I got mine from my grandmother for Christmas many years ago. My third grade teacher was upset that I had this book hiding behind the textbook while she was teaching......
When I was five or six, my parents gave me the High Camp Adventure series... War of the Worlds, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea on record albums. My first Science Fiction stories and my first audiobooks all in one! They're full audio productions with actors and sound effects, and I still have all three albums to this day. In fact, come to think of it, they are the only things I've kept from my childhood.
Earliest Sci Fi I can remember reading was A Wrinkle In Time in the 6th grade, then after that, I read the others in that series. They weren't my favorite because i cant remember a thing about them, other than bits and pieces of the first book. My favorites growing up was story by Ray Bradbury "There Will Come Soft Rain" in the 7th grade. I mean, I guess that's science fiction... nuclear fallout and what not. I remember thinking it was so sad, but I couldn't stop reading. Then I had to read Monsters Are Due On Maple Street that same year. My mom got me in to watching The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. So when we had to read Monsters Are Due, I was the only one in class who knew the Twilight Zone Series. Made me like the story even more. Then, on my own, I started reading Maximum Ride series (the first 6) by James Patterson (7-9th grade), and Sharon Shinn's Samaria chronicles (started in 8th grade.... I still reread them to this day!)
I can't remember what my first first sci-fi book was, but I do remember my school cleaning out their library and giving away tonnes of Tom Swift Jr. books that I read all over the place. I also remember reading From The Earth To The Moon back when Samurai Pizza Cats was still on the air. One of my first real favourite books was Mossflower by Brian Jaques and after that one I had to go through all of the Redwall Series. But probably earliest I can remember, from when I was single digits and still learning to read were the Asterix comic books. I remember every Wednesday (I think) my mum would walk us me down to the Library after lunch and I'd get to pick out a couple of books while we waited for my sisters to meet us there after they got out of school, which would have been right by the Library had Anglican Church not been in between.
I try! But my introduction to the Redwall series was the cartoon series. I didn't have cable when I was younger and Redwall was one of the only cartoons on that wasn't for preschoolers, haha! I loved Gaurdians of Ga'Hoole growing up (older brother read it and because I followed him around a lot, when he'd finish a book, I'd pick it up and read it right after him). I had friends who were really big into Warriors. I couldn't get in to it, even though they were about cats. I'm writing. I experiment, however, I always seem to go back to science fiction/surrealism and fantasy
I would actually say that Guardians of Ga'Hoole are more sci-fi than Redwall given that the Ga'Hoole books seem to be set the world after the fall of humans. And while I kind of got that vibe from the Redwall series, I dont' remember them ever explicitly coming across human relics. But then I haven't read most of the Ga'Hoole books either, or any of the Redwall books published after 2000 or so.
My main WIP is a sci-fi/space opera. So, There Will Come Soft Rain really had an impact on me. I like the retro pulpy sci fi like that. So my WIP project takes place on a different planet. In my timeline, space exploration happened decades earlier, thus colonization of other planets happened. Though its a Sci-Fi, there is less space exploration in mine (more of a back story). The bulk of it takes place on this one Mars-like planet and the beginnings of a conflict between the human colonizers and the Natives. The Natives keep to their selves, and the humans (in the typical paranoia of post WWI era) fear/dont like outsiders in their city. So that's what I'm going off of.
No too sure. Damnation Alley The Dream Wizard -Roger Zelazny The Martian Chronicles- Ray Bradbury That is as good as I can narrow it down, and I forgot who wrote Damnation Alley.
I read a bunch of kids' sci-fi from the library when I was really young. Still in the womb, maybe. Then John Christopher's Tripods series. My mom bought me each Tom Swift Jr. book as it came out - I had about thirty of them at one time. I got bored with juvenile stuff, and my dad gave me his copy of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Boom! From there it was Clarke, Heinlein, and Asimov, along with John Wyndham. Then a subscription to Analog magazine and I was reading everybody.
@CarriageReturn Oh yeah Hammer's Slammers, I remember those, I still have them around here! My first sci-fi experience in a real sense was watching Empire Strikes Back, which was around 1991 on, I believe, Showtime and I fell madly in love with George Lucas ever, ever after. The first real sci-fi book I read was called Warsprite, but what got me really interested in it was around 1998 when I read an omnibus of the Lensmen series, and again I just fell in love and have been a massive fan of sci-fi ever since.
I used to read collections from Asimov's Science Fiction that used to show up at our house, but no one would ever admit to getting (kinda like the volumes of Readers Digest Condensed Books that still litter my library but I can't bear to get rid of for whatever reason). As a result one of the first magazine subscriptions I actually got (and still have to this day) was Asimov's and it was probably the first place I ever got a rejection from.
The Robot series by Isaac Asimov. I started reading them when I was about 15, haven't read them since. More recently, I really enjoyed his Foundation series.
I remember reading both of those! My dad is a voracious reader of Fantasy and SF, so I've got no idea what was first. He had a subscription to Analog magazine my whole life, I know I read Ender's Game when it was just a short story, but I was already well into things by then. I think the first SF book I ever got was a collection of short stories with a classic 1950s rocket ship landing on an alien planet, tail down. It included the Richard Matheson story Third From the Sun, as well as the story that was eventually plagiarized by Alex Garland to make the SF atrocity Sunshine. I remember getting a copy of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for Christmas one year, either when I was in late elementary or early junior high school, but again, I'd already read a bunch of Heinlein that I probably shouldn't have at that age. No way to tell.
First sci-fi, likely was A Wrinkle In Time. Then I read the entire Dragonriders of Pern series. Then on to the Crystal Singer series. I used to read a book a day, or every two days. In grade 4, we had this stupid word worm up on the wall, where you'd get a segment for every five books you read. I have this vague memory of my worm being much longer than anyone else's and so they paired me up with a young fella who had the shortest worm. I realize now that I was an oddity because I would read anything I could get my hands on. Even cereal boxes. My favorite books at the time were Harriet the Spy, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Aventures of Huckleberry Finn and so many more. Then as I got older, I started reading all the horror I could find. I refused to name my son Nathaniel because of the book by John Saul. At one point though, because I was also spiritual (my parents were not, nor were they readers) I read the bible and realized that horror could be used to indoctrinate evil. Or at least that's how I viewed it in my 14 year old mind. I quit reading them in their entirety. Then I moved onto romance, and I read almost all that Harlequin had ever produced. Then I began looking at fantasy. I read Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit at 14 as well. I was disgusted when Gandalf died, and refused to read on. It wasn't until months later, upon discussing the book with an older friend that I discovered he hadn't truly died, and that I should carry on reading. Which I happily did then. I then started reading National Geographic like one would read fashion magazines. My uncle had this collection that spanned from the late 60's to current (current at that time being 1983). I also read some of his art history books, and then I swapped reading for drawing and it too was an all consuming passion for a number of years. I then kept going with fantasy, Robert Jordan was one of my favorite authors. In truth, I prefer him to Tolkien, though I know there is some similarity. While I respect that Sanderson carried on for him, it was Jordan whose writing I fell into and lived in. I don't normally grieve for authors as I don't know them. Mr. Jordan though, I cried over, because in my opinion we lost a pillar of fantasy writing that day. He wrote characters that I fell deeply in love with and I have often said I want to see his Wheel of Time series made into a movie, but if they don't give it the honor it deserves I will be among the few who take to rioting! Then I started reading historical fiction, general fiction, non-fiction and science fiction when I took a job at a second-hand bookstore. It was the best of both worlds. Access to books that I didn't have to pay to read, like the library but way better selection. Then I got into some of the classics, military sci-fi, spy thrillers, westerns... I'd also say the bible, but the bible to me is so much more than a mere book.
Wow. Well read. I too would like to see Wheel as a movie.... IF they do it the honor it deserves and it's NOT Disney.
I started with Tolkien, Lovecraft, Leiber, Howard, and Moorcock. All fantasy. My first SF were Asimov and Heinlein, and also Pern (if you consider that SF). Niven and Pournelle’s The Mote in God’s Eye was also an early read Since then I’ve read a great many SF/F authors, from the golden age to the current time.
This book: But that wasn't the original cover, but a later reprint. A few years later, a friend gave me some short stories by Robert Sheckley and Richard Matheson. That hooked me on SF. Not long after that, I started reading the Grandmasters (Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke).
