Poll query: what was the first scifi or fantasy book you read?
bay...@gmail.com
still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
there more like it?
I was in fourth grade.
rms
rms
P. Taine
probably "A Princess of Mars". I would guess second or third grade, about 1942.
But before that my mother (who gave me the ERB) had read the Alice books,
Wonderland/Looking Glass, and Kingsley's "Water Babies" I think I started on
Amazing stories a year or two later.
Steven L.
Asimov's "Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn." Sometime in elementary
school.
But actually, I had been exposed to SF and fantasy at an even earlier
age--through television. The very first TV drama I ever watched, at age
6, was The Twilight Zone.
--
Steven L.
Email: sdli...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.
bay...@gmail.com
> Read, or read to? The first book I read myself was one of the ERB Mars books,
> probably "A Princess of Mars". I would guess second or third grade, about 1942.
> But before that my mother (who gave me the ERB) had read the Alice books,
> Wonderland/Looking Glass, and Kingsley's "Water Babies" I think I started on
> Amazing stories a year or two later.
>
perversions?? The "Doctor Dolittle" series.
Mike Schilling
Asimov's _Nightfall and Other Stories_. I was in 5th grade.
Dorothy J Heydt
bayn...@yahoo.com <bay...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
>I was in fourth grade.
Hm. Counting on my fingers, I think I was also in fourth grade
when I read an SF *book*. I was reading SF before that, because
my mother did; she bought _Astounding_ and (when they started up in
the early fifties) _F&SF_ and _Galaxy_. But the first novel I
read was Stanton A. Coblenz's _Into Plutonian Depths_, which was
published as a novel in 1950 but had previously been serialized
in (says ISFDB) _Wonder Stories Quarterly,_ Spring 1931. And it
showed its age; but I was eight years old and my critical
faculties were not well-developed.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djh...@kithrup.com
Kurt Busiek
For me, it may have been THE LAND OF OZ, by L. Frank Baum. Provided
that one chooses not to count Dr. Seuss books, which are pretty
fantastic in content.
kdb
Kurt Busiek
The books are still the same, unruined.
Well, depending on one's opinion about the edits for racist content,
but that had nothing to do with movies.
kdb
Mike stone
I would later get through the juvenile sf of Angus MacVicar and Patrick
Moore, not to mention Dan Dare in the Eagle comic. The first grown-up sf
novel I can remember reading was Rex Gordon's _No Man Friday_ (First on
Mars) which I think I tackled at eight or nine.
--
Mike Stone - Peterborough, England
Q) In the Roman Civil Wars, why did all the bachelors fight for Sulla?
A) Because they weren't the Marian kind.
"bayn...@yahoo.com" <bay...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:7c73f095-d748-43f0...@34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
Will in New Haven
Mine was <Between Planets> also by Heinlein. I was sentenced to work
in the school library in Eighth Grade. I had never read _anything_
outside my school work before that because reading didn't involve
being outdoors (although I know now that one CAN read outdoors) I
think I asked Ms. Powell what to do after the my tiny workload was
completed and she pointed to some books that "happened" to be on her
desk. Or maybe I was just standing around look dumb and she suggested
I read one of those books.
I read all four of the Heinlein juvies we had in that library one
after another, read some Andre Norton, memorably <Starman's Son> then
I started looking around the library for other stuff.
--
Will in New Haven
--
Will
"What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not
warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of
resistance?" Thomas Jefferson
Dorothy J Heydt
Well, I thought they were good. The books, that is --- though
the Rex Harrison film wasn't so bad IMO. But a friend of mine,
when the books were mentioned (this was around 1970) said that
they were horrible, bigoted, biased *anti-Russian* diatribes.
Now, I don't remember anything about Russians in the books at
all. But it's been years. Can anyone remember?
Howard Brazee
Traders_, although I don't know when I read a Boys Life SF serial that
also had time travel.
Andrew Plotkin
I was not yet in first grade. So I don't have a clear memory of *the
first*.
Might have been Tom Swift Jr. Might have been _The Spaceship Under the
Apple Tree_ -- I know I encountered it in first grade but that might
not have been the first time. Might have been _Space Cat_. Might have
been the young-readers SF series by Bamman/Whitehead/Odell.
Might have been Jack Williamson's _Trapped In Space_. I know my
cousins had a copy -- a damaged library copy! The first half was
missing. I loved it. I might have been seven or eight by then, though.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
If the Bush administration hasn't thrown you in military prison without trial,
it's for one reason: they don't feel like it. Not because you're patriotic.
TechDock
"bayn...@yahoo.com" <bay...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:7c73f095-d748-43f0...@34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
"Runaway Robot" and "The Forgotten Door," when I was first introduced to the
Scholastic Book Club in the third grade.
I was rapidly subverted afterwards, as my older brother left lots of SF with
garish covers lying around for me to find (this was mid-60s). I remember
reading Van Vogt's "Slan" at an early age, my first intro to non-juvenile
SF.
- TechDock
Shawn Wilson
Same here, except for the 4th grade part.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Has to be a book? Then mine was probably _The Green Hills of Earth_,
at age seven. And no, I did not understand all the stories, not by
any means.
If you allow reading SF in other forms, then my first SF story was
"Last of the Tree People," in Adventures into the Unknown" #105 -- a
comic book. Which was literally the first story I ever read, when I
was five.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
The ninth issue of the Hugo-nominated webzine Helix
is now at http://www.helixsf.com
ronincats
library was Heinlein's _Between Planets_ and A. M. Lightner's _The
Space Olympics_, and I think I read the Lightner first. I read every
single book in the whole juvenile section by fifth grade, but then
there was a stroke of luck. Someone's estate donated a complete set of
hardback Edgar Rice Burroughs to the library, and I devoured
Pellucidar, John Carter, and Venus wholesale. My good buddy Bobby (in
fourth grade) and I fought over who would get the books when they got
too old for the library, but when I was in college, the librarian GAVE
the set to Salvation Army, for which I have never forgiven her, 40
years though it has been!
Dan Goodman
>
> Has to be a book? Then mine was probably _The Green Hills of Earth_,
> at age seven. And no, I did not understand all the stories, not by
> any means.
>
> If you allow reading SF in other forms, then my first SF story was
> "Last of the Tree People," in Adventures into the Unknown" #105 -- a
> comic book. Which was literally the first story I ever read, when I
> was five.
Not sure what was first. Early ones included: the strip Beyond Mars
(written by Jack Williamson -- who got that job because a critic had
sneered at him for writing comic-book prose), Space Western Comics,
Tommy Tomorrow, and Superman.
--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
Journal http://dsgood.livejournal.com
Futures http://clerkfuturist.wordpress.com
mirror 1: http://dsgood.insanejournal.com
mirror 2: http://dsgood.wordpress.com
Links http://del.icio.us/dsgood
William Hyde
> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
> still fairly new.
I'm pretty sure my first was by Andre Norton, and was probably
"Galactic Derelict" - at least that's the first I recall reading.
Much more Norton, and the Heinlein juveniles (starting with Red
Planet) followed
immediately.
This was in grade four, I think. I had to wait a couple of years
before I could sign out Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury, et al. My first
"adult" SF was a Clarke omnibus including "Earthlight" and
"Childhood's End". After that it was, well, read
all SF in a library, then try a new library.
I "discovered" Lester Del Rey in grade five, but
it was a prehistorical novel. I didn't discover his
SF for years.
William Hyde
David DeLaney
far enough to encompass when I started reading. I know I did a book report on
Nourse's The Universe Between when I was young with a paper illustration of
a four-sided triangle (paired with a children's book about a woman who knitted
herself a cat), and I know I read a lot of the ones mentioned by others here
_some_ time when I was under ten - the Mr. Bass series, the Spaceship Under the
Apple Tree, the Wizard of Oz (though I didn't find the sequels until junior
high), Asimov in quantity, The Forgotten Door, etc etc. But I don't know which
one was _first_.
Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Rich Horton
wrote:
I loved the Doctor Doolittle books -- they were my first obsessive
reading, I think.
Anti-Russian? Makes no sense to me at all.
The first book, however, was unambiguously racist in its depiction of
Africans. I read it first in a Bowdlerized version, with the ugly
stuff removed (at some loss to continuity!), and I was indeed shocked
later to see how offensive the excised parts really are.
Dorothy J Heydt
Rich Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote:
>On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 17:22:35 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
>wrote:
>>
>>Well, I thought they were good. The books, that is --- though
>>the Rex Harrison film wasn't so bad IMO. But a friend of mine,
>>when the books were mentioned (this was around 1970) said that
>>they were horrible, bigoted, biased *anti-Russian* diatribes.
>>Now, I don't remember anything about Russians in the books at
>>all. But it's been years. Can anyone remember?
>
>Anti-Russian? Makes no sense to me at all.
Me neither, but that's what she *said*.
>
>The first book, however, was unambiguously racist in its depiction of
>Africans. I read it first in a Bowdlerized version, with the ugly
>stuff removed (at some loss to continuity!), and I was indeed shocked
>later to see how offensive the excised parts really are.
Oh yeah. Well ... written in the early 20th century, set in the
early 19th. It is kind of what you'd expect. We *have* advanced
in some respects.
bay...@gmail.com
> Anti-Russian? Makes no sense to me at all.
>
> The first book, however, was unambiguously racist in its depiction of
> Africans. I read it first in a Bowdlerized version, with the ugly
> stuff removed (at some loss to continuity!), and I was indeed shocked
> later to see how offensive the excised parts really are.
Huh, this is interesting because it has been decades since I read the
series & I dont recall that at all--not that I would have likely
noticed, if truth be told. Nor any anti-Russian bias; anti-Russian was
not only considered normal when I was growing up, but was downright
encouraged.
The early Tarzan books were pretty racist too.
Kay Shapero
34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, bay...@gmail.com says...
_Rocket Ship Galileo_ by Robert Heinlein. (Probably in 2nd grade - I
don't recall for sure.) The only Heinlien on my school library
bookshelf, alas, though I found more when I searched further afield.
Meanwhile, back at home I noticed that the contents of one bookcase in
the living room were also science fiction, and gleefully browsed my way
through Dad's collection over the next year or so. That and took
advantage of the fact that I got home from school several hours before
he got home from work and was thus able to snag the latest issue of
Analog from the mail and get it half read before he arrived. :)
--
Kay Shapero
Signature munged - to email me use kay at domain of my website, below.
http://www.kayshapero.net
P. Taine
Oh yes, that was in the house as was the *real* Winnie-the-Pooh, and fairytale
books, some of which I can't remember the titles of anymore. (At 74 some of the
info has leaked out.) And Tarzan, and Pelucidar (sp?), etc. My mother was a
ERB fan, big time.
Franco
The first sf I read was the Doctor Doolittle books. I read them all
when I was in grammar school, but didn't realize they were sf.
Later, when I was about 12 or 13, one of my dad's friends at work gave
him some copies of Galaxy and Amazing magazines for me, and about the
same time I received as a gift Clarke's 'Islands in the Sky' in the
Winston science fiction series.
Kay Shapero
k...@see.sig.invalid says...
> In article <7c73f095-d748-43f0-be1e-662cdb881e02@
> 34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, bay...@gmail.com says...
>
> _Rocket Ship Galileo_ by Robert Heinlein. (Probably in 2nd grade - I
> don't recall for sure.) The only Heinlien on my school library
at my local library as soon as I discovered the place. Whether this was
before or after RSG, I've NO idea.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> In article <olov649u8pdvs2m2o...@4ax.com>,
> Rich Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote:
>> On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 17:22:35 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
>> wrote:
> [Dr. Doolittle]
>
>>> Well, I thought they were good. The books, that is --- though
>>> the Rex Harrison film wasn't so bad IMO. But a friend of mine,
>>> when the books were mentioned (this was around 1970) said that
>>> they were horrible, bigoted, biased *anti-Russian* diatribes.
>>> Now, I don't remember anything about Russians in the books at
>>> all. But it's been years. Can anyone remember?
>> Anti-Russian? Makes no sense to me at all.
>
> Me neither, but that's what she *said*.
There were, I believe, references to "Bolshevist conspiracies" (along
with anarchists) in at least one of the books.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
William George Ferguson
>Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
>still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
>where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
>there more like it?
>I was in fourth grade.
I can remember reading the Mushroom Planet and Shy Stegasaur books, but the
book I cite as my gateway drug that made me a lifetime sf reader was The
Stars Are Ours by Norton, in an Ace Double around 1955-56 (so I would have
been 7-8).
When I was ten, my mother gave me a SFBC membership for Chrsitmas, with the
Conklin anthology as the first books, That led me to hunt down a whole lot
of authors (Poul Anderson, John Wyndham, Alferd Bester, Van Vogt, and on
and on, that was, and is, a truly worthwhile anthology),
--
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
(Bene Gesserit)
Dorothy J Heydt
Howard Brazee
<wmgf...@newsguy.com> wrote:
>I can remember reading the Mushroom Planet and Shy Stegasaur books, but the
>book I cite as my gateway drug that made me a lifetime sf reader was The
>Stars Are Ours by Norton, in an Ace Double around 1955-56 (so I would have
>been 7-8).
I suppose we all have F&SF of an earlier age than when we "discover"
it. Magic School busses, talking animals, and such were just part of
what everybody read.
il...@rcn.com
> it. Magic School busses, talking animals, and such were just part of
> what everybody read.
Sure -- if you count things like "Jack and the Beanstalk" as Fantasy,
I read it at the age of five. Unambiguously SF... definitely read by
third grade, possibly by second.
seanc
> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
> still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
> where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
> there more like it?
> I was in fourth grade.
First read to me at three: _The Hobbit_ followed by _The Lion the
Witch and the Wardrobe_.
First read on my own, Sendak's _Where the Wild Things Are_ around
four. _A Wrinkle in Time_ and _The Forgotten Door_ came later along
with _Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH_ and _The Silver Crown_, also
by O'Brien. These were second to fourth grade.
Sean
Mike stone
news:MPG.22d992242...@news.west.earthlink.net...
> In article <7c73f095-d748-43f0-be1e-662cdb881e02@
> 34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, bay...@gmail.com says...
>
> _Rocket Ship Galileo_ by Robert Heinlein. (Probably in 2nd grade - I
> don't recall for sure.) The only Heinlien on my school library
> bookshelf, alas, though I found more when I searched further afield.
> Meanwhile, back at home I noticed that the contents of one bookcase in
> the living room were also science fiction, and gleefully browsed my way
> through Dad's collection over the next year or so. That and took
> advantage of the fact that I got home from school several hours before
> he got home from work and was thus able to snag the latest issue of
> Analog from the mail and get it half read before he arrived. :)
>
I also got into magazibne sf quite early. At around nine I got hold of
acopy of Galaxy and one of Authentic. A bit later (not sure if I was ten by
then or still nine) I found New Worlds #65, containing James White's "Sector
General". This was important less for the stories that for the cover. The
tentacled creature (illustrating SG) became my mental picture of an alien
for years after. When I got hold of Eric Trank Russell's _Men Martians and
Machines_, I pictured his Martians as looking like thta, even though they
had ten tentacles instead of six.
When I was ten, my Dad got posted to Gibraltar, and a second hand shop there
had a lot of sf, esp New Worlds and Astounding. As the Public Library had
lots of anthologies, including may Grayson ones by Bleiler and Dikty, etc, I
never looked back after that.
William December Starr
ones, it would have been either Lester del Rey's THE RUNAWAY ROBOT
or Robert Silverberg's REVOLT ON ALPHA C. This was when I was in
the third or fourth grade and at this late date I can't rememebr
which one I encountered first.
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
Matthias Warkus
> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
> still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
> where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
> there more like it?
> I was in fourth grade.
I'm not really sure whether it was first, but "Star Trek 8", by James
Blish, is the first one I can clearly recall. It mainly served to direct
my further attention to the SF shelf in the public library, but the
stories aren't bad - I especially liked "For The World is Hollow and I
Have Touched the Sky".
Note that at the time (c. 1992), my parents didn't have cable and so I
was watching ST:TNG on public TV every week yet hadn't seen any episode
of TOS. Ever.
mawa
--
http://www.prellblog.de
Mad Hamish
>Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
>still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
>where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
>there more like it?
>I was in fourth grade.
The Hobbit.
--
"Hope is replaced by fear and dreams by survival, most of us get by."
Stuart Adamson 1958-2001
Mad Hamish
Hamish Laws
newsunsp...@iinet.unspamme.net.au
Jon Schild
bayn...@yahoo.com wrote:
> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
> still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
> where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
> there more like it?
> I was in fourth grade.
At first, I just grabbed stuff off the shelves at random if it had the
little rocket symbol for science fiction. Some of it was real trash. The
only title I remember from that time was _Space Captives of the Golden
Men_ which I thought was stupid (the story, not the title). Then I got
_Time for the Stars_ by Heinlein, which I consider the first real
science fiction I read. I was 11 or 12 then.
Jon Schild
Kurt Busiek wrote:
> On 2008-07-05 07:30:23 -0700, "bayn...@yahoo.com" <bay...@gmail.com>
>
>> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
>> still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
>> where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
>> there more like it?
>> I was in fourth grade.
>
> that one chooses not to count Dr. Seuss books, which are pretty
> fantastic in content.
>
> kdb
OK, if we count fantasy and not just science fiction, I had the first
three Dr Suess books when I was first reading at age 4: _To Think That I
Saw it on Mulberry St_, _Horton Hatches the Egg_, and _The 5000 Hats of
Bartholomew Cubbins._ I also had happened across _The Land of Oz_, The
"Popular Edition" of 1939, which I still have. The Suesses are gone; I
had a mother who threw things away all the time without the courtesy of
asking the owners.
Dan Swartzendruber
One of Ben Bova's juveniles.
David Johnston
>Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
>still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
>where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
>there more like it?
>I was in fourth grade.
Really? Sure you didn't read any Dr Seuss books first?
Jim Black
> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
> still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
> where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
> there more like it?
> I was in fourth grade.
"Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars" when I was 8 or 9, and followed a few
years later by "2001: A Space Odyssey" while in middle school.
jb
John Schilling
wrote:
>Discounting outright "little kids'" books like the Mushroom Planet
>ones, it would have been either Lester del Rey's THE RUNAWAY ROBOT
>or Robert Silverberg's REVOLT ON ALPHA C. This was when I was in
>the third or fourth grade and at this late date I can't rememebr
>which one I encountered first.
There was a complete set of "Tom Swift Jr." books in my fourth-grade
classroom; that may have been the first explicit SF I read. After
that, Alan E. Nourse and _Raiders from the Rings_.
Oh, and our family library included one _Through Space to Mars_, 1910,
by house author Roy Rockwood. Kind of a second-rate Tom Swift Sr.
sort of thing, which I think I read about the time of the above.
Followed by Verne's _From the Earth to the Moon_.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*John.S...@alumni.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-718-0955 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
Walter Bushell
<7c73f095-d748-43f0...@34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
"bayn...@yahoo.com" <bay...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
> still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
> where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
> there more like it?
> I was in fourth grade.
Mine was _The Lights in the Sky are Stars_ by Fredric Brown
--
What is done in the heat of battle is (normatively) judged
by different standards than what is leisurely planned in
comfortable conference rooms.
William George Ferguson
Some of us predate Ted Geisel's ubiquity. Dr. Suess had his first
children's book published before WWIII, but his ubiquity really dates from
those two books in 1957. I read my first Andre Norton before How the Grinch
and the Cat in the Hat were published. (I did hear a recording of The 500
Hats of Bartholmew Cubbins, but I think even that was later, my mother got
it for my little brother).
Graham Woodland
> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
> still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
> where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
> there more like it?
> I was in fourth grade.
_The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_. Around the same time, a
deal of Arthurian and Norse stuff redacted for kids, although in
the cases of Gareth and Lancelot surprisingly *lightly* so. Then
_Lord of the Rings_, which gave me the fantasy bug for life and
so has a big first in another sense. All between six and eight,
as I can tell from the house it happened in, but that's as close
as I can pin it.
But there was a lot of Blyton and such before and simultaneous
with that, and that was chock-full of fantastic elements too.
SF hit me shortly after the move, when my dad hooked me with Eric
Frank Russell's _Next of Kin_.
--
Cheers,
Gray
---
To unmung address, lop off the 'be invalid' command.
James Nicoll
>
>>On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 07:30:23 -0700 (PDT), "bayn...@yahoo.com"
>><bay...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
>>>still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
>>>where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
>>>there more like it?
>>>I was in fourth grade.
>>
>>Really? Sure you didn't read any Dr Seuss books first?
>
>Some of us predate Ted Geisel's ubiquity. Dr. Suess had his first
>children's book published before WWIII, but his ubiquity really dates from
>those two books in 1957.
I don't know what bothers me more: that you are one of the time
lines with WWIII or that it happened before 1957. I guess earlier is better
from the POV of the New World (Europe tends to get baked in all scenarios).
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
James Nicoll
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <ks0274djaq83cfid7...@4ax.com>,
>William George Ferguson <wmgf...@newsguy.com> wrote:
>>On Sun, 06 Jul 2008 15:20:18 GMT, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
>>
>>>On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 07:30:23 -0700 (PDT), "bayn...@yahoo.com"
>>><bay...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
>>>>still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
>>>>where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
>>>>there more like it?
>>>>I was in fourth grade.
>>>
>>>Really? Sure you didn't read any Dr Seuss books first?
>>
>>Some of us predate Ted Geisel's ubiquity. Dr. Suess had his first
>>children's book published before WWIII, but his ubiquity really dates from
>>those two books in 1957.
>
> I don't know what bothers me more: that you are one of the time
>lines with WWIII
Are from, I mean.
Dennis L. McKiernan
as I can remember). I was nine years old.
---Dennis
Kelly West
> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
> still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
> where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
> there more like it?
> I was in fourth grade.
I still have my copy of HSWT that I bought with my mothers money in
third grade. It's the first SF Novel I ever read. However I
discovered it searching for "Between planets" which I was reading as a
Boys Life comic at the time.
Kelly
William December Starr
John Schilling <schi...@spock.usc.edu> said:
> There was a complete set of "Tom Swift Jr." books in my
> fourth-grade classroom; that may have been the first explicit SF I
> read. After that, Alan E. Nourse and _Raiders from the Rings_.
Ah yes, heroic spacemen kidnapping Earth women for breeding...
> Oh, and our family library included one _Through Space to Mars_,
> 1910, by house author Roy Rockwood. Kind of a second-rate Tom
> Swift Sr. sort of thing, which I think I read about the time of
> the above.
As Rockwood titles go, that one makes more scientific sense than
UNDER THE OCEAN TO THE SOUTH POLE or BY AIR EXPRESS TO VENUS.
(There's also FIVE THOUSAND MILES UNDERGROUND, but that might have
been meant in the same sense as Verne's twenty thousand leagues.)
William December Starr
Matthias Warkus <War...@students.uni-marburg.de> said:
> I'm not really sure whether it was first, but "Star Trek 8", by
> James Blish, is the first one I can clearly recall. It mainly
> served to direct my further attention to the SF shelf in the
> public library, but the stories aren't bad - I especially liked
> "For The World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky".
>
> Note that at the time (c. 1992), my parents didn't have cable and
> so I was watching ST:TNG on public TV every week yet hadn't seen
> any episode of TOS. Ever.
Whereas in 1967 I was depending on Blish for the episodes I'd missed
by not discovering Star Trek until it was a ways into its first
season rerun cycle. (Plus the great City On the Edge of Forever
Tragedy, in which I was watching the episode at someone else's house
and my mother pulled me out for the long drive home about forty
minutes into the broadcast.)
art...@yahoo.com
> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel",
Heinlein's Red Planet. I read it in 68 or 69
Dan Clore
> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
> still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked
> myself, where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been
> hiding it? Is there more like it? I was in fourth grade.
Jumping past things like Where the Wild Things Are and man Dr. Seuss
books, my first would be at 7-8, grade 1-2. They included The Land of
Oz, The War of the Worlds, I, Robot, stories by Poe, probably some
Heinlein, Flowers for Algernon, Beowulf, The Hobbit, and other things.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt
Lord We˙rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
D.F. Manno
> Some of us predate Ted Geisel's ubiquity. Dr. Suess had his first
> children's book published before WWIII
All of them, really.
--
D.F. Manno | dfm...@mail.com
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in
moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification
for selfishness. (John Kenneth Galbraith)
D.F. Manno
<7c73f095-d748-43f0...@34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
"bayn...@yahoo.com" <bay...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
> still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
> where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
> there more like it?
> I was in fourth grade.
"The White Mountains" by John Christopher. I was in first or second
grade. I can still remember the layout of the library and the exact
shelf the book was on. I also remember that the library had only the
first two books. It was years until I read the conclusion.
--
D.F. Manno | dfm...@mail.com
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man零 oldest exercises in
Mike Schilling
> In article
> <7c73f095-d748-43f0...@34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
> "bayn...@yahoo.com" <bay...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it
>> was
>> still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked
>> myself, where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been
>> hiding it? Is there more like it?
>> I was in fourth grade.
>
> "The White Mountains" by John Christopher. I was in first or second
> grade. I can still remember the layout of the library and the exact
> shelf the book was on. I also remember that the library had only the
> first two books. It was years until I read the conclusion.
Ouch. My public library had all three of the Foundation books [1]. I
had read the first two when a judge was shot to death in the adjacent
courthouse, resulting in guards and metal detectors throughout the
entire complex, and my parents decided to start going to a different
public library, which didn't have any of them. It was likewise years
until I read the conclusion
1. At the time there were only three. Come to think of it, that's
still true.
Mike stone
"D.F. Manno" <dfm...@mail.com> wrote in message
news:dfmanno-55E9FE...@sn-radius.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net...
.
>
> "The White Mountains" by John Christopher. I was in first or second
> grade. I can still remember the layout of the library and the exact
> shelf the book was on. I also remember that the library had only the
> first two books. It was years until I read the conclusion.
I had a similar experience with Russell's _Wasp_.
I encountered it at a second-hand shop in Gibraltar, as a serial in _New
Worlds_. As it happened, I started with the _middle section, but quickly
picked up the first as well. However, they didn't (then) have the issue with
the conclusion. I was a bit luckier though. I was only months, rather than
years, before I found the book in the library.
ncw...@hotmail.com
> bayno...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
> > still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
> > where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
> > there more like it?
> > I was in fourth grade.
>
> school.
>
I think that the first SF book I read was an abridged version of
_20,000 Leagues under the Sea_ , shortly followed by _Journey to the
Centre of the Earth_ .
> But actually, I had been exposed to SF and fantasy at an even earlier
> age--through television. The very first TV drama I ever watched, at age
> 6, was The Twilight Zone.
>
Me too, except that the series was Dr Who. My parents started
watching it before I was born, but the first episodes I remember date
from the end of Patrick Troughton's time (Cybermen in the
Underground).
Cheers,
Nigel.
Paul Colquhoun
| Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
| still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
| where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
| there more like it?
| I was in fourth grade.
"The Day of the Triffids", assigned as school reading, 2nd year of high
school. This was back in 1975ish.
--
Reverend Paul Colquhoun, ULC. http://andor.dropbear.id.au/~paulcol
Asking for technical help in newsgroups? Read this first:
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#intro
John M. Gamble
youthful reader has to think of the book in question as being
part of a special genre. I certainly read Baum's and Seuss's
books, but to me they were just books, not F/SF books.
I think the first book that I read that I thought of as belonging
to a field was *The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet", by
Eleanor Cameron. I read everything by her. Followed then by
Heinlein's *Time For The Stars* and Norton's *The Zero Stone*.
--
-john
February 28 1997: Last day libraries could order catalogue cards
from the Library of Congress.
Dwib
> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
> still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
> where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
> there more like it?
> I was in fourth grade.
Spaceship Galileo
Anthony Nance
> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
> still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
> where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
> there more like it?
> I was in fourth grade.
Skipping children's books as some others have (e.g. Seuss), mine
was either del Rey's _Tunnel Through Time_ or Silverberg's
_Planet of Death_ , probably the latter, probably 4th grade.
Neither the school library nor the children's section of our public
library had a section devoted to SF, so all SF was mixed in with the
rest of youth fiction. This contributed to my haphazard, non-standard
intro to SF, including the fact that I completely missed the juvie/YA
works of Heinlein and Norton.
Tony
Jack Bohn
>Looking over the responses, one factor that applies is that the
>youthful reader has to think of the book in question as being
>part of a special genre. I certainly read Baum's and Seuss's
>books, but to me they were just books, not F/SF books.
True, the childrens' section of our city library only arranged
the fiction alphabetically by author, and I think there is a lot
to be said for that. Still, even in the third grade or so, I
knew what KINDS of books I wanted:
Ruth Chew's books about everyday objects that had been enchanted
(and Edgar Eager's somewhat longer and somewhat older books of
the same type; _Magic by the Lake_!), _A Wrinkle in Time_, that
book with the strange list -- _The Lion, the Witch, and the
Wardrobe_, folktales, Greek, Egyptian, and Norse myths, Mrs.
Pickerel, or Danny Dunn. (There were books that were not quite
sf, but close (engineering fiction?) folks called the Whiz Kid,
or the Mad Scientist Club, who didn't go to the Moon -- at most
up in a balloon, but they learned about codes and cyphers, a
pedal-powered flywheel to make a bike go really fast, how to make
a vessel (somewhat) watertight, all sorts of interesting stuff
for kids who lead a more sheltered life.)
I may have read some Silverberg theme anthologies, Heinlein's
_Orphans of the Sky_, and _Fantastic Voyage_ earlier, I consider
my gateway drug to have been Asimov's _I, Robot_ at the
embarrassingly late age of 13. Not having gotten enough of the
Star Wars droids, I went looking for this book in the adult area,
to be told it was upstairs and back in the corner, where I also
found many other rocket-on-the-spine books.
--
-Jack
Gene
@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu:
> Skipping children's books as some others have (e.g. Seuss), mine
> was either del Rey's _Tunnel Through Time_ or Silverberg's
> _Planet of Death_ , probably the latter, probably 4th grade.
The first piece of sf I bought was Against the Fall of Night. I picked it
because I liked Islands in the Sky. Scholastic sold an edition, and gave no
hint it wasn't children's literature. It made a huge impression.
Likewise the 4th grade, I think.
Keith Wetzel AKA Space Cadet
> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
> still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
> where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
> there more like it?
> I was in fourth grade.
I have a vague memory of finding some book in my parents collection,
_No Way Back_, I check isfdb.com, does not give a summary of the book
and the cover art doesn't match what I remember. Also I do remember a
large collection, entire set? of Tom Swift jr books, I recall the
first of those was _Tom Swift and His Flying Lab_, but I must confess
my actual "gateway drug" to SF was Star Trek! But I soon learned what
real SF was and went on to read Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, etc
Just my $0.02
Keith W of St. Louis AKA Space Cadet
johnma...@yahoo.com
> Discounting outright "little kids'" books like the Mushroom Planet
> ones, it would have been either Lester del Rey's THE RUNAWAY ROBOT
> or Robert Silverberg's REVOLT ON ALPHA C. This was when I was in
> the third or fourth grade and at this late date I can't rememebr
> which one I encountered first.
>
> William December Starr <wdst...@panix.com>
That's funny, those are the first two I recall reading on my own that
might be called "Genre SF" I did read the Mushroom Planet books,
possibly a bit later, possibly a bit earlier, it's hard to put things
in sequence. And One of the Lucky Starr books was quite early, I think
it was "Pirates of the Asteroids". The Heinlein juvis were a bit later
i think, but not much. The Hobbit and LotR were read aloud to my
family by my parents (as had The Jungle Book a bit earlier) but I
*think* that was a little later than the Heinleins. The Earthsea books
were just a little later yet, but made a strong impression. Titus
Groan was also read aloud, but I read Gormenghast on my own. Oh, and
The Twenty-one Ballons was another early read aloud experience.
-JM
Chuk Goodin
>On 2008-07-05 07:30:23 -0700, "bayn...@yahoo.com" <bay...@gmail.com> said:
>
>> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
>> still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
>> where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
>> there more like it?
>> I was in fourth grade.
>
>that one chooses not to count Dr. Seuss books, which are pretty
>fantastic in content.
I was going to say Dr. Seuss -- not sure which one I read first. I was
reading Analog and Galaxy (with the occasional F&SF) before kindergarten,
with a quick progression from kids' picture books when I was around three
on up to what are now called chapter books a year or so later.
The first for-sure SF full length novel I remember now was probably _Red
Planet_ when I was six or seven. Good stuff...I was reading _Space Suit_
to my son last year.
--
chuk
Shawn Wilson
Ahem... that's ROCKETSHIP Galileo
Andrew Plotkin
If we're doing corrections, it's actually _Rocket Ship Galileo_.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
When Bush says "Stay the course," what he means is "I don't know what to
do next." He's been saying this for years now.
David Duffy
And I was very grumpy when my copy of _Metropolis_ was thrown in the
incinerator a couple of years later -- I think because I was spending
too much time reading.
David Duffy.
Ian Galbraith
> Looking over the responses, one factor that applies is that the
> youthful reader has to think of the book in question as being
> part of a special genre. I certainly read Baum's and Seuss's
> books, but to me they were just books, not F/SF books.
Very true, in that vein my first SF book was probably The Skylark of
Space. I read the Skylark series before the Lensmen series.
--
"To say that these men paid their shillings to watch twenty-two hirelings
kick a ball is merely to say that a violin is wood and catgut, that
Hamlet is so much paper and ink. For a shilling the Bruddersford United
AFC offered you conflict and art." - J.B. Priestley
Joel Olson
"Dan Swartzendruber" <dsw...@druber.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.22da9edd2...@news.lightband.com...
>
> One of Ben Bova's juveniles.
>
I'm really amazed by all you kids reading Heinlein & even Peake
while you're in kindergarten.
My first was a gift from my grandmother, Gulliver's Travels, about
when I was maybe 5th or 6th grade.
Michael Stemper
>Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel",
I couldn't begin to say what my first SF was. I gradually moved from fairy
tales and myths to Freddy the Pig, Doctor Dolittle, and Oz. From there, it
was Mushroom Planet, Danny Dunn, and Miss (quick google) Pickerll. Then, in
about fourth grade, I discovered the hard stuff: Andre Norton and RAH.
>I was in fourth grade.
If I knew where to draw the line, I could say when I started. Which of
the above *don't* count as SF?
--
Michael F. Stemper
This message contains at least 95% recycled bytes.
cryptoguy
Andrew Plotkin wrote:
> Here, Mike Schilling <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > bayn...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > > Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it
> > > was
> > > still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked
> > > myself,
> > > where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it?
> > > Is
> > > there more like it?
> > > I was in fourth grade.
> >
> > Asimov's _Nightfall and Other Stories_. I was in 5th grade.
>
> I was not yet in first grade. So I don't have a clear memory of *the
> first*.
>
> Might have been Tom Swift Jr. Might have been _The Spaceship Under the
> Apple Tree_ -- I know I encountered it in first grade but that might
> not have been the first time.
The first one I can clearly identify is 'Tom Swift and the Mysterious
Planetoid' at 7 years of age in 1965, which I later found to share
major plot elements with a non-juvenile SF book I read in the
early 70s, but the title of which escapes me at the moment (I think
it included the word 'Moon').
Which way the plaigerism went, I have no idea.
Peter Trei
Alie...@gmail.com
> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
> still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
> where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
> there more like it?
Heinlein's _Red Planet_. I had the same reaction and annoyed several
librarians (and my mother, who had to give permission for me to browse
the "adult" stacks) looking for more, which led me to many of the
books others have mentioned. I'm gleefully remembering discovering
that words like "Basidiomycetes" were real but "zurianomatichrome"
were not.
Two things about _Red Planet_; first, when I asked my mother if I
could read it she warned me it would "ruin my mind", and of course she
was right- second, I have no idea who in the family read SF at the
time (I found the book on an end table at home) and somehow I never
got around to asking whose it was. I regret that to this day.
> I was in fourth grade.
I was seven- in 1959.
Mark L. Fergerson
Maxwell Lol
> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel",
Yup. My 5th grade school library had several classics:
The Lucky Starr series.
Podkayne of Mars
Roket Ship Galileo
Farmer in the Sky
Ralph 124C41+
Tom Swift Jr.
I don't remember which one I read first.
Christopher Adams
Arguably, it was an Enid Blyton, most likely one of the Magical Faraway Tree
stories!
Fantasy or science fiction in the modern-genre, not-a-children's-book sense,
it was almost certainly I, ROBOT by Isaac Asimov. My father had a bunch of
Sixties and Seventies paperbacks still kicking around when I was young, so
it would have been one of those, and I, ROBOT is the most likely candidate.
I should ask Dad if he remembers.
--
Christopher Adams
Sydney, Australia
ncw...@hotmail.com
> On 5 Jul, 17:56, "Steven L." <sdlit...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > bayno...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > > Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
> > > still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
> > > where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
> > > there more like it?
> > > I was in fourth grade.
>
> > Asimov's "Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn." Sometime in elementary
> > school.
>
> I think that the first SF book I read was an abridged version of
> _20,000 Leagues under the Sea_ , shortly followed by _Journey to the
> Centre of the Earth_ .
>
I know, it's bad form to reply to your own posting, but I've realised
that I need to correct this. The first SF book I read was one of the
"Bleep and Booster" annuals when I was about six.
Cheers,
Nigel.
Default User
The first books I read were Tom Swift Jr. and Tom Corbett series ones.
However, I count my start down the path of serious SF reading as being
The Rest of the Robots by Isaac Asimov.
Brian
--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)
Mike stone
"nu...@bid.nes" <Alie...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:7d1c7ec1-e5f8-42e1...@m45g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
> On Jul 5, 7:30 am, "bayno...@yahoo.com" <bayn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
> > still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
> > where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
> > there more like it?
>
> Heinlein's _Red Planet_. I had the same reaction and annoyed several
> librarians (and my mother, who had to give permission for me to browse
> the "adult" stacks) looking for more, which led me to many of the
> books others have mentioned. I'm gleefully remembering discovering
> that words like "Basidiomycetes" were real but "zurianomatichrome"
> were not.
>
> Two things about _Red Planet_; first, when I asked my mother if I
> could read it she warned me it would "ruin my mind", and of course she
> was right-
That recalls an episode in my life.
Though my mother didn't really object to sf, she tended to feel I was too
"narrow" in my tastes, and urged me to read some of the Classics as well. At
around age 12, in an attempt to oblige, I got a copy of _Gulliver's Travels_
from the Public Library, and settled into reading it.
There was just one problem. I got it from the _main_ library, not the
children's section, so it wasn't the cleaned-up version usually given to
kids. Without wishing to get too explicit, shall I just say that the
well-known episode about the Palace fire in Lilliput is one of the _cleaner_
bits. Needless to say, as a 12yo I absolutely _loved_ it, and quoted all the
juicy bits with glee. After that, I was left alone irt my reading, Mum
having apparently decided that sf was the lesser evil, as in 1959/60 it
probably was.
pmfan57
> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
> still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
> where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
> there more like it?
I don't know for sure the first, but I remember clearly getting into
the Heinlein signet paperbacks. Some of those made my hair stand on
end. Puppet Masters was one of them, and the various future history
stories.
kksm19820117
cryptoguy
Googling, I find that it was 'Tom Swift and the Captive Planetoid'.
The other book seems to have been a novelization of the 1969
Hammer film "Moon Zero Two". Based on my 40 years old
memories, I still maintain it was a plaigerism.
Peter Trei
Jack Bohn
>Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
At what age? If I may ask.
This thread reminded me we had a 12-volume "childrens library"
given away by the grocery store. Pinocchio was perfect for our
age, as was The Jungle Book and The Swiss Family Robinson. My
older brother got into the Sherlock Holmes stories. But I think
we all bounced off 20,000 Leagues.
This thread is also vaguely reminding me of some quote about how
older books are given to children as older furniture is moved
from the parlor to the nursery...
--
-Jack
Mike stone
"Jack Bohn" <jack...@bright.net> wrote in message
news:3krg74da9glkbu76i...@4ax.com...
> kksm19820117 wrote:
>
> >Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
>
> At what age? If I may ask.
>
In my case,at not quite ten. Iirc I got it the Christmas before my tenth
birthday.
It was "heavy" in places but I managed.
> This thread reminded me we had a 12-volume "childrens library"
> given away by the grocery store. Pinocchio was perfect for our
> age, as was The Jungle Book and The Swiss Family Robinson. My
> older brother got into the Sherlock Holmes stories. But I think
> we all bounced off 20,000 Leagues.
>
> This thread is also vaguely reminding me of some quote about how
> older books are given to children as older furniture is moved
> from the parlor to the nursery...
>
--
Mike Stone - Peterborough, England
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> kksm19820117 wrote:
>
>> Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
>
> At what age? If I may ask.
Dunno about him. I was, I think 7 or 8 when I first read it. Then asked
what "Abridged" meant and was introduced to true horror when I realized
that people would CUT PIECES OUT OF BOOKS and still publish them.
My dad then got me the unabridged one, which I read, and followed with
The Mysterious Island, etc.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Hoges
anthology edited by Groff Conklin.
I read it over and over but no story more so than Damon Knight's
'Cabin Boy' which kind of blew my mind at the time.
The first scifi novel I read was probably some juvenile crap like 'The
Anytime Rings' by Robert Faraday or 'Kemlo And The Space Lanes' by E C
Eliot.First fantasy novel I read was probably 'Conan The Conqueror' or
maybe one of Lin Carter's Thongor thingies. First non S&S fantasy
novel was 'The Worm Ouroboros' by E R Eddison I think.
Hoges
~~~~~~~~~~~
"This country is in a weird, feeble, grotesque state and it's about
time it got
out of it and the reason it could get out of it is... ROCK MUSIC!"
--- Ken Russell
kksm19820117
It would have been at about the same age. I recall going to boarding
scholl at age 11, and I had already read the book cover to cover a few
times by then.
hamilton
> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was
> still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself,
> where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is
> there more like it?
> I was in fourth grade.
"Where the Wild Things Are" - is that Fantasy? I just bought it for
my three year old son but we had to stop half way through - he was
getting scared.
"The secret World of Og" - by Pierre Berton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_World_of_Og
Would Roald Dahl's stuff fit?
Michael Stemper
>This thread is also vaguely reminding me of some quote about how
>older books are given to children as older furniture is moved
>from the parlor to the nursery...
I believe that you're recalling something from Prof. Tolkien's essay,
"On Fairy Stories".
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
If it's "tourist season", where do I get my license?
Chuk Goodin
<sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> Dunno about him. I was, I think 7 or 8 when I first read it. Then asked
>what "Abridged" meant and was introduced to true horror when I realized
>that people would CUT PIECES OUT OF BOOKS and still publish them.
Abridging is pretty terrible. I had an abridged _Sherlock Holmes and the
Hound of the Baskervilles_...the original stories are so much better.
--
chuk
Kay Shapero
A local store had what looked like inexpensive volumes of a number of
classics which I thought my daughter would enjoy as much as I had.
Alas, I'd gotten The Three Musketeers home before I spotted the fatal
words "as retold by". I went back out and got a REAL copy of the book
to give her. Then had a bit of a problem - I'm not one for destroying
books, and I'm not one for wishing defective ones on other people - I
don't recall what I did with the thing. Leastwise, if I someday find
it's still around here somewhere I can dump it into the recycling bin so
it's not a total waste.
--
Kay Shapero
Signature munged - to email me use kay at domain of my website, below.
http://www.kayshapero.net
ncw...@hotmail.com
<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> Jack Bohn wrote:
> > kksm19820117 wrote:
>
> >> Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
>
> > At what age? If I may ask.
>
> Dunno about him. I was, I think 7 or 8 when I first read it. Then asked
> what "Abridged" meant and was introduced to true horror when I realized
> that people would CUT PIECES OUT OF BOOKS and still publish them.
>
What happened when you heard about Reader's Digest ?
Cheers,
Nigel.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
I have no idea what you mean. I have my fingers in my ears and I'm
HUMMING VERY LOUDLY.
pigstaub
my eyes (and the lack of homework production). I guess he gave up on
his curriculum and led me to the book spinrack and handed me "A
Princess of Mars". After that I devoured every Burroughs book in the
library.
Mike stone
"Chuk Goodin" <cgo...@sfu.ca> wrote in message
news:g5iq1c$arb$1...@morgoth.sfu.ca...
Ditto for unnecessary changes to text.
For some reason the works of Eric Frank Russell have undergone quite a bit
of this. I don't know if it's the author's doing or the publisher's, but
many of the changes seem very trivial.
The one that sticks in my mind is an edition of _Men, Martians and Machines_
[1] in which the "Marathon"'s pinnace is changed into a "shuttlecraft".
Makes me wonder whose Freudian slip was showing.
[1] _Classics of Modern Science Fiction_ ed George Zebrowski, pub Robson
Books, 1985.
Paul Ian Harman
The first science fiction book that I conciously read as being "science
fiction" was _The Day of the Triffids_. Finishing that book is what triggerd
me to go to the library and start checking out the science fiction shelf -
first I polished off Wyndham, then I found books by Clarke and Asimov and
never looked back.
However, with the benefit of hindsignt I realse I'd been reading speculative
fiction for years. One of my favourite series is the Tripods trilogy by John
Christopher, which I polished off 2 or 3 years before reading Triffids.
Prior to that, I was a big Roald Dahl fan; I defy anyone to claim that
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and particularly Charlie and the Great
Glass Elevator, are not speculative fiction.
And of course I have memories of watching Doctor Who going back to before I
was old enough for school.
Paul
Paul Ian Harman
news:slrng73uli.5...@andor.dropbear.id.au...
> "The Day of the Triffids", assigned as school reading, 2nd year of high
> school. This was back in 1975ish.
I envy you your English teacher.
Although, maybe it wouldn't be my favourite book if I'd had to write endless
essays on Coker.
Paul