What did you read for fun?

Discussion about The Never Ending Quest.

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Anableps
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What did you read for fun?

Post by Anableps »

While reading the Barsoom topic, I thought that it would be interesting to see what the sci-fi or fantasy authors on the board read while they were growing up, say, before the age of 20. (I know that some of you have not reached 20 yet, so you can just talk about what you read and liked.)

I will have to admit that I did not know that Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote that much beyond the Tarzan series, and I have never read him. The scifi authors that I read when I was younger were Jules Verne (20000 Leagues under the Sea), H.G. Wells (The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, and his Outline of History), Swift (Gulliver's Travels) and Asimov. I love reading Asimov's non-fiction, on just about any topic, but I did not care for the Foundation Trilogy. I just could not buy his premises about history. I also read the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Lem's tales of Ijon Tichy and enjoyed both of them, for different things.

The scifi and fantasy on television that I remember were the original series of Star Trek and ancient Flash Gordon serials.
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Lost Soldier (Ib)
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Post by Lost Soldier (Ib) »

C.S. Lewis and Tolkien are two of my favorites. I must have read the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy (including the Hobbit) about five times, start to end. I forget alot of the other authors. When I was around 10-12 years old I got into those 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books, which might explain why I like this sight so much. :)

And one of my favorite shows was 'Myster Science Theatre 3000'. And of course Star Trek, but I lost interest in that series after the last episode of 'The Next Generation', and have never gained interest in it since.

Oh, and I still haven't checked out those Barsoom books yet, even though my work is right next door to a library. I might get off my ass and give them a shot, but who knows. :?
All I know is that I don't know anything.
ODS(A Big Fish?)

Post by ODS(A Big Fish?) »

Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, George R.R. Martin, Eoin Colfer, Tolkien, R.A Salvatore. thats all i'm reading at the moment. ^^
JH
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Post by JH »

When I was a boy, it was generally agreed that the best comic in the UK was Eagle, which I took from the age of about nine or ten. This was back in the late 1950s. The cover story in Eagle was Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, and it was this that first got me interested in SF. Here's a link: http://www.dandare.org/

When I was fourteen (I think), Doctor Who began on the BBC. I watched it from the very first episode, and immediately became addicted, though my enthusiasm did wane during the period some five years later when the Jon Pertwee incarnation was trapped on Earth.

Also in the early 1960s, there was an excellent SF serial aimed (unlike the early Dr Who) at adults, called A for Andromeda, written by Fred Hoyle and starring a very young and as yet little known Julie Christie.

I started reading a lot of SF around this time, but I don't recall reading all that much fantasy. Whereas nowadays fantasy seems to be the dominant partner, back then it seemed more to be SF. However when I was about 15, a schoolfriend lent me a three volume hardback fantasy tale by a then little known author. The author was Tolkien and the story was Lord of the Rings. Not surprisingly, it had a big impact on me.

One other fantasy novel that I do remember greatly enjoying, when I read it aged about thirteen, was Alan Garner's The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. However I can no longer recall anything of the plot or characters.

SF authors that I remember reading a lot of in my teens and enjoying include John Wyndham, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov. I also read a number of anthologies of short stories, notably the Penguin ones with stories chosen by Brian Aldiss, the Faber & Faber Best SF anthologies edited by Edmund Crispin, and the Gollancz Spectrum anthologies edited by Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest.

I almost forgot HG Wells. In over 40 years of reading SF, I think that the passage in The Time Machine when The Traveler goes into the far future and finds an almost dead Earth is still the one that sticks in my mind more than any other.

I don't think that many SF films were being made in the 1960s - it was the later success of Star Wars that made SF (or at least space opera) films fashionable. But when I reached the age of 16, I was able to start watching horror films, and soon became a Hammer devotee. :)
JH
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TCO
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Post by TCO »

Pretty much all I've read has appeared in previous posts. I liked reading Asimov, Nightfall, most of all. The Foundation series was also the only books of his I couldn't get into. Has anyone seen any film adaptions of his books?

JH, I've got one of the SF anthologies edited by Edmund Crispin- Best SciFi 2. I've read a number of Star Trek and Dr Who novels. Not so much Star Wars, though. Also, I've read some old Eagle comics with Dan Dare in them, as well as a few of those small pocket-sized 'comic' books.

Fantasy-wise, I used to 'play' those Lone Wolf Choose Your own Adventure type, and I used to read Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels.
...the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that need altering. - Dr. Who
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Post by JH »

TCO wrote:Pretty much all I've read has appeared in previous posts. I liked reading Asimov, Nightfall, most of all. The Foundation series was also the only books of his I couldn't get into. Has anyone seen any film adaptions of his books?


The really amazing thing about Nightfall is that the rest of Asimov's really early work, whilst it has some interesting ideas, is pretty awful. How did he produce such a brilliant story so young? I enjoyed the original three Foundation books, published back in the 1950s. I don't think that the more recent ones were as good, and sadly each one tended to be a little worse than the one before. The reviews of the recent films made from a couple of his books have been so damning that I decided against going to see them.
TCO wrote:JH, I've got one of the SF anthologies edited by Edmund Crispin- Best SciFi 2. I've read a number of Star Trek and Dr Who novels. Not so much Star Wars, though. Also, I've read some old Eagle comics with Dan Dare in them, as well as a few of those small pocket-sized 'comic' books.
I've never really been tempted by novels tied in to a TV series, though some of the Star Trek ones are by very good authors.
TCO wrote:Fantasy-wise, I used to 'play' those Lone Wolf Choose Your own Adventure type, and I used to read Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels.
Why did you stop? He just seems to get better and better. The man is a genius. His best books are not only very funny but are so brilliantly plotted and characterised that they would still be well worth reading even if they didn't contain a single joke.
JH
Keegan (Guest)

Post by Keegan (Guest) »

Right now I'm going through Asimov. I've somehow managed to collect all the 15 novels in the Foundation/Robot continuity. I'm also hunting for some of his anthologies (specifically, "Nightfall and Other Stories"). As a whole, I thought the Foundation trilogy wasn't brilliant, but there were some individual sections in the books I loved, such as "The Mule" and "The Merchant Princes". I also have all of Clarke's Space Odessey novels sitting on my shelf, and I have the full intention of reading them.

As for Fantasy, I've read the first five of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (is that where the name Caemlyn came from?) plus the prequel, and I enjoyed them. I've temporarily stopped, because school doesn't really give me enough time to read more than a chapter or two a day, which is a hard way to enjoy such long books (I learned that the hard way :( ). Of course, I've also read The Lord of the Rings.

Oh yeah, I've almost forgotten, I've just finished reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy". It was awesome, but how the last book ended made me sad.
ODS(blah)

Post by ODS(blah) »

Keegan, If you liked the WOT series, then you should read the "Sword of truth" series by Terry Goodkind, Its what the robert jordan books should have been. i also read most of the D&D books.
Keegan (guest)

Post by Keegan (guest) »

I've heard of the Sword of Truth series. Some people tell me only the first one is worth reading, and it just goes downhill, while others say that they're all pretty good, except for one of them. The one thing everyone seems to be in mutual agreement over is that the first one is awesome. So I guess I'll try reading them to find out.
The MSG

Stuff I read growing up

Post by The MSG »

Hi,

Bit late to this topic but figured "Why not?"

Stuff I read growing up was Piers Anthony, Wendy Pini, and Jack L. Chalker.

Anthony because in his Xanth books it was just fun fantasy. Nothing exactly heavy handed (exactly), but did have some good messages. Some of his science fiction wasn't too bad reading, either. :)

Pini because her fantasy was different than what was out there at the time. Meaning that most fantasy stories I saw out there had the main characters (or most important characters) be human. Might have noticed that in my stories at NEQ?

Finally, Chalker because I . . . always liked a good transformation story or a story with transformations in it. :wink:

Later,

MSG
Noise Tank
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Post by Noise Tank »

I'm a big fan of the Harry Potter series. I've lost track of how many times I've read each of them. J.K. Rowling's books are so easy to just pick up and read yet they are so deep.

I enjoyed the Hobbet, but Tolken's Fellowship of the Ring I'm having a hard time reading. I just can't get hooked to it. I'm always just finding it dull, listening to someone discribing people traveling for miles and miles on end.

My first impression on Dragonlance is that it felt like I was reading a DnD adventure. It still feels like that after 5 books, yet I'm still in love with them. It's kind of like Lord of the Rings, except it makes more of a balance between action and adventuring. I prefer this to Lord of the Rings.

The Narnia series is enjoyable, but something I've always complained about is the over-cheerful mood. Life isn't that way, people.
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WolfRun
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Post by WolfRun »

Keegan asked if the name Caemlyn came from Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. The answer is a definite yes, that's exactly where I lifted it from.

I've only read the first 3 books of WOT and enjoyed them quite a bit. As a kid I distinctly remember reading The Hobbit and falling head over heels in love with it. Later I went on to read Lord of the Rings (and have re-read it in full many times since) and also read The Silmarillion which I also found an incredible read. Tolkien has been criticized by some for his lack of action or the slowness of his prose, but his ability to craft tales of truly epic and legendary scope can only be marveled at. And just as important to the success of his work, in my opinion, is his ability to evoke "beauty". Beyond his technical skills as a writer and the passion he put into creating the world of Middle Earth, his true gift was one of evoking images in the mind of the reader that could only have come from his own soul.

Besides that, I've read a smattering of sci-fi, older fantasy like Conan, and lots of H.P.Lovecraft and Poe. In addition, besides fiction I read lots and lots of history.

But to be honest, I'm mostly a television kid (like TeeVee Stevie from Willy Wonka). That's where most of my exposure to fiction has come from. And there's been a lot of great stuff that's been burned across my retinas - The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Night Stalker, the Creature Feature program that syndicated great and not-so-great feature films of the past, and even PBS (the American Public Broadcasting System) where I first saw Dr.Who back in the 70s - The Fourth Doctor to be exact. Can't say I remember any of the Who stories, but I sure won't ever forget that scarf of his or his head of unruly hair.
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