I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons, which led me to reading The Hobbit and LOTR. Over the years I read many other fantasy books and series, but somehow drifted away from fantasy until the last couple of years. I've missed a many great books over those years and have a lot of catching up to do.

Hmm... That is so hard to say... I does Bearenstein Bears count as fantasy? if not it was Brian Jaques or but I never really felt that that was true fantasy. Katherine Applegate with Animorphs but again it doesn't feel very Fantasyesque. The next few i read but I cannot remember the order Katherine Applegate with Dragons of Autumn Twilight, The Hobbit, The Masterharper of Pern or Dealing with Dragons. cannot honestly remember what came first.

My mother used to make up bedtime stories about a team of astronauts who were exploring the solar system - I must have been between 2 and 4...then we used to listen to radio plays like The Shadow...when I was about 5 Fireball XL-5 aired...then the Scholastic book service with books like The Lost Race of Mars - Silverberg and The Runaway Robot - Del Rey (not him really tho) and A Wrinkle in Time - L'Engle, and then The bookmobile - Wells, Verne, Shelley, Stoker and this enticing looking book called Starman Jones by some guy named Heinlein.

THEN I discovered anthologies (Astounding Tales of Space and Time) AND THEN I discovered Amazing Stories magazine....

and then of course, many many many of your 'Earth Years' later I came to own Amazing Stories and am bringing it back so that other human pupae can enjoy similar experiences of discovery.

blog.amazingstoriesmag.com

Probably Tarzan as they are basically fantasy books and they are the first non Hardy's Boys books I can remember reading. From there probably the Narnia books and the few Star Wars novels that existed back in the late 70's / early 80's.

I used to be a huge D&D player. My friends and I would go from Fri night until Sat morning. At the time I only read the players hand book, monster manuels...etc..

Then one day of the guys handed me a book to check out. (for the life of me I don't remember which one) But it was definitely written by R.A Salvatore. I loved his work and read everything from him I could get my hands on.

So that's what got me started and I've never stopped.

I can't remember a time when I didn't read science fiction. My youth us a jumble of Star Trek, movie serials, and short stories. It was probably something by Arthur C. Clarke.

My first fantasy is much clearer. When I was fifteen a friend of mine gave me Homeland. I remember reading the first chapter. It described a dark elf riding on a lizard in a light-less underworld. I was hooked.

I remember the book that enthralled me. It was Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop. That is the tale that started me on my long journey down the road of Fantasy.

My first fantasy novels were C.S.Lewis and Tolkein. I think my first sf novels were Star Trek adaptations. I followed up with Asimov, Bradbury, and Clark.

Ian wrote: "I remember the book that enthralled me. It was Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop. That is the tale that started me on my long journey down the road of Fantasy."

Loved that book. I also have fond memories of
The Indian in the Cupboard

Ben Bova and Lloyd Alexander

The Wheel of Time was my first (and continuing) read. I know I started with a small one :) but I have never found any other series that is quite as epic or that has pulled me in so much.

Harry Potter was the first fantasy series I read on my own, but the Hobbit was what got me into fantasy. My mom use to read it to me when I was little. Every time they would discuss the map she would show me the maps in the book and tell me what they were talking about. My favorite part was when Elrond was telling Gandalf and Thorin the names of their elvish swords. It made me want to get a sword just so I could give it an awesome name. Yep, that book definitely helped me discover my love of fantasy.

Harry Potter without a doubt.

Borrowed it on a whim and fell in love. Read The Hobbit shortly after, though being as young as I was, everything kind of went over my head...happened with David Copperfield as well. Yea, I read that in like 4th grade.

Teacher thought I was crazy to attempt but I showed her....It took me like a month...but I finished it

I can't ever remember NOT reading fantasy and science fiction. Dr. Seuss, fairy tales, and mythology (all originally read to me by my parents or older sister) were the gateway for me, and it has never stopped. I was devouring the contents of the adult scifi/fantasy sections in early grade school, because I'd read everything in the kid's fiction section. Fantasy came first, quite naturally from the books we'd read as a family. Possibly the first "real" science fiction was Anne McCaffrey, the various Pern series', Crystal Singer, etc. but even then I don't remember that feeling "new" to me - just "next". :-)

I think I got started by the Pern series, more specifically the Pern: Harper Hall trilogy. After that I discovered the Darkangel trilogy.

Around the same time I think I got taken to the movies to see Harry Potter, which I started reading after the two first movies. I think I read them: 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 6, 7. Either number 5 or number 6 wasn't released yet at that point, so meanwhile I read up on number 1 and 2 :)

Star Wars probably really kicked me off - I was taking to see it as a 2.5 year old in 1977 and then we collected all of the Marvel Star Wars comic books which my older sister and I have read to death. So I was probably a sci-fi geek from that point forward. i started to pick up full novels with some Tom Swift and then i remember reading Robert silverberg's "Across a Billion Years" and then the real tipping point was when one of my friends in '85 brought over the D&D basic set. From there I become a "sword" type, reading the Hobbit, David Eddings, and shortly therafter the D&D books starting coming out for Forgetten Realms and Dragonlance. So kinda nice easing into age appropriate fiction before tackling larger works as I entered high school (Dune, LOTR, etc, Robert Jordan was my thing during college, etc).

I got started with the hobbit in the third grade, then the trilogy a year or two later. Give me swords and elves and a quest and I'm content!

Brandi wrote: "Where the Wild Things Are"

I love Where the Wild Things Are!! I adored that book when I was little...lol who am I kidding I still do