SF/F that you read growing up

The more I write my own work, the more I realized how the earliest stories that I love affected me.

The very first true SF that I loved was Robert Heinlein's Future History stories, especially the Green Hills of Earth. Heinlein veered in some strange directions later in his career but his short stories are still wonderful.

I also found Isaac Asimov in my high school library and while I didn't connect to his Foundation series, I loved the Robot stories and still do. That led me to getting a subscription to Asimov's magazine, truly a gold-mine for a kid growing up in rural New England. I first read David Brin's The Postman short stories in Asimov, first read Connie Willis there, and loved S.P. Somtow's time travel and then alternate Roman history stories with Aquila.

On the less scientific side, I got a copy of Anne McCaffrey's The Dragonriders of Pern omnibus when I joined the old SF mail order book club. It still has the Cheetos stains on it.

And on the fantasy side, there was, of course, The Lord of the Rings, which inspired my first fan fiction, before it was called fan fiction. There was also Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy, a story so good that it influences Arthurian fiction today.

What are your favorites?

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Permalink Reply by Jason Sperber on March 15, 2012 at 4:20pm

There are still a couple shelves at my parents' house in my old room (which I left for college 20 years ago) full of double rows of ST novels from Pocket Books.

Permalink Reply by Bob Sandlan on March 14, 2012 at 6:40pm

Anything by Heinlein, Eddings or Pratchett whilst I was growing up. I don't think I've actually veered very far from there if I'm honest :)

Permalink Reply by Chaos Mandy Horetski on March 14, 2012 at 6:57pm

The LOTR books were read to me when I was very young. I also loved the Narnia books as well as David Eddings books when I was younger (and still to this day).

Permalink Reply by Jason Sperber on March 14, 2012 at 8:13pm

I remember loving The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander and Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword. The L'Engle trilogy. In high school I plowed through a bunch of Piers Anthony Xanth books my uncle dumped at our house. And I got really into the Pocket Books ST and ST:TNG books then too (so much so that I won a mug in a trivia contest at a con by answering a question about a detail from one novel). Oh, and I got myself a subscription to Asimov during high school and devoured those monthly, picking up authors like Allen Steele from his short work and reading his novels. And I think I read the Foundation Trilogy but what I really remember is discovering a radio play version late at night on a public radio station at the bottom of the dial and listening to it after I was supposed to be asleep on my first Sony Walkman.

Permalink Reply by Alex Llama on March 14, 2012 at 9:12pm

I read The Hobbit in middle school and it was the first book i read that i actually enjoyed. Later I discovered Douglas Adams, which remains one of my favorites to this day

Permalink Reply by David Johnson on March 14, 2012 at 11:33pm

I can't believe nobody's mentioned The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy! I read it (the four volumes) twice. I'm sure the British humor and SciFi affected me.

Permalink Reply by Bob Sandlan on March 15, 2012 at 3:37am

I've still never managed to read the books. Something about them being so thin always put me off :S

I did used to stay up late at night and listen to the BBC radio play of the series though and loved every second of it.

Permalink Reply by Alex Llama on March 15, 2012 at 6:22am

Also check out his Dirk Gently series, those are pretty hilarious too

Permalink Reply by Oliver Gingrich on March 17, 2012 at 12:46pm

Absolutely.  Hitchhiker's Guide were hilarious, although I think I heard the radio series first.  The name Zaphod Beeblebrox is lodged somewhere deep in my mind.  I actually read some of the 'older' sci-fi, like Jules Verne as well.

For fantasy, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and later Xanth books were most memorable (for a young boy!), and the Pern books.  But I read anything in which the characters had a sword.

Permalink Reply by Corrina Lawson on March 17, 2012 at 7:59pm

Um...I don't think that was available when I was growing up, at least not in the states. However, one of the first things my youngest son asked Siri (the iPhone) was "What is the meaning of life?" hoping for the right answer. 

Permalink Reply by Elroy Hammerhand on March 14, 2012 at 9:12pm

Wells, Verne, Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury, Tolkien, Donaldson

Permalink Reply by Wayne Hanks on March 15, 2012 at 1:01am

Jules Verne, HG Wells "War of the Worlds" (I had the same copy of this that the Doctor had in one of the older series (I think it was Jon Pertwee)) Asimov, Heinlein ( I loved "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"), Larry Niven ("Ringworld" ruined my chances of passing Engineering  :)

 

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