Werthead Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 I started reading SF at age 9, starting with Doctor Who books and moving onto Arthur C. Clarke (I read 2010 circa 1989, when I was 10). I read Narnia when I was about 9 for school, but never really loved it that much. However, my first proper fantasy novel was The Crystal Shard by that colossus of the genre (ahem) R.A. Salvatore, which I read circa 1992 after being intrigued by the Forgotten Realms computer game Eye of the Beholder. Actually reread it a couple of years ago and as a YA fantasy beginner's series, it was pretty good, certainly far better than Brooks or Eddings. Pity his later books have turned into pap. After that it was a move into Terry Pratchett's Discworld books in 1994, followed by Sword of Shannara (which I thought was a bit ropey but vaguely enjoyed at the time) and then Lord of the Rings in 1995. Haven't looked back since, although SF remains close to my heart and I have added historical fiction to the mix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jarnhaan Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 Talking to Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede (I had to google it and find out who wrote it) was the book that hooked me. I was in six grade living in Belgium at the time, and just starting to get into D&D from my dad's old original stuff. He had original D&D modules and rulebooks, and 1st edition AD&D stuff. I got my parents to buy the book from the base bookstore because it had the word dragon in the title. I finished the book in some two days which was amazing at the time because I didn't like to read a whole lot; I played sports instead, and I had also been given glasses because of constant headaches while in class, and felt like a dork. Afterwards, I was convincing my parents to let me get more and more books every week. My dad had been a member of SFBC for 20 years or so ,at the time, and he had a ton of books that I also started reading. Books like: The Hobbit, Dune, Dragonlance novels, Forgotten Realm novels, Xanth novels (i started with Vale of the Vole and worked backwards as I found them), and two other great books I never hear much about... Glory Road and Magic Kingdom For Sale-Sold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Analu Posted November 17, 2005 Author Share Posted November 17, 2005 A Game of Thrones was my first. Wow, GoT was your first? Were you disappointed when you started reading other fantasy and realized how much better GRRM is than other fantasy writers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noontidal Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 "Better" is extremely subjective and doesn't honestly apply to fictional books as a matter of course. Certainly you can grade grammar or punctuation, but entertainment value hinges entirely on the reader. For instance, I could say "Harry Potter books are utter crap" but that would be just me and not really mean what I just said. All that would in reality mean is that the books of Harry Potter do not fit into what I find entertaining, not that factually Harry Potter is necessarily better or worse than most any other author. Where authors honestly go downward in quality is when you can take one of their books, copy it over and simply change names and you have the next book. Now there are folks who enjoy this even, and the original stories were in most cases highly enjoyable. My personal favorite still living author is Dave Duncan. This does not mean he is a better author than all others, but merely he writes in a manner which more fully entertains me. Do I have 'reasons' for this preferance? Yes. Do my reasons make him the best for anybody? No. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Analu Posted November 17, 2005 Author Share Posted November 17, 2005 "Better" is extremely subjective and doesn't honestly apply to fictional books as a matter of course. Certainly you can grade grammar or punctuation, but entertainment value hinges entirely on the reader. Sorry, I should have worded it better. You're absolutely right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendan Moody Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 In sixth grade I finally picked up the excerpt from The Eye of the World I had bought on a whim for $0.99 a couple years earlier. I was hooked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luzifer's right hand Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 The game Baldurs Gate hooked me into Fantasy and I started to read fantasy books afterwards. The only "fantasy" series I read before was based on a SF background. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maltaran Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 For me it was David Eddings's Belgariad and Mallorean series, followed by Wheel of Time, back when it was still good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jakob Lightbringer Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 Interestingly enough, it was The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks at first. That led me to read The Lord of the Rings. After that I was introduced to the Gor books by John Norman at far too young an age. That led me to read Robert Howard's Conan stories. From there it was Moorcock, a plethora of horrible D&D (Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, etc) novels... And I was forever hooked on fantasy, both good and bad... oh so very bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
groundmeat Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 My first fantasy (with a hint of sci-fi) was The gnole http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/074932224...283155&v=glance If you haven't read it or heard of it - do it now! I liked it when I first read it but only now do I realize how good it was. Beautifully illustrated, it's an excellent, but surprisingly little known, fantasy book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun Snow Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 Wow, GoT was your first? Were you disappointed when you started reading other fantasy and realized how much better GRRM is than other fantasy writers? Not really. A Song of Ice and Fire has remained at the top of my list no matter what else I happen to be into at any particular time, but I've read a bunch of other series and enjoyed them well enough. Some, like Goodkind or Brooks, I just couldn't like but I think that would have been the case even had I never read ASOIAF. Others, notably Robert Jordan, I loved even with the inevitable comparisons. Though I've soured on RJ in recent years. Martin reigns supreme, but other authors can be great as well, so long as you don't expect them to be quite so brilliant as he. All IMHO it goes without saying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhaegar's Son Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 The Hobbit was my gateway book to the rest of the fantasy genre. In fact, it is the first book I enjoyed at all and now I love a WIDE range of novels (and I'm and English major likely because of that book). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Blackfish Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for me, the Narnia books. Then I remember the Hobbit, the Susan Cooper series, the Patricia Wrede series, LOTR ... and I've actually read remarkably little of it since then, barring ASOIAF and a couple Sheri Tepper books, certainly compared to all of you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoboden Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 Feist's Riftwar Saga, Aspirin's Mythadventures, and Anthony's earlier Xanth novels got me hooked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isis Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 This is indeed a very interesting thread! I'm not sure if I recall the precise first book, but I'm thinking this is a safe bet - when I was six or seven I discovered Diana Wynne Jones's books at the library. I read the Chrestmanci trilogy to begin with and after that pretty much her complete works. I think that before I read DWJ my grandparents got my this book of dragon stories with loads of cool pictures of dragons hiding in churches and down wells and stuff in order to be able to eat people. I've always loved dragons. Probably everything I read from age 6 until my teenage years had magic or dragons in it. I read LOTR when I was 14 and I realised that nothing else would better that for me. It still hasn't. Crannogman: I definitely remember HeroQuest, I think I still have it in the loft, couldn't bring myself to chuck it away. Shame nobody ever gets it when I say, 'I'll use my...BROADSWORD'. I loved that game so much. Ghost of Nymeria I just read Sunshine a few months ago and I really enjoyed it. I had read 'Beauty' and thought little of it, Sunshine was a much, much better book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ormond Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its sequels by L. Frank Baum, when I was a child. Of course, I was a child a lot further back in time than most of the rest of you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaroonedHopes Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 I read LOTR when I was 14 and I realised that nothing else would better that for me. It still hasn't. You have read The Silmarillion, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser_Denys Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 I'd say it's a toss between Eye of the World, Lord of the Rings, and Dune. I think that was back when I was 14 - what a summer! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 I can't remember what children's fantasy novels I read first - probably Narnia or Lloyd Alexander's "Prydain" series, the Prydain books were some of my favourites as a child. I suppose at the time I didn't really think of it as a genre, I started to read it a bit more seriously when I was 11 or 12 and my aunt bought me The Hobbit and Fellowship Of The Ring[1]. After that there was a bit of a pause while I repeatedly read LOTR and didn't quite know what to read after it. For my next birthday someone bought me Weis & Hickman's "Darksword Trilogy" which I liked a lot [2], from there I moved on to Dragonlance and in the next year or so on to Raymond E. Feist's "Magician", Anne McAffrey's Pern books, Anthony Swithin's "Perilous Quest For Lyonesse" series and Julian May's "Saga Of The Exiles"[3]. [1] Which I took on holiday to Spain, read in three or four days and spent most of the rest of the holiday trying to find an english copy of the other two books in Spain... [2] I still like it a lot. The writing it simplistic but there's some great world-building. [3] Which I found in my primary school library, even though it is a spectacularly inappropriate book for young children to read Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TehipiteTom Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its sequels by L. Frank Baum, when I was a child. Of course, I was a child a lot further back in time than most of the rest of you! Probably not further back than me! But yeah, Baum was awesome. Such a rich imagination, and a great sense of humor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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