First F/SF

[BrandonMarkham]

What was the first book to get you into Fantasy and/or Science Fiction?

For me, it was The Eye of The World, three years ago that not only got me into Fantasy, but into reading as well!

So, what is yours, and why?

[MishellBaker]

I've been reading fantasy since I was very, very, small, but the first thing I can remember that really seemed to pave the way to my current obsession with heroic fantasy would be The Dark is Rising series. I remember the details only vaguely, but I clearly remember its effect on me.

Also A Wrinkle in Time and its followups were pretty instrumental in making the fine mess that is my brain. Must have read each of those a dozen times.

[kate.marshall]

Like Mishell, I've been reading F/SF since I was small. My parents are big spec fic fans, and started us out by reading The Chronicles of Narnia, the Oz books, The Hobbit, and eventually LotR out loud to us. I absolutely devoured anything in the F/SF genre, to the point that one year my brother and I were forbidden to read anything of the sort, and had to read Lloyd Alexander, Susan Cooper, and Andre Norton paperbacks stolen from my aunt in classic under-the-covers-with-flashlight fashion, which probably only strengthened the attraction. My family also loves oral storytelling, and we had a collection of tapes of folk tales and fairy tales, which definitely shaped my view of the fantastic.

Unlike Mishell, I loathed A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels, though I'm tempted to go back and see if I like them any better nowadays.

[Scott H. Andrews]

I too read Wrinkle in Time and the Narnia books in grade school, but what really hooked me was things like LOTR, Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky, and Dune.

I've reread some of them since, like LOTR, but not others, like Heinlein and Dune. I'm tempted to go back to them, but there's so much new or current stuff I also want to read..... :)

[DgB]

My introduction to Fantasy was The Chronicles of Narnia, followed by Incarnations of Immortality and Dragonlance. For SF, it was The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds.
I am a big fan of The Wheel of Time. It ranks at the top with A Song of Ice and Fire and Malazan Book of the Fallen.

[bookmole]

Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen. I cried over that, aged 6. Then came Narnia - I spent many hours searching for a way in!

[DFowler]

The Hobbit when I was very young,and then Dune at probably twelve or thirteen. Also Something Wicked This Way Comes left quite an impression.

[A Johnson]

Oh, Puddle Lane, I'm sure.

The strange thing about fantasy for me when I was small, and getting less small, was that even if I were reading something I was really too young for, even if I didn't understand or remember the details there would be something about the world and its strangeness and unfamiliarity that would stick with me.

I wonder if that's why fantasy does grab many people so young and never quite leave them alone?