The first book I read that I knew was SF beforehand was an Ace double
novel--entirely forgettable but I did persue the doubles for many years and
found some real gems hidden in them. Every once in a while I go back and
re-read Pirates of Zan--one of the funniest books in ANY genre.
Once I read that first double, I knew I had already read SF--does anyone
remember The Mushroom Planet series? I must have read the first in second
grade--along with the original story for the movie THEM (giant mutated ants
in the desert) and quite a few early "center of the earth" tales--and
Haggard's She.
My parents only forbid me to read one book, Brave New World, so at within a
week I had a paperback copy I read under the covers--I was 9. The only
problem I had with it was the scene at the beginning of the babies in
bottles--I had bad dreams about that for years. ReBirth was another novel
that really blew my mind then too.
Once I discovered Heinlein's juveniles, though, I was thoroughly hooked.
Yes, even though the "hero" was almost always male, they were good stories
of adventure and courage. As I read, I usually consciously just changed the
sexes around! Even today, DECADES later, in times of extreme stress my
"comfort" books are Citizen of the Galaxy or Tunnels in the Sky. I don't
know that today, though, I'd recommend starting a young girl out on
them--there's so much available now with intelligent heroines!--A few years
ago I came across Le Guin's Catwings and Hoover's Children of Morrow and
loved both. I'll have to admit to occassionally sneaking over to the Young
Adult section in the library to see what's new. Our local library seems to
find YA SF acceptable, but they don't get too much "adult" that aren't the
big names.
My girls are now teenagers and are resisting any of my interests, so they
avoid anything they know is SF--but I did manage to get them to read
Panshin's (sp?) Rite of Passage and they loved it.
What about SF movies that people saw when young? I can remember seeing War
of the Worlds and being impressed. I didn't go to the movies that often as
a kid, but in my twenties I saw No Blade of Grass and through that was
introduced to John Christopher's books. What did others watch?
Sue Hagedorn
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:14 PDT