First F/SF you ever read?
Stephen Sowle
Wonderful Voyage to the Mushroom Planet." It was about a couple of boys who
are befriended by a mysterious mand (Mr. Tyco?), who was short, had a large
head, and presumably was a friendly alien. Somehow (I forget how) the boys
build a rocket, with Mr. Tyco's help, and rocket to the Mushroom Planet, which
orbits the Earth within the Moon's orbit, but is invisible to those on Earth.
I don't remember any more, but I do recall a sequel. The stories enchanted
me, but I've never seen them since. Does anyone else remember this book?
Steve Rehrauer
Oh yes, I certainly do remember it! Though I believe the title is
actually FLIGHT TO THE WONDERFUL MUSHROOM PLANET. I believe I read
it at age 8 or 9. Never encountered the sequel until long after I
was too "grownup" and jaded to enjoy it (I encountered them again
a couple of years ago in a large Boston store, so they apparently
are still in print).
A couple of other SF titles that made huge impressions on me at about
that age (these were all bought from classroom "Arrow" bookorders, as
I recall), were STRANGER FROM THE DEPTHS (by a Gary Turner, I think)
and A WRINKLE IN TIME (M. L'Engle).
The former is a wonderfully Burroughs-esque trip, filled with "lizard
men", domed undersea cities, cities deep under the Earth's mantle,
"mole cars" that burrow through solid rock, etc, etc. I still own my
copy, and steadfastly refuse to go reread it lest I spoil the memories. :-/
The latter is probably sufficiently well-known to not need a synopsis.
(Here I did make the mistake of buying the sequels as an adult, and
was thoroughly disappointed, sigh.)
--
"I feel lightheaded, Sam. I think my brain | Steve rehr...@apollo.hp.com
is out of air. But it's kind of a neat | Massachusetts Language Lab
feeling..." --Freelance Police | Smack-dab in USDA Zone 5
Yet Another Steve
> >The first I remember reading was a juvenile book called something like "The
> >Wonderful Voyage to the Mushroom Planet." It was about a couple of boys who
> >are befriended by a mysterious man (Mr. Tyco?), who was short, had a large
> >head, and presumably was a friendly alien. Somehow (I forget how) the boys
> >build a rocket, with Mr. Tyco's help, and rocket to the Mushroom Planet,
> >which orbits the Earth within the Moon's orbit, but is invisible to those
> >on Earth.
> >I don't remember any more, but I do recall a sequel. The stories enchanted
> >me, but I've never seen them since. Does anyone else remember this book?
>
> Oh yes, I certainly do remember it! Though I believe the title is
> actually FLIGHT TO THE WONDERFUL MUSHROOM PLANET. I believe I read
> it at age 8 or 9. Never encountered the sequel until long after I
> was too "grownup" and jaded to enjoy it (I encountered them again
> a couple of years ago in a large Boston store, so they apparently
> are still in print).
What a rush! I'd forgotten all about those terrific books. I think
the good guy was named Mr. Myco Bass (myco = root word for mushroom
sciences). The first one I read (THE WONDERFUL FLIGHT TO THE MUSHROOM
PLANET) was about kids building a rocket in the back yard -- Mr.
Bass somehow makes the rocket actually work, so the kids could take
CHICKENS, and save (with their sulfur-rich eggs) a planet of sulfur-
deficient mushroom people!
I just called the reference desk of the local library. Are you ready?
The author's name is Eleanor Cameron. The books are:
THE WONDERFUL FLIGHT TO THE MUSHROOM PLANET (1954)
STOWAWAY TO THE MUSHROOM PLANET (1956)
MR. BASS' PLANETOID (1958)
MYSTERY FOR MR. BASS (1960)
TIME AND MR. BASS (1967)
I'd only read the first three, and they were PERFECT, at least for this
8-10 year old SF reader!
Steve
PS - Just noticed -- what is it with these books & people named Steve?
Amy M Sutherland
smitten gave it to me, and although I thought science fiction was really
stupid, I read it and ended up hooked on the genre for life. He left
messages in the margins, and I was thrilled whenever I came upon one.
I wish that I still had that copy, but that was 15 years ago, and it is
long lost.
BTW--I ended up marrying him.
Amy Sutherland
Enchantments, Inc.
alt.cu
> In article <Cw8AF...@apollo.hp.com>, rehr...@apollo.hp.com (Steve
> Rehrauer) wrote:
> > In article <Cw7EB...@rci.ripco.com> sso...@ripco.com (Stephen Sowle) writes:
>
> > >The first I remember reading was a juvenile book called something like "The
> > >Wonderful Voyage to the Mushroom Planet." It was about a couple of boys
>
> What a rush! I'd forgotten all about those terrific books. I think
> the good guy was named Mr. Myco Bass (myco = root word for mushroom
> sciences).
OMIGOD!!!!! I have never, NEVER met ANYone, who remembered those books! I had almost written them off as a daydream I had or something...
But, on reflection, those were great books. I remember how the boys were the only ones to see the green ad in the newspaper for a rocket-building contest because they were the "right ones." How they built it from junk and spare parts. How Mr. Bass eventually left them, carried off on the breeze...
::Sigh::
Ok, now does anyone remember a series of books about the crew of a rocket that visited strange, "Mars Attacks" kind of planets? I remember one planet covered in breathable "milk" and a race of skeletal space-pirates...
Anyone?
Oh, just for the sake of the thread, I think my first SF novel was "Red Planet" by Heinlein, although it could have been "Mushroom Planet."
--
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Han Solo
Heinlein. Ever since, I've been waiting for the Mother Thing to land in
my backyard.
Phillip M. Forbes (Han Solo hs...@osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu)
-The bearucratic mentality is the only constant
in the universe...
Niccolo Machiaveli
Thaks! I wanted to post these books as "first SF", but I
couldn't remember anyhting aobut them except that the fuel they used was
called tritetramethylbenzacarbonethylene, and my parents told me that it
was the longest word in the English language (taht they knew). Of
course, I was only five at the time, so they may have been pulling my leg.
Captain Button
: The first science fiction novel I ever read was Dune. A boy with whom I was
Does this make you the start of the B. G. Breeding Program? :-)
--
- Captain Button -- but...@io.com
"Do you really think the people are happy?"
"I know that the soldiers are *very* happy shooting the pipples who
say the pipples are not happy." - Zorro, TGB
Jim Gifford
h> Heinlein. Ever since, I've been waiting for the Mother Thing to land in
h> my backyard.
You 'n me, kid. :)
(Actually, I'd probably read a dozen sf books before that one, but it was my
first RAH and my first understanding that there were other people out there who
thought this way. I understood the term 'epiphany' at that point.)
--
: Fidonet: Jim Gifford 1:203/289 .. speaking for only myself.
: Internet: Jim.G...@ubik.wmeonlin.sacbbx.com
Sean mac Aodha ui Conghailie
bookshelves. Corrupted me for life, it did. . .
Anyone ever notice that the SCA uses, nearly word for word, the oath of
fealty from Pippin to the Steward of Gondor?
--
-Sean mac Aodha ui Conghailie
West/Mists/Mists/Saint Katherine/Sir Alail Horsefriend
"Dum Vivimus, Vivamus" (While we live, let us _live_!)
"A moi! M'aidez! Les vaches!"
"Ave, Imperatrix, nos morituri te-"
David E Romm
Robert...@mts.cc.wayne.edu alt.cu (Rampant) wrote:
> > What a rush! I'd forgotten all about those terrific books. I think
> > the good guy was named Mr. Myco Bass (myco = root word for mushroom
> > sciences).
>
> OMIGOD!!!!! I have never, NEVER met ANYone, who remembered those books! I had almost written them off as a daydream I had or something...
Just for the record, I read them (or at least the first several) and
enjoyed them tremendously, as a kid. A few years ago I found one in
hardcover; maybe it was just that it was later in the series, or maybe it
was just that I was older and (comparitively) wiser, but it didn't hold up.
--
Shockwave: The longest running science fiction radio program in Earth's
history. Tapes available.
That which doesn't thrill me makes me stranger.
Dorothy J Heydt
Sean mac Aodha ui Conghailie <ao...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>Anyone ever notice that the SCA uses, nearly word for word, the oath of
>fealty from Pippin to the Steward of Gondor?
Well, it's mostly the West Kingdom and others who follow the
Western tradition. Damn straight the words are practically the
same; I put them there, in the Year Two. If you've got to steal,
steal from the best.
Dorothy J. Heydt
(Dorothea of Caer-Myrddin, in context)
djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu
University of California
Berkeley
David Halliwell
>In article <aodha-190...@b75-ehs5.lbl.gov>
> ao...@netcom.com "Sean mac Aodha ui Conghailie" writes:
>
>> Lord of the Rings. I was seven or eight and raiding my Father's
>> bookshelves. Corrupted me for life, it did. . .
>>
>> fealty from Pippin to the Steward of Gondor?
>
Society of Creative Anachronism (?) - a set of recreational medievalists.
Perhaps a bit like the 'Sealed Knot'. I thing SCA *may* have groups in
the UK, and there is a newsgroup - rec.org.sca
David
Jeff Schwartz
I don't remember if this is really the first one I read but it certainly
changed my reading preferences significantly. I don't remember reading any
SF/Fantasy before that but that's almost all I've read since. I don't even
know what prompted me to read it in the first place. I know I was on vacation
in Florida and it was just after it was released in paperback.
>==========Dorothy J Heydt, 9/20/94==========
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GO LIONS
dolan andrew patrick
"The Wonderful Flight to the MNushroom Planet"
read it in the late 1950's
The first I bougght was the 1962 paperback edition of
Philip francis Nowlan's Armageddon 2419 AD, cost 35 cents
Cherie N B
and I remember thinking during the helicopter scene where the protagonist
touched the woman's breast, "boy, this guy really *is* defective!"
sue
Do I remember correctly? Was Tom able to travel in outer space without
a suit because he took a pill that dried the blood up to prevent it from
boiling in a vacuum?
By seventh grade, I was reading Heinlein. So he gets the credit for first
"real" SF. I don't remember the first title. It could have been Starship
Troopers, but I seem to recall a tale about people emigrating to other
worlds via covered wagon and dimensional gates. The title that does stand
out was Heinlein's Puppetmasters. I read that the year Echo 1 went up.
Great stuff for a kid; aircars, slugs from Venus, and everyone naked.
Heck, bought my own copy of it 25 years later.
Harry Sue
hs...@aol.com
Ann Burlingham
In a previous article, sso...@ripco.com (Stephen Sowle) says:
>The first I remember reading was a juvenile book called something like "The
>Wonderful Voyage to the Mushroom Planet."
[...]
>I don't remember any more, but I do recall a sequel. The stories enchanted
>me, but I've never seen them since. Does anyone else remember this book?
_The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet_ and _Stowaway to the Mushrrom
Planet_. I read them in the seventies; they're by Eleanor Cameron. She
wrote the books for her son; the rest of her children's writing is more,
I don't know, serious? All of it is worth checking out, and any good
library should have her books or be able to get them.
Ah- just took a look at a catalog - I do recommend her _A Room Made of
Windows_, one of my (many) childhood favorites. (It has a ghost in it, so
call it fantasy.) (Or was that _The Court of the Stone Children_? My memory
fails. I'd better go re-read them.) And her _The Green and Burning Tree:
on the Writing and Enjoyment of Children's Books_, if you're the type
who likes essays on writing (I am).
--
It's all right - it's all right - it's all right -
She moves in mysterious ways - U2
Ann Burlingham Sears Library
ax...@po.cwru.edu Case Western Reserve University
Han Solo
^^^^^
>Heck, bought my own copy of it 25 years later.
Titan.....
Phillip M. Forbes Han So...@osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu
Marie Huwe
perhaps a trilogy by an English author by the name of Susan Cooper...
Or perhaps the C.S. Lewis Narnia series...
It's amazing how things get fuzzy!
marie
p.s. but I loved them all...
--
Marie Huwe
mh...@netcom.com
John Hall
Echoes of the last line of "Jane Eyre" ("Reader, I married him" wasn't
it?). I trust you had less grief along the way than Rochester and Jane
did, though!
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Hall Jo...@jhall.demon.co.uk | Driving erratically along
| the Information Super-Highway
Cranleigh, Surrey, England |
Jennifer J McGee
>My first book was A Wrinkle In Time...or maybe Robert E. Howard, or
>perhaps a trilogy by an English author by the name of Susan Cooper...
Actually a five-book series, and a very good one.
Besides fairy tales, the earliest fantasy-type books I remember
reading are a bunch of very juvenile books by a woman called Rith Chew.
All about kids meeting witches or discovering a talisman that stops time,
etc. Mostly cute and harmless stuff. The first books I remember reading
that I still think are high-quality were Christopher's Tripod series,
which I read voraciously. I just checked _The White Mountains_ out of
the public library for a nostalgic re-read.
>Marie Huwe
>mh...@netcom.com
--
Jennifer McGee mcge...@gold.tc.umn.edu
"If you have two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one
and a lily with the other." --Chinese proverb
Colin Rosenthal
: >Marie Huwe
: >mh...@netcom.com
I remember reading something with a title like "Lost in the Stratosphere".
Can't remember exactly when, or whether it was actually my first SF.
--
Colin Rosenthal rose...@obs.aau.dk
Teoretisk Astrofysik Center telephone 8942 3609
Aarhus Universitet fax 8612 0740
DK - 8000 Aarhus C
Denmark
`` (insert favourite Terry Pratchett quotation here) ''
The Wandering Jew
> The very first was, I think, a novel called "The Fabulous Journey of
> Hieronymous Meeker" (I'm not making this up!) [snip]
Willy Johns. 1954. Also, it was "Hieronymus", not "Hieronymous".
--
Ahasuerus
"...and the truth shall make you free"
John Proffitt
juvenile section of the public library. I must have been 9 or 10 at the
time. And I still remember some of the elements of the story...
Also very early on (pre-teen) was the Norton series of SF for young people,
including some good writing by Alan E. Norse. Trouble on Titan was one of
the titles, and I can still picture in my mind's eye the shipwrecked
protagonists making their way through the rubble of the rings of Saturn
riding a *diamond* rocket engine from an ancient civilization.
Eric Pepke
My first was either "The Fog Horn" or "A Sound of Thunder" around age 8 or
9.
Eric Pepke
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
Florida State University
pe...@scri.fsu.edu
Jim Gifford
>"real" SF. I don't remember the first title. It could have been Starship
>Troopers, but I seem to recall a tale about people emigrating to other
>worlds via covered wagon and dimensional gates. The title that does stand
>out was Heinlein's Puppetmasters. I read that the year Echo 1 went up.
>Great stuff for a kid; aircars, slugs from Venus, and everyone naked.
h> Titan.....
Slugs on the human colony on Venus also played a major part.
TODD ANDREW VIERLING
My first SF (I hate fantasy!) book I ever read was the classic 2001...
as required reading in middle school. It was the first required reading
in school that I _liked_. I continued with 2010 & 2061, then adding
pseudo-SF (1984 and Brave New World to start) to that...then read more
Clarke and since have been an avid Clarke fan.
Alan Robson
wonderful book. You'll enjoy it. It's a science fiction book called "The
Day of the Triffids" by John Wyndham".
So I read it. I was 12 years old. I've been an addict for 35 years.
Sometimes mothers have a lot to answer for! (But I forgive her - its
been a lot of fun).
--
Alan
----
_
Alan Robson tri...@iconz.co.nz o( )
The Internet Company of New Zealand / /\
Michael Meissner
| By seventh grade, I was reading Heinlein. So he gets the credit for first
| "real" SF. I don't remember the first title. It could have been Starship
| Troopers, but I seem to recall a tale about people emigrating to other
| worlds via covered wagon and dimensional gates.
Sounds like 'Tunnel in the Sky', though you don't see the covered wagons until
the last chapter. The story is about a group of high school/college kids final
test in survial skills who get placed on a planet and have to survive until
they are picked up later. Something messes up the pickup, and the kids survive
for a couple of years, and form their own society. At the end, the protagonist
is seen leading a wagon train to settle a new planet.
--
Michael Meissner email: meis...@osf.org phone: 617-621-8861
Open Software Foundation, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA, 02142
Old hackers never die, their bugs just increase.
Bonnie Bouman
into the Tripod Trilogy by John Christopher: The White Mountains, The City
of Gold & Lead, The Pool of Fire. Wonderful. Came across a book of short
stories on time travel, remember the first one which had a little boy who'd
grown up on Mars or something, his parents moved to Earth and he hated it
and ended up throwing himself off a skyscraper, I think... The librarian
started saving books for me "Oh I know you'll love these" hands me
Dragonsong and Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey. Also read all those Ruth
Chew books mentioned by someone else a couple days ago, about witches and
talismans and seven-league boots, got them for BOOK ORDER days at school!
Genma the Panda
Boy, talk about bringing back some memories! I started reading this thread,
and couldn't for the life of me remember MY first SF. Then somebody mentioned
the Madelaine L'engle books, and somebody said the Narnia Chronicles, and I
was like, "Wow! I remember reading those!" And then when the Day of the
Tripods came up, a flood of early sci-fi memories came back (boy, that was a
GREAT series! I even remember bits and pieces of the British television
adaptation I saw on PBS years ago.) Another one of my first SF books was
a series by someone named David Adams (?). It was about a great warrior on
another planet. There were four or five books in the series, and I just
remembered one of them was called something like "Blade of the Poisoner".
I wish I remembered more, but hey, when you're almost 20 years old, your
memory starts to go! :)
Steven Horowitz
sdho...@unix.amherst.edu
Marcus Eubanks
a word of it. "What were they doing in that cold waterfall, Mom, I don't
get it..."
--
Marcus Eubanks (n3etr) Temple Med '96 Philadelphia, PA USA
"...It *could* be a lot of things. Hell, it *could* be radiation sickness."
Coemgen
my mother and I was struck by the cover art on one of the novels.
On the cover, a young man with a dagger was looking through some
foliage as a mounted warrior galloped past. I was captivated by
the warrior's terrifying appearance: arms stained crimson, blazing
red eyes glaring out of the antlered skull that served as his
helmet, his wild-eyed mount.
I pestered my mother to buy the book for me, so she finally
gave in and took a look at it. Unfortunately, she decided that
it was above my reading level. Still, my eighth birthday was
coming up and some of my relatives usually sent small amounts of
money in lieu of presents, so I was able to go back to the
bookstore and buy it a few weeks later.
The book was Lloyd Alexander's "The Book of Three" and, while it
took months of reading and looking up strange new words in the
dictionary for me to get through the book, I fell in love with
it immediately and wound up reading the entire Chronicles of
Prydain many times before middle school. Still, in my opinion,
some of the best fantasy I've ever read. Sometimes you CAN
tell a book from its cover.
Coemgen
cj...@virginia.edu
mis...@csc.canterbury.ac.nz
and read it, tho I probably didn't understand half of it..
--
_ _ Ave,
(o)(o) MISC206.
( == ) EMAIL: mis...@csc.canterbury.ac.nz
/|\++/|\
//||%%||\\ ---> " Open Windows and let the bugs fly out. " <---
Linda Joy Young
Island_, however, shortly thereafter I also read (five?) of Eleanor
Cameron's Mushroom Planet books and Arthur C. Clarke's _2001_.
After reading _Mysterious Island_, I became a Jules Verne fan and read
all his books that I could find in the public library. I am looking
forward to his _Paris in the 20th Century_.
I very much like the recommendations for books that appear in this
newsgroup. I go to the local used bookstore to look for the new authors
I read about here. Is there some sort of list of the most favorite
authors of the members of this newsgroup?
Thanks,
Linda Young
The Wandering Jew
> Another one of my first SF books was
> a series by someone named David Adams (?). It was about a great warrior on
> another planet. There were four or five books in the series, and I just
> remembered one of them was called something like "Blade of the Poisoner".
Douglas Arthur Hill. One of his many many juvenile series.
Tom Burke
(or something like that). It was edited by Brian Aldiss, and had a fairly
British bent, although there were plenty of American authors included. I'm
pretty certain Nightfall was in it, and maybe 9 Billion names of God, and a
whole load more. There were another two books in the series, and I bought them
as well. I think I was 13 at the time - the classic SF capture age - and I
loved it.
I think the first novels I read would have been the John Wyndham books, plus
some of the Clarke books, plus some Heinlein.
Another commentator to this thread mentioned that she had first read the Narnia
books. I had read these earlier, but hadn't perceived them as being the same as
this SF stuff - possibly because I was brought up in a strongly Christian
family and Christian heroic literature was a commonplace. However, when I was
15 or so I read the whole of LoTR over 4 or 5 days - it was a short school
holiday and my library happened to have all three volumes in stock at the
begining of the week. I'm not going to comment on Tolkien's relationship with
Christianity, Lewis, or SF, or his writing skills - others have done that far
better than I could - but I'd say that those few days were the most intense and
vivid experience I've ever had. Interestingly, I thought LoTR was completely
different from the Narnia series.
Tom Burke
Kate Shogi
My first book was also "A Wrinkle in Time" but "Dune" was
definitely my first "adult" SF...I tried to read it when I was
around 12 and never got into it; picked it up again when I was
in high school and totally loved it.
Tom
The 'Martian Chronicles'. It was assigned by my 7th grade teacher. It
didn't take me long to clear the library of everything Bradbury had written
Then I read a couple of books by Asimov - Foundations, Robots, Gods -
that sort of stuff. Then I entered 8th grade and didn't stop reading.
- Tom Burke
0055...@informns.k12.mn.us
ANDREW VIERLING) wrote:
The first science fiction book I remember reading was Robert Silverberg's
Time of the Great Freeze. I remember sitting in the Duluth (MN) Public
Library every day after school reading it. (Apparently, it was a new book
and couldn't be checked out yet.) I don't even recall the story - but the
experience of waiting for school to end to get the the library and read the
next section is very clear in my memory.
Pamela Cowen
: My first book was A Wrinkle In Time...or maybe Robert E. Howard, or
: marie
My first was Narnia, in 2cnd grade i got handed a copy of -The Lion, the
Which, and the Wardrobe. After that the Prydain books by Lloyd
Alexander, then a Wrinkle in Time.... and my first adultish one was Pern,
my mother's a pern freak.
Steve Wall
Then all the other Heinleins in the school library, then the town
library, then Asimov, and I branched out from there.
--
Steve Wall
REDUNICORN
Burlingham) writes:
Other books in the series. Yes there were 4 of them. The are by Eleanor
Cameron. I loved all of them when I was in 4th grade 1962. All are still
in print. Lindalee Stuckey.