Author Topic: What's the first science fiction story you remember reading?  (Read 28711 times)

ChicagoBurdman

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Reply #50 on: November 23, 2013, 02:22:23 AM
As far as my recollection goes back, I think the first thing I read was "A Sound of Thunder." I had absolutely no clue about who Bradbury was. All I knew was that the story had dinosaurs in it, and that was good enough reason for me.

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ArbysMom

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Reply #51 on: November 23, 2013, 07:51:12 PM

I read Spider's CCS after there were a few sequels. He and I started corresponding by email in 2006 when I mentioned that SciFi.com had Heinlein's date of death off by one year in their review of Variable Star, and asked him for help trying to correct it. Turns out the Library of Congress has it wrong, and that was their source, so, um, no.  We discussed Very Bad Deaths as he was writing Very Hard Choices, and whether or not he'd write a sequel to The Free Lunch (his reply:  "The problem I have is, the book ended with them on their way to the dark Thrillworld.  I don't think I want to spend a whole book of my life there...."). I had never tried corresponding with an author before, so it was rather thrilling.


Well, that's cool.  I imagine it was thrilling; I never would have had the nerve to write him. 

When I first wrote, I thought I was just contacting Spider's webmaster, asking him to pass along the information and request for help. Imagine my surprise when Spider replied personally!


Katzentatzen

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Reply #52 on: April 28, 2014, 02:35:46 AM
Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall" was definitely one of the first sci-fi stories I ever read. It really freaked me out at the time.

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skeletondragon

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Reply #53 on: April 28, 2014, 04:20:30 AM
I've been racking my brain and although I think my kindergarten teacher may have read us a picture book about an alien, I can't recall reading anything I would loosely call scifi before Commander Toad in Space by Jane Yolen, and its sequels, which I devoured around 2nd grade.

When it comes to short stories, however, I'm absolutely certain it was "That Only a Mother" by Judith Merrill, which is the first story in Pamela Sargent's absolutely wonderful anthology Women of Wonder.  I got that book for a dollar at a library sale and it changed my life forever by singlehandedly starting my obsession with science fiction short stories.



Pnakotic_Manuscripts

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I suppose the first story I would count as science fiction would be the Choose Your Own Adventure novel "Invaders of Planet Earth". It had a fairly interesting plot, at least to a child naive to the conventions of SF; electricity has been banned on Earth by hostile alien invaders, forcing us back to a simpler way of living, and your job is to save the planet. I'm not sure it's ever explained what the aliens use for energy or to power their devices.



Listener

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I suppose the first story I would count as science fiction would be the Choose Your Own Adventure novel "Invaders of Planet Earth". It had a fairly interesting plot, at least to a child naive to the conventions of SF; electricity has been banned on Earth by hostile alien invaders, forcing us back to a simpler way of living, and your job is to save the planet. I'm not sure it's ever explained what the aliens use for energy or to power their devices.

I think I remember that.

One of my very favorite books ever was a CYOA where you are a new ensign on the Enterprise.

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adrianh

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I can't really remember not reading SF. Some of my earliest memories are looking at the pictures of an adaption of some HG Wells's SF books in some collected Look & Learn magazines sometime in the early seventies. Along with their Trigan Empire comic strip. It was before I could really read so I must have been three or four - but I can still picture them in my head.

I do however have a very strong memory of the first ever book I purchased with my own money. Which was Patrick Moore's "Scott Saunders and the Spy in Space" age 7, in the summer of 1977, in the bookshop of the Shuttleworth Air & Vehicle Collection. Read it to bits. It was 10p as I recall. Earned from household chores ;-)

« Last Edit: May 09, 2014, 01:09:31 PM by adrianh »



Pnakotic_Manuscripts

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I suppose the first story I would count as science fiction would be the Choose Your Own Adventure novel "Invaders of Planet Earth". It had a fairly interesting plot, at least to a child naive to the conventions of SF; electricity has been banned on Earth by hostile alien invaders, forcing us back to a simpler way of living, and your job is to save the planet. I'm not sure it's ever explained what the aliens use for energy or to power their devices.

I think I remember that.

One of my very favorite books ever was a CYOA where you are a new ensign on the Enterprise.

That would be either http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Voyage_to_Adventure or http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Phaser_Fight, I would assume?



Listener

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I suppose the first story I would count as science fiction would be the Choose Your Own Adventure novel "Invaders of Planet Earth". It had a fairly interesting plot, at least to a child naive to the conventions of SF; electricity has been banned on Earth by hostile alien invaders, forcing us back to a simpler way of living, and your job is to save the planet. I'm not sure it's ever explained what the aliens use for energy or to power their devices.

I think I remember that.

One of my very favorite books ever was a CYOA where you are a new ensign on the Enterprise.

That would be either http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Voyage_to_Adventure or http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Phaser_Fight, I would assume?

The former.

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eytanz

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Hey, that was the book that turned me off CYOA - it's the one that made me realize, as a kid, that the different outcomes of your choices don't take place within a coherent world, and that there's no relationship between your actions and the result. If you turn left, than the guy your with turns out to be a Klingon spy. Turn right, and he is a loyal Starfleet officer. If you report to engineering, then the Enterprise is attacked by Romulans. If you report to the Bridge, it flies through a wormhole (not real examples since I no longer own a copy to look up). That bugged the hell out of me.



Pnakotic_Manuscripts

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Hey, that was the book that turned me off CYOA - it's the one that made me realize, as a kid, that the different outcomes of your choices don't take place within a coherent world, and that there's no relationship between your actions and the result. If you turn left, than the guy your with turns out to be a Klingon spy. Turn right, and he is a loyal Starfleet officer. If you report to engineering, then the Enterprise is attacked by Romulans. If you report to the Bridge, it flies through a wormhole (not real examples since I no longer own a copy to look up). That bugged the hell out of me.

That just seems like laziness. How hard could it be to make the choices even a little bit meaningful? I think the best CYOA books probably do have choices like that. I have an old copy of one of the earliest books in the series (By Balloon to Sahara, http://www.gamebooks.org/gallery/cyoa003n.jpg), I'll have to pick it up and see where it falls on the arbitrary choice scale.



stephjo

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Star Trek is the only one that comes to my mind


Richard Babley

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geeze, the first, I don't remember...

...wait, it's a very fuzzy memory... second grade advanced reading group... tooth filling is a radio... aliens in tweed suits...

'Fat Men from Space' by Daniel Pinkwater.

For a long time I really couldn't remember, and had to google the details to get the title.  'The Giver' and 'A Sound of Thunder' were also on the list, but i am pretty sure those were much later.

Does anyone remember Fatmen?



Darwinist

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Reply #63 on: July 07, 2014, 01:20:15 PM
The first science fiction I remember reading was a collection of Arthur C. Clarke's short stories, maybe when I was in 6th grade.  I remember having my mind blown with the ideas presented and I have loved science fiction ever since.

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.    -  Carl Sagan


TwoXForr

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Reply #64 on: August 09, 2014, 06:59:15 PM
Secret Under the Sea, by Gordon R. Dickson.  I recently found a paperback collection of his books titled Secrets of the Deep with the same youth hero Robby Hoenig and the unflappable "security agent for the International Bureau of Police," rMr. Lillibulero, who is  straight from the book "was good at pistol, rifle, bow abd arrow, knife and boomerang". 

A youth targeted book, but still not a bad read. 

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kibitzer

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Reply #65 on: August 10, 2014, 12:10:18 AM
Oho! Interesting. I didn't know Mr Dickson did any YA stuff.


SpareInch

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Reply #66 on: August 10, 2014, 03:07:33 PM
I can't say which was the first for certain, but the principal suspects would be...

The Iron Man, by Ted Hughes. (Apparently published as 'The Iron Giant' in The US"

Something from the 1965 Boy's World Annual (Which would be 9 years before I was born)

The Graphic Novel edition of Star Treck - The Motion Picture

Or a 1950s YA novel (If I may be permitted to use the term YA of a 50s book) called Stand By For Mars! (With the ! as part of the title as I recall) But I can't for the life of me remember who wrote it. I gather it was one of a series called 'Tom Corbett, Space Cadet' and the name Rockwell keeps surfacing in my mind, but that doesn't mean much.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2014, 03:10:10 PM by SpareInch »

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TrishEM

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Reply #67 on: August 20, 2014, 02:59:18 AM
Probably The Enormous Egg, about a boy whose chicken laid an egg that hatched into a triceratops, or maybe a cartoony invasion story whose title I can't recall, where the boss enemy turned out to be something called The Big Think-Think (I think the invaders were super-specialized like body parts working together).
Those would have been books I ran across in the children's library.
The first SFF books I remember consciously choosing were The Beasts of Tarzan (ERB) and The Forgotten Door (Alexander Key). After that, the James Blish Star Trek episode write-ups. After that, more and more and more!



Sgarre1

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Reply #68 on: August 20, 2014, 11:42:29 AM
Trish - I loved THE ENORMOUS EGG as a child.  Oliver Butterworth's later book, THE NARROW PASSAGE (1973), had a profound effect on me as well, as it was intended to be read by a reader entering adolescence, and I timed it perfectly.



Fenrix

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Reply #69 on: August 20, 2014, 02:05:38 PM
The illustrations for these books have an impact on me. I'm sure I read these. For some reason my library doesn't have them so I can't revisit and confirm.

I bet discussion of THE NARROW PASSAGE would have some interesting compare and contrast opportunities with The Grotto of the Dancing Deer over on EscapePod.

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Chuk

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Reply #70 on: September 15, 2014, 05:34:54 PM
'Fat Men from Space' by Daniel Pinkwater.

[...]

Does anyone remember Fatmen?

Yes, I love Pinkwater -- probably Alan Mendelssohn, Boy from Mars was my favourite as a kid. Later I liked the Snarkout Boys books.

I actually started reading SF before kindergarten, I think with some of my grandpa's old Analogs, Galaxies, and F&SFs. The first novel I remember reading was Heinlein's Red Planet about then.

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UnfulredJohnson

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Reply #71 on: October 12, 2014, 11:17:32 PM
I came late to the genre, the first book I can remember was Marrow by robert reed when I was about 15. It blew me the frac away. I'd never really been exposed to all these ideas- which I now recognise as tropes- and it was like somebody turning on a light. The possibilities were branching and endless and fantastic. Who knew you could imagine such things? Who knew you could invent such worlds. Sci-fi represented for me a freedom of ideas I had never previously encountered and I fell in love. You never forget your first I suppose.