What brought you to SF? split from EP143

[Saoirse]

Wow, I absolutely loved this one. Brilliant characterisation.

(As for the whole "young people should like SF" thing, I myself am a fourteen-year-old, and love EscapePod, as well as, of course, other SF. So, yay! We do!)

[Darwinist]

Wow, I absolutely loved this one. Brilliant characterisation.

(As for the whole "young people should like SF" thing, I myself am a fourteen-year-old, and love EscapePod, as well as, of course, other SF. So, yay! We do!)

Cool!  Welcome aboard. I wish I could get my kids in to SF. Just out of curiosity-  who are some of your favorite sci-fi authors.   

[CGFxColONeill]

I am 19 and I like sci fi as well

my fav authors are (in order) Douglas Adams ( it takes a very special sense of humor to like him but it is well worth the read)
And of course sci fi would not be the same w/o Asimov

Clark was kinda strange when I read it a few years ago... have not touched it since

[gelee]

I came late to SF.  I read a lot of fantasy growing up, but didn't really get a handle on the SF genre until I was in my twenties.  What finally got me hooked was the "Gap" series by Stephen Donaldson.  Very gritty stuff, and it was the first SF I had encountered that gave good treatment to nagging little technical details, like gravity and accelleration.

[eytanz]

When I was very young - maybe 8 or 9, I'm not sure - my father had a grad student who had taken a liking to me and would play with me occasionally and give me books to read. She was a big fan of Asimov and she gave me (translated) versions of several of his books; I remember reading I, Robot in particular. That was probably my first serious exposure to Science Fiction. By the time I was 12 or 13 I read everything I could get my hands on; by then I had switched from reading Hebrew translations to English originals and had used my annual family trips to Australia as opportunity to stock up on books for the entire year. Even though I've lived in English-speaking countries for the past 5.5 years, I still end up buying a ton of books whenever I'm in Sydney just because a trip to see my family there never feels complete if I don't.

[DDog]

Asimov was one of my earliest sci-fi loves as well. Started with I, Robot and quickly got through those, the Foundation books, and the other short stories. I haven't been able to bring myself to see the I, Robot movie--it's certainly not I, Robot the book, and it isn't even really Caves of Steel either.

I was also hooked on Anne McCaffrey, although I started with probably her most fantasy-leaning cycle Pern--the ubiquitous preface places it pretty firmly in sci-fi, but it takes more than a cursory foray to actually get to most of it story-side. I picked up her Killashandra, Acorna, and Rowan books fairly quickly after that.

In high school I started reading the Year's Best Science Fiction collections since the library had them, which got me a lot more exposure into the more current and non-novel scene.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

In my case, I think the more appropriate question would be, "Have you ever known anything besides SF?"

1977: 5-years-old and watching Star Wars (pretty much set the tone for 22 years... until Jar Jar ruined everything )

1980's: Star Trek and Twilight Zone in syndication on TV; best friends at school reading "Dune", "Watership Down", and every monster-related book we could get our hands on.  Stephen King ruled our youth.

1987: ST:TNG, discovered Vonnegut, Asimov, and Dick (after best friend got me to watch Blade Runner).

Now all four of my kids are doomed to celibacy because we've turned them into mini-trekkies, my 11-y.o. is obsessed with dragons, and I spend 55% of my free time in this forum, hanging with ... well, you.  And I'm NOT complaining. 

[Darwinist]

Hard to remember what started it for me.  It was probably Star Trek, the Planet of the Apes movies and then the Planet of the Apes TV series.  I remember being hooked on the original Battlestar Galactica. 

As far as reading goes, I was a baseball nut and pretty much read baseball books growing up until I picked up Rendezvous with Rama in Jr High and was blown away by it.  From there I moved on to other writers like Clarke.  In High School I took a English class called Satire & Sci-Fi - greatest class ever.  Read tons of great sci-fi and Vonnegut. 

[DKT]

What finally got me hooked was the "Gap" series by Stephen Donaldson.  Very gritty stuff, and it was the first SF I had encountered that gave good treatment to nagging little technical details, like gravity and accelleration.

I've read two of those books and they are pretty twisted.  I need to go pick up the third sometime 

In my case, I think the more appropriate question would be, "Have you ever known anything besides SF?"

Pretty much me right there, except I was born in 77 and I used to watch ST:TNG with my dad instead of football games.

I've always been a SF/F fan but I only got into really reading the genre contemporaries like Neil Gaiman in college.  Prior to that it was stuff like 1984, Dune, pretty much anything by Bradbury, and Star Wars novels.  I think I spent a lot more time watching SF movies than reading books before college.

[Kurt Faler]

I got started when I was in 9th grade. I somehow ended up with a copy of The Omnibus of Science Fiction ed. Groff Conklin which has got to be the absolute best collection of SF short stories from the first half of the 20th century. I would highly recommend it, and I consider myself lucky I found it when I did. It got me started in the genre with a rock solid foundation, no Asimov pun intended

I still have the same copy. Its an oversize paperback and its beat to hell, but I wouldn't trade it for any other book.

[Heradel]

Star Wars (on VHS, unaltered, and luckily those tapes still work) when I was sixish, ST:TOS afterschool on the SciFi channel during about fifth grade, the Star Wars YA novels followed by the regular ones (X-Wing being the main series) in middle and high school, and Tolkien, Asimov, Dick, and others starting in middle and high school. Granted, I'm two years into college so that's not saying much.

I actually pretty vividly remember noticing and asking about the Star Wars 3 in 1 VHS set on the corner display of a Blockbuster that's long gone and my dad buying it for me. I think the spaceships and lasers on the cover was what won me over.

[CammoBlammo]

I read a lot as a kid. My big thing was Trixie Belden and the Famous Five.

I don't quite remember how I got into SF. I really got into Fantasy at about twelve. I'd read the Chronicles of Narnia as a kid, and when I matured a bit more I read The Hobbit. That got me into Fantasy in a big way.

However, my general interests included physics and astronomy, and I came across an anthology of stories about these things when I was about twelve or thirteen. I can't remember what it was called, but there are two stories I recall. One was a near future earth story in which it had been found that audible sound is absorbed by our surroundings and contributes to structural weakness in buildings. Music was ultrasonic, and people could just get the vibe. The main character was an old school opera singer who put on a concert. I don't remember the rest. The other story involved an earth spaceship travelling at relativistic speeds, but problems with our frames of reference meant the ship returned to earth at an (apparently) extremely slow rate and there were all sorts of issues with the geometry of the crew and inside of the ship.

Does anyone know these stories? Apologies if I've misremembered them---I read the book twenty years ago!

After that I read a lot of Arthur C. Clarke, but eventually found other interests. I do remember writing a sci-fi piece for a school assignment. I thought it was full of plot holes, but the teacher thought I'd plagiarised it. Thankfully she believed me!

About three years ago I came upon Cory Doctorow's work, which I liked because I could upload it to my PDA for free.  I took a new interest in speculative fiction and soon came across PodioBooks and Asimov's and the like. From there I found Escape Pod and the format suits me fine. I hope to do a bit of writing soon, although I'm not sure what sort of market I'd like to get into. I now have children, including a ten year old daughter who has got a lot of potential literarily but no real drive. Hopefully she'll come across that one story soon which will capture her imagination as that anthology once did mine.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

I now have children, including a ten year old daughter who has got a lot of potential literarily but no real drive. Hopefully she'll come across that one story soon which will capture her imagination as that anthology once did mine.

Heh... do you hover around when she picks up something you remember really getting into, and wait for that "wow" moment?  She NEVER wants to read anything I suggest, though.... (glancing around to make sure she's not listening) ... I try to stack the deck, getting her stuff I think she'll really love at the library, and leaving it out where she can find it.

[Ocicat]

I was an odd kid.  My parents had lots of SF books around, and I loved the covers, so I decided to start delving into them, when I was in third grade or so.  But first, I did some research.  Odd kid, remember?  I figured that if I wanted to get into this whole science fiction genre, I should start at the beginning.  So I looked for the oldest SF books I could find, at home or in the library.  Jules Vern.  HG Wells.  Great stuff.

I worked my way on up.  Asimov, Jack Vance, AE Van Vogt.  Bradbury was a particular favorite, and he used to come speak at my local southern california library every year or so, making him extra special (and giving me a large collection of signed books).  By the time I got to Heinlein's juveniles, I was reading well above that level, and Time Enough for Love became a particular favorite, when I was in sixth grade or so.  Of course, I was also reading lots of fantasy - Lord of the Rings, Elric, Fafard & the Grey Mouser.  I read a lot.

And sure, I'd been exposed to science fiction before I really started reading it, like Star Trek on TV (Star Wars didn't come out until I was already reading the stuff).  But in retrospect, my real appreciation for the genre came from The Twilight Zone.  Star Trek may have space ships, but Twilight Zone was real science fiction, as far as I'm concerned...

[Darwinist]

  But in retrospect, my real appreciation for the genre came from The Twilight Zone.  Star Trek may have space ships, but Twilight Zone was real science fiction, as far as I'm concerned...

Agreed!  I completely forgot about Twilight Zone when I responded on this thread.  I remember watching it on an old black & white TV in my bedroom as a kid.   I remember being freaked out by Talking Tina and the crazy monster tearing at the wing during William Shatner's plane ride.  Great stuff.  The Sci-Fi channel often runs Twilight Zone marathons on holidays, it is fun to see those old episodes again.   

[Listener]

What finally got me hooked was the "Gap" series by Stephen Donaldson.  Very gritty stuff, and it was the first SF I had encountered that gave good treatment to nagging little technical details, like gravity and accelleration.

I've read two of those books and they are pretty twisted.  I need to go pick up the third sometime 

I started reading "A Dark and Hungry God Arises" and, because I was 14ish, I didn't really get it and gave up after the self-mutilation exotic dancer scene.

[Listener]

I got into SF via my dad's love of Star Trek when I was 4.

[gelee]

What finally got me hooked was the "Gap" series by Stephen Donaldson.  Very gritty stuff, and it was the first SF I had encountered that gave good treatment to nagging little technical details, like gravity and accelleration.

I've read two of those books and they are pretty twisted.  I need to go pick up the third sometime 

I started reading "A Dark and Hungry God Arises" and, because I was 14ish, I didn't really get it and gave up after the self-mutilation exotic dancer scene.

It's definately dark, but really a great work on the whole.  I won't spoil anything for anyone, but even though it can get tech-heavy at times, it really is character driven.  All the characters, especially Angus Thermopyle, develop realy nicely over the course of the story.  I think there are actually 5 novels in the whole series.

[eytanz]

What finally got me hooked was the "Gap" series by Stephen Donaldson.  Very gritty stuff, and it was the first SF I had encountered that gave good treatment to nagging little technical details, like gravity and accelleration.

I've read two of those books and they are pretty twisted.  I need to go pick up the third sometime 

I started reading "A Dark and Hungry God Arises" and, because I was 14ish, I didn't really get it and gave up after the self-mutilation exotic dancer scene.

It's definately dark, but really a great work on the whole.  I won't spoil anything for anyone, but even though it can get tech-heavy at times, it really is character driven.  All the characters, especially Angus Thermopyle, develop realy nicely over the course of the story.  I think there are actually 5 novels in the whole series.

I really love this series; it's a shame it was always overshadowed by the more controversial (and, in my opinion, less interesting) Thomas Covenant series. If you read them, you should read them in order. Especially, it's really worthwhile to read "The Real Story" (book 1) first - it is a bit narrower in scope from the rest of the series, but it really sets up the relationship between the characters brilliantly and reading the later novels first will spoil some of the most interesting developments.

[stePH]

I think for me it was Madeleine L'Engle.  A Wrinkle in Time was one of the first (possibly the first) novels I read as a child.  I also remember encountering and watching Star Trek at an early age.  (Born 1969 if anybody needs a reference point.)

[Tango Alpha Delta]

I think for me it was Madeleine L'Engle.  A Wrinkle in Time was one of the first (possibly the first) novels I read as a child. 

Our 5th grade teacher read us a chapter a day throughout the school year; I remember AWiT, The Great Brain, and Twenty-one Balloons as my favorites from that year.  (And considering my memory is as holey as swiss cheese that has been part of a passionate fromage a trois, that's really saying something.)


_{Edit: almost forgot my links!}

[Windup]

I can't remember a time when I didn't read science fiction, aside from a long hiatus after my daughter was born when I didn't read much fiction at all. Though I'm 45 and my memory doesn't run back quite as far as it used to. 

Early works I remember were the Heinlien Juveniles (especially the winner in the Unfortunate Titles category, The Space Cadets), and Isaac Asimov. I think I finished the Foundation trilogy before I started Jr. High.  Also a little HG Wells and Jules Verne, I think mostly because copyright had expired, and you could get them really cheap through the old Scholastic paperback book orders at school.

By teenage years, I graduated to the more "adult" Heinlien (Stranger in a Strange Land, I Will Fear No Evil, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and of course, Starship Troopers) the Asimov Robot stories, and a wide variety of other material, including Larry Niven's Known Space, Anne McCaffery and the contents of Jim Baen's Galaxy Magazine as it existed in the early to mid 80's. 

[Simon]

Hmm... I've been trying to pin this down.

I grew up in a house full of SF (my mum has something of a vast collection), and it would have been odd for me not to read the odd book...  So would it be Star Wars and Close Encounters?

Not really... If I were to pin down what got me into SF it would probably be English children's writer Nicholas Fisk...  I devoured my way through his novels when I was between 7 and 10, Trillians, A Rag A Bone And a Hank Of Hair, he wrote an absolute mountain of the things.  From him I started my way through the house SF collection, beginning at Asimov and then moving to the more writerly names.

So yeah, I've been an SF junkie pretty much since I learnt to read.

[AarrowOM]

Looking over the posts, I guess my story of sci fi entry is uncommon.  I came into sf via science, with the interest in one reinforcing my interest in the other.

I don't know when exactly it was, but it was almost certainly within a couple of years of 1992.  I saw a commercial for a LEGO space shuttle set and requested it for some upcoming holiday or other, though I said space ship.  (What kid doesn't want to be an astronaut?)  Come whatever holiday it was, I got one of the sci fi LEGO sets insteads.  Meanwhile, I was working my way through my elementary school library's [physical] science section, cementing an interest in physics and astronomy.

While I don't know what sci fi book was my first, I'll note that "A Wrinkle In Time," "Ender's Game," and a few 1960s/1970s anthologies are all contenders.

[lieffeil]

I'm 18, and my first intro to Sci Fi was Stargate. The original movie, with James Spader and the creepy androgynous god Ra. Oh yeah, baby. My mom used to put it on to make me shut up. Fourteen seasons and a movie later, and here I am, the well-adjusted individual you see before you. It's perfectly normal to think archeology is sexy, right?
Anyways, that plus the Foundation books, throw in some Douglas Adams and a whole lot of Vonnegut (though I know he protests at being classified as SF), mix it all up...
I'm still discovering the classics, and it's wonderful to be able to do it in such an interactive way. Thanks EP...