# At What Age Did You Start Reading SF? Effects?



## psikeyhackr (Dec 23, 2021)

I started reading SF in 4th grade. I was in a Catholic elementary school where the nuns never taught science.

My first SF book was Star Surgeon by Alan E Nourse. I was really shocked to learn that the Sun was a Star. How come nobody told me?

I also learned about atheism and agnosticism. That was weird cause I just thought there were only Catholics, Protestants and Jews. So I decided I was an agnostic in 7th grade.

I remember having an SF book open on my bed with two encyclopedia. So much of my perspective of science and reality is the result of reading science fiction. I wish I had kept a diary about the books and what I thought at the time.

I applied to MIT because it was mentioned so much. The application cost me $50. That would be equivalent to $250-$300 today.

The world has changed so much since then. I still think "selected" SF could create a meaningful world view today but there seems to be a higher percentage of superficial junk.


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## Foxbat (Dec 23, 2021)

I can’t quite remember but it was some time in primary school (the UK version of elementary). My parents used to buy me novels abridged for children. Amongst them were 20000 Leagues Under The Sea and Gulliver’s Travels so that’s probably how started reading SF&F. A few years later, I discovered HG Wells and that’s probably when my real love for the genre started.


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## Scott Azmus (Dec 29, 2021)

12 years old. My aunt gave me a couple science fiction books -- one was Heinlein's Time for the Stars -- and I was hooked. I've read several thousand science fiction or fantasy books since then, and wish I had a photographic memory of all the characters and strange new worlds. Combined with astronaut Michael Collins' (Apollo 11) "Carrying the Fire," some of these books helped steer the course of my life.


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## asp3 (Dec 30, 2021)

I'm not sure when I started reading science fiction but I know the books were either Danny Dunn or something like that.  My parents were both very pro science and very non-religious so science fiction didn't expose me to information I hadn't been exposed to before.  In fact the books I loved most were non-fiction books about science or war machines, especially airplanes.

When I was a Junior ('73-'74) in high school the crowd I ran around with were trekies and science fiction enthusiasts.  One of the girls in the group was a huge Harlan Ellison fan so that's the author I started to explore.  I preferred short stories to novels so I read collections of them and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science fiction most of the time.


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## Astro Pen (Dec 30, 2021)

Aged 12 or 13 Borrowed a friends father's copies of _*The Silver Locusts*_ - Bradbury and* Born Leader *- J.T. McIntosh.
Pow! Life changing, permanently.
_*Tunnel in the Sky*_*, Pebble in the Sky *and _*Ossian's Ride*_ sealed the deal.
Another couple of years and I had ascended Ballard without oxygen.


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## psikeyhackr (Dec 30, 2021)

Scott Azmus said:


> 12 years old. My aunt gave me a couple science fiction books -- one was Heinlein's Time for the Stars -- and I was hooked.


I think *Orphans of the Sky* was my first Heinlein story. I am pretty sure I read *The Door into Summer *and *Methuselah's Children* in grammar school also.  Heinlein made contemplating social workings/philosophy more sensible than the nuns.


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## Robert Zwilling (Dec 30, 2021)

7 years old, Jules Verne, Tom Swift. At the same time, there were science fiction, fantasy and horror movies on the TV. I wasn't reading anything current for several years. Asimov was probably the first living writer I read.


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## mosaix (Dec 30, 2021)

Dan Dare in the Eagle comic around the age of six (1952). 

Then Analog around the age of 19 (1965) when I was truly trapped by the genre. I’d always been interested in science but Analog sealed my fate and led to a career in computing.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 30, 2021)

7th Grade ,* Dandelion Wine *by Ray Bradbury.


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## Guttersnipe (Dec 30, 2021)

I fell in love with Wells' The Time Machine when I was 12.


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## Ian Fortytwo (Dec 30, 2021)

Mine was *War of the Worlds.*


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## Wayne Mack (Dec 30, 2021)

The first science fiction that I recall reading was _The Big Jump_ by Leigh Brackett. I don't recall much about the story, but it made enough of an impression on me that I remember the title to the day.

Prior to that, I dimly remember writing a story, in the first or second grade, concerning a space flight that cut through the edge of the sun.


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## psikeyhackr (Dec 30, 2021)

Wayne Mack said:


> Prior to that, I dimly remember writing a story, in the first or second grade, concerning a space flight that cut through the edge of the sun.


With marshmallows?


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## Wayne Mack (Dec 30, 2021)

psikeyhackr said:


> With marshmallows?


No. I guess I could've written s'more, but no one got toasted.


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## Omits (Dec 30, 2021)

When I was eleven in the 50's. Always at the library reading the earliest Sc-Fi novels. Can't remember them though. And 'Journey Into Space' on the radio.


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## Parson (Dec 30, 2021)

Elementary school certainly. Probably about 9. The book that hooked me shortly thereafter was* Catseye *by *Andre Norton*.


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## chrispenycate (Dec 31, 2021)

Apart from stories from the children's section of the library (like the 'Kemlo'series) the first step on the addiction fell when I was eight or nine (mother already dead, not yet secondary school) and I had one of the standardchildren's diseases (measles, mumps, chickenpox… not scarlet fever, that was later)  and was put to bed, while adults sought books to immobilise me in place, and they became frustrated at trying to keep me stocked with children's literature, ad delivered me adult books, trusting these to slow me down. One of these was Arthur C. Clarke's 'Earthlight'. Though I did look back occasionally, I never regretted the path I was landed om.


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## Aknot (Dec 31, 2021)

I had my first English lessons in 4th grade, which opened up a while new literary world. Back then very few fantasy or SF books except LOTR Dune and the like was translated. I bought a Greyhawk book by Gary Gygax and read it totally  fascinated. A few years later I read it again and realized my English had been so poor that I missed 80% of the book but that didn’t matter. I was hooked. Apart from pushing me to read even more it got me fluent enough in reading English very early on.


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## psikeyhackr (Dec 31, 2021)

Never heard of Gary Gygax. Guess I was too old in the 80s.


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## AllanR (Dec 31, 2021)

psikeyhackr said:


> Never heard of Gary Gygax


He's much more known as one the creators of Dungeons and Dragons rather than an novelist.


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## alexvss (Dec 31, 2021)

I started reading SFFH novels and short-stories at age 18, which was not very long ago. I know it's a little late compared to bookworms out there, but I used to read comics, particularly manga, a lot, and I play videogames and watch anime since forever so I'm no stranger to storytelling. 

The effect it had is that I don't have any emotional attachments to any particular magazines or publishers, something I see a lot with people who have been subscribers to, say, Asimov's, since they were children. That's why I don't really care where to submit (or rather, I submit everywhere as long as it pays pro-rates), and rejections don't sting that much.


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## paranoid marvin (Jan 1, 2022)

Looking back, when I was younger it was mostly fantasy in reading and science fiction in tv/film. I can reel off lots of fantasy novels I read as a child, starting with Enid Blyton and ranging through Roald Dahl and Tolkien.

For science fiction, it could have been HHGTTG , after watching the tv series, or it may have been the novels centred around 'V' when I wanted further adventures from that tv show. Then again it may have been War of the Worlds or The Time Machine. As has been discussed on other forums, sci-fi wasn't seen as adult reading material back when I was growing up in the 70's and 80's , so the selection from the school library (or the children's section of the lending library) didn't really include much science fiction material. 

From what I remember there wasn't much Asmiov/Clarke/Bradbury material there to read; or if there was it was very underplayed. If you wanted fiction, then it was almost exclusively Earth-bound adventures, war stories or fantasy. 

Like I mentioned above, I think I only found sci-fi novels to read through having watched science fiction programmes on tv and in the cinema. Thinking about it now, I did read the Doctor Who 'Target' books, but arguably that was more fantasy, especially in the Earth-bound years of Jon Pertwee. I also read The Eagle comic and the 2000AD annuals.


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## austin_cambridge (Jan 2, 2022)

TV is what brought me to science fiction - specifically Gerry Anderson's shows and what cemented it for me was Fireball XL5.  I was about 8 or 9 maybe when I also began reading scifi - Damon Knight's short story anthologies borrowed from the library, and of course Robert Heinlein's books for children with my favourite being Time for the Stars.  I also read books by Andre Norton but at a young age I found them heavy going.  I was given Catseye for Christmas and it was a few years before I actually managed to read it all. LOL  A Telzey Amberdon short story had quite an impression too, though it was some years later that I finally tracked down the books.


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## AE35Unit (Jan 2, 2022)

Probably when I was 10 or 11. Not sure what grade that would be


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## Rodders (Jan 3, 2022)

I was 6 years old when 2000AD came out and my mum got me the first issue. Does that count?

I'd consider myself a life long science fiction fan. As for effects? I suppose I've always been an outsider in the group, (something that i find myself actively encouraging as i get older). People have quite often sidled up to me and whisper "actually, i quite like...".


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## Ray Zdybrow (Jan 4, 2022)

Definitely remember reading SF from age 9 or 10, Andre Norton, Damon Knight, Frank Belknap Long, Isaac Asimov, New Writings in SF etc mainly from Edinburgh Central Library and another library in the south of Embra. I feel that I've always read SF... that's why I'm here!


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## Ray Zdybrow (Jan 4, 2022)

Ray Zdybrow said:


> Definitely remember reading SF from age 9 or 10, Andre Norton, Damon Knight, Frank Belknap Long, Isaac Asimov, New Writings in SF etc mainly from Edinburgh Central Library and another library in the south of Embra. I feel that I've always read SF... that's why I'm here!


I'm 58 now... got some good stuff for Xmas including Olga Ravn's "The Employees" and from my son a Stanislaw Lem book I'd never heard of. A long way from Damon Knight


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## Jubal_Harshaw (Jan 4, 2022)

I got started on the Heinlein juvenile books, though they were already a bit dated when I read them as a young middle schooler in the mid- to late-70s.


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## psikeyhackr (Jan 4, 2022)

Jubal_Harshaw said:


> I got started on the Heinlein juvenile books, though they were already a bit dated when I read them as a young middle schooler in the mid- to late-70s.


Jubal Harshaw talking about Heinlein!?

Shocking!


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## bretbernhoft (Feb 1, 2022)

I started reading SF in earnest at around the age of 30.


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## psikeyhackr (Feb 1, 2022)

bretbernhoft said:


> I started reading SF in earnest at around the age of 30.


Have you encountered information, ideas or attitudes that contradict things you were taught before you were 20?


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## Phyrebrat (Feb 1, 2022)

I really regret not reading widely outside of weird fic and horror as a kid. I didn’t even start with SF until 2004 with ACC (adored despite the zero-characterisation) which I hoovered up.


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## Matteo (Feb 1, 2022)

Fairly sure my first book was _Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster_ (Terror of the Zygons) by Terrance Dicks (in Target), so I would have been 6 or 7. After that it would have been other Doctor Who books and children's scifi until, I think...one of Azimov's as a young teenager.


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## bretbernhoft (Feb 1, 2022)

psikeyhackr said:


> Have you encountered information, ideas or attitudes that contradict things you were taught before you were 20?


That's an interesting question. Certainly I have. Especially ideas/attitudes related to human potential and our destiny as a species. Works of science fiction are precious artifacts for these reasons, among others.


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## psikeyhackr (Feb 1, 2022)

bretbernhoft said:


> That's an interesting question. Certainly I have. Especially ideas/attitudes related to human potential and our destiny as a species. Works of science fiction are precious artifacts for these reasons, among others.


I have a theory that science fiction tends to put dents in the skull from the inside but it works better while the skull is still soft.


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## Stuart Suffel (Feb 1, 2022)

Inherited from a old neighbour some American 'comics' (graphic novels) as a kid. Weird, unsettling stuff. Pity Mum threw them out (along with my much loved 2000AD comics), be interesting to look at them now.
Can't remember the names (Strange worlds or something was one, maybe Weird Tales another) They were really suited to an older person, but one or two still stick in the mind. I was 2000AD obsessed at the time to recognise their value. (Yes, 2000AD was sc1-fi, but light sci-fi)

ETA. Just did a search. Yes, it was Strange Worlds, and Forbidden Worlds. And a few others. Good nick too. Wonder what they'd be worth now? Sigh.


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## psikeyhackr (Mar 8, 2022)

Stuart Suffel said:


> Inherited from a old neighbour some American 'comics' (graphic novels) as a kid. Weird, unsettling stuff. Pity Mum threw them out (along with my much loved 2000AD comics), be interesting to look at them now.



Yeah, mothers can be strange.  My mother called my sci-fi books "something crazy" and heavily implied that I shouldn't be reading it. But I cannot imagine how I would have gotten through grade school without it. It was SO boring, I just ignored almost everything the nuns said about anything.


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## Swank (Mar 8, 2022)

My first SF novel was when I was 7. Watchers of Space had a sort of fantasy story, but was set in a rotating generation ship. I enjoyed both concepts and did not find them challenging or confusing. I also read a lot of future engineering speculation non-fiction at the time, plus various Star Wars story books (saw that in theater at 5). Somewhere in there I was exposed the the 2001 movie, maybe as early as 4? At 9 I read 20,000 Leagues and Splinter of the Mind's Eye. At some point in there shifted from junior mystery to adult SF, and just pulled anything off the library shelf that looked interesting - Niven, Clarke, Asimov, Pohl, Heinlein, etc.

My father read SF and both my parents were educated and intelligent, so talking about the SF material in books was common at home. My school taught science, so nothing in SF seemed mind expanding as far as actual science goes, but was interesting from the standpoint of what might someday be possible. And was more interesting than the real world, where Apple II and Commodore computer programming was boring and produced uninteresting results.


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## Orcadian (Apr 6, 2022)

I read a story from 'Astounding' (or 'Amazing') magazine at the age of 6* with the help of my mother, for it was full of difficult words like ' disguise' and 'spacesuit'. The memory is vivid, and I can still remember the picture on the cover. As for reading science fiction on my own, that started at age 7, as soon as I could read well enough to enjoy a whole book.  Dad took me to join the local library, which had 'Return to Mars' by Capt. W.E. Johns. I later bought it and have it on my bookshelves today. Over the next year or two the library managed to find most of his science fiction books for me. Effects?  A lifetime love of (hard) science fiction, and a career as a scientist.

*  In the UK school begins when you're 5, and reading starts on day 1.


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## Orcadian (Apr 6, 2022)

Omits said:


> When I was eleven in the 50's. Always at the library reading the earliest Sc-Fi novels. Can't remember them though. And 'Journey Into Space' on the radio.


Perhaps that's the radio programme I used to listen to... I'm not sure if there were any others in the 1950s / early 60s?  It came on as my mother was preparing the children's evening meal, so probably around 5pm. The radio was in the living room and Mum couldn't get me to the kitchen table until this programme had finished. I found it absolutely gripping - as was a TV programme from around 1960 about a spaceship called Galasphere 347.


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## JunkMonkey (Apr 6, 2022)

My dad was an SF reader from his youth.  I still have his battered copies of the HG Wells books he had as a kid. The first SF stories I _remember_ reading - aged 9 or so - were Four in One by Damon Knight and the War Against the Yukks by Keith Laumer but they probably weren't the first but they are the first I remember with clarity.  My dad had shelves full of copies of Galaxy, Analog, and Worlds of If that I just consumed. Then moved on to Robert Heinleins which I loved (I find him unreadable today) and Asimov's Foundation books etc etc.


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## Orcadian (Apr 7, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> My dad was an SF reader from his youth.  I still have his battered copies of the HG Wells books he had as a kid. The first SF stories I _remember_ reading - aged 9 or so - were Four in One by Damon Knight and the War Against the Yukks by Keith Laumer but they probably weren't the first but they are the first I remember with clarity.  My dad had shelves full of copies of Galaxy, Analog, and Worlds of If that I just consumed. Then moved on to Robert Heinleins which I loved (I find him unreadable today) and Asimov's Foundation books etc etc.


Four in One...  Is that the story where four men are embedded in some sort of jelly, and they struggle to control it so that they can fight each other?  I read this when I was a teenager and the line I remember is "Longer! Stronger! More Arm!".


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## JunkMonkey (Apr 7, 2022)

Orcadian said:


> Four in One...  Is that the story where four men are embedded in some sort of jelly, and they struggle to control it so that they can fight each other?  I read this when I was a teenager and the line I remember is "Longer! Stronger! More Arm!".



That's the one (though I think one of the four was a woman).


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