Shoshana, ahovah, I wouldn’t call The Hobbit science fiction, but rather fantasy. However, did find out about it in 5th grade from a passing mention in a juvenile science fiction book: Danny Dunn and the Voice from Space, by Jay Williams and Raymond Abrashkin. I have them to thank for turning me into a Tolkien geek, just from the phrase “That great book, The Hobbit…” I put down Danny Dunn, asking “What the heck is a hobbit?” and my life was never the same again. I immediately devoured The Lord of the Rings, and went back to the bookstore asking for The Silmarillion. But this was 1969: too early for the Silmarillion. The bookstore clerk, bless her, was knowledgeable on Middle-Earth matters and informed me that The Silmarillion would not appear until after Tolkien died, because he could never quite get it finished. When it was about to be published in 1977, I had my name on the waiting list.
The earliest science fiction book I read whose title I can remember was The Runaway Robot by Lester Del Ray. I’m pretty sure there were earlier ones, but I can’t remember their titles. (But the best Lester Del Ray book was definitely The Infinite Worlds of Maybe, a great mind-stretcher.) Early on, I read a lot of Asimov, H. G. Wells, and Jules Verne. Eleanor Cameron took me on several trips to the Mushroom Planet. Years later, in college, I took some “trips” of my own to the Mushroom Planet.
Wow. That takes me back. How far back I don’t know, but waaaaay back. That’s the first time I’ve thought of those for many, many years. I don’t even remember anything about the plot - something about a couple of kids with a weird neighbor with a bunch of mushrooms in his basement. And I may be remembering wrong.
I remeber being very excited a couple of years ago when I picked up the second and third book in that series used someplace (I was given the first book as a gift as a kid, and had borrowed the sequels from the library to read them). However, that wasn’t the first John Christopher book I ever read - the first was The Lotus Eaters
Has anyone ever re-read any of their childhood favorites as adults? How did you react?
I remember Danny Dunn and John Christopher, but, like many British SF nuts of a certain age, my first introduction to the genre came from Hugh Walters - I think Mission to Mercury was the first of his I read. (Walters’ international team of young astronauts managed to cover pretty much the whole of the solar system during their career). I still look back on those books fondly. They’re almost unobtainable now - most British libraries apparently disposed of their copies long ago. I actually own copies of Blast Off at Woomera (the very first book) and Expedition Venus, and I am not parting with them.
When I was in the 3rd grade, I read a book titled “The 7 Science-Fiction Novels of H.G. Wells”, which included:
War of the Worlds
Time Machine
Island of Dr. Moreau
Invisible Man
Food of the Gods
Empire of the Ants
and one other that I can’t remember, but will try while typing this…
Reading HG Wells at such an early age taught me the valuable skill of skimming, where you breeze through passages of crap that you don’t care about (like 19th century visions of Socialist Utopias/Dystopias) to get to the good stuff (the science, the machines, the action).
I then probably read a lot of juvenalia (sp?) - at least, I don’t remember much of it. My next science fiction novel was Dune, which I read in high school and is probably the start of my thing with space operas.
I can’t remember that last Wells novel, just that I know it wasn’t “The Star” or the one about the army of ants.
The first sf story I clearly remember reading was The Caves of Steel (hope I remember that correctly it’ been many years?) by Asamov around fifth or sixth grade.
Jomo Mojo and other Danny Dunn fans, do you remember a book by Williams and Abrashkin called The Hero from Otherwise? It was about two kids who somehow got sucked into another world where magic was real and they had to work together and learn valuable lessons…etc. I had a copy of this for years but have never ran into anyone else who read it. I didn’t even remember who wrote it until I saw Jomo Mojo’s post.
Anyways, my first foray into Sci-Fi was probably Jules Verne. Before that, I read a lot of Ruth Chew but I think that she was more fantasy than SF. After Verne I started on Arthur C. Clarke and the Dune series. I have only recently moved back into the genre, reading some things that have come highly recommended by others.
My very first was probably the Classics Illustrated version of The Time Machine.
A lot of the Danny Dunn books. A lot of Edgar Rice Burroughs. A few of the Miss Pickerells. A couple of the Mushroom Planets. A lot of short stories which I later learned were all by Isaac Asimov.
Enchantress from the Stars and its sequels. The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek The Mad Scientists’ Club
Somewhere along the way I got hooked on Andre Norton and Robert Heinlein.
Sometime later I got a copy of Logan’s Run. Everyone should read that one twice: once when you are a very young teenager, and again when you are over 21.
You consider “Shy Stegosaurus” to be science fiction? Wow, one of my favorite books as a child, and I have always thought that I was not a SF fan.
I DID love “A Wrinkle in Time”, though, so maybe I am a closet SF’r. Not that I need any more genre obsessions, but I will have to check out some books and give it a shot.
[sub]Hi moonchilde honey…congrats on your first thread! I think MY first was something about childhood nicknames. :Sigh: It was pretty lame. [/sub]
[nitpick] Invisible Man (not SF) is by Ralph Ellison. The Invisible Man (SF) is by H. G. Wells.
[/nitpick]
Wow, I’m surprised to see so many people mentioning Danny Dunn. I had forgotten about him, and he must not have made that big an impression because I don’t really remember anything about him, but I did read at least a couple Danny Dunn books at some point in my childhood.
I think the first ones I read (in no particular order)
Lensmen Series - by E.E. Doc Smith (probably one of the greatest sci-fi series ever IMHO) Went back and bought the whole collection of paperbacks off of eBay last summer and re-read them - it’s still a great great series.
David Eddings - the Belgariad Series
I remember a book that was part of a series called “Riders of the Sidhe”…had a bunch of nordic gods as characters, (i.e. Mannan MacLir, Morrigan)…they were fighting some evil robot / cyborg guy with a single lazer for an eye…
Ahh…found it on google… Kenneth Flint - it’s book one of a series of Celtic myth rolled into a sci-fi / fantasy setting. Seriously good reading - I highly recommend it.
Favorite Heinlein - Friday and the Cat who Walks Through Walls
Okay, if we’re distinguishing fantasy from science fiction, Silverberg’s anthology Mind to Mind, or possibly Asimov’s wonderful anthology Tomorrow’s Children. By the end of middle school I think I’d read all the Blish Star Trek books and all the Heinlein available; anyway, I’d amassed a couple hundred paperback science fiction volumes by the beginning of high school.
