# Your earliest sci-fi memory...



## Loner

I have a disitinct memory of reading two short stories in a sci-fi story magazine (something like Asimov's Science Fiction) when I was in fifth grade ( ten or eleven years old).


The stories have stuck in my mind to this day.

 One was called _Enid_ I think. It was about a boy who has what you are led to believe is an imaginary friend he calls "I need". His mother interprets this as a mispronounciation of Enid. He says I-need is going to fix his crooked teeth and do some other physical improvements that require surgery, but tells his mother not to worry as I-need knows what she is doing. I seem to remember it ended with the son coming back totally changed and bringing I-need with him to fix his mother's problems... and his mother screaming when she meets I-need who is an alien. It was a melancholy story because the boy felt his friend had helped him and could help his mother but she just feared his alien friend.

The second story was about a classroom full of children on an alien planet who were preparing for a historical occasion: The only rainfall their planet would have in twenty years (or many years, a long time anyway).

The second story was weird to me then. Now it doesn't seem quite so far-fetched...

What are your earliest sci-fi memories?


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## j d worthington

Loner said:
			
		

> I have a disitinct memory of reading a short story in a sci-fi story magazine (something like Asimov's Science Fiction) when I was in fifth grade ( ten or eleven years old).


 
Okay, you just made me feel very, very old, as I was already married when IASFM began publication.... (Yes, my name _is _Methuselah! )



> What are your earliest sci-fi memories?


 
Filmic or written? I'll assume, from your own tale, literary; in which case, coming across part of a copy of an old Signet paperback edition of *I, Robot*, by Isaac Asimov. I say part because apparently, when I was just a toddler, I'd torn the darned thing apart. So here I am, at age 6, thoroughly intrigued by the cover (which depicted an alien landscape against a black sky, with part of a rock wall in the foreground, and a robot with a spacesuited figure in its arms, in the background another figure which looked like a robot... or was it another human? Anyway, I read the blurb on the front cover ... and the first few pages, and was hooked. Then went on a scavenger hunt for the rest of the book, which was quite literally scattered all over the house (I even found some pages in the attic, in some boxes). Amazingly, I managed to put the whole thing together, and read it cover to cover more times than I can count... I've still got the darned thing in a plastic sheath somewhere in storage. And I was hooked. After that, I checked out *S is for Space* by Ray Bradbury from the library, and by that point I was a lost cause. And so it has remained.

(Incidentally, at the same time I was first encountering Asimov, I picked up a book of Poe's stories as well, which got me hooked in that direction.)


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## Dave

The rain story could have been by Ray Bradbury. He wrote many rain stories. I know I've read "All Summer In a Day" but that is opposite to what you said as the children are preparing for sunshine after seven years of rain.

My earliest memory is from TV. At age one or two I would watch 'Dr Who' at my grandfathers on a Saturday afternoon while the tea was made. I used to bounce on the sofa to the music. All I can remember is the music, that it came on after the football results, and the Daleks, of course.


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## Loner

j. d. worthington said:
			
		

> Okay, you just made me feel very, very old, as I was already married when IASFM began publication.... (Yes, my name _is _Methuselah! )



Well, I'm not sure what it was exactly. It might have been Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine. I'm 35 myself so I'm no spring chicken! But its amazing how powerful an effect these first impressions have!

I also recall being in high school and reading some E.E Doc Smith and thinking that George Lucas had ripped him off. There were sword fights, space knights and huge spherical planet-destroyers. To my young mind there were lots of similarities. If only I could remember which book it was!


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## Loner

Dave said:
			
		

> The rain story could have been by Ray Bradbury. He wrote many rain stories. I know I've read "All Summer In a Day" but that is opposite to what you said as the children are preparing for sunshine after seven years of rain.



Hmm, I wonder if my childish memories got scrambled? That sounds too close to be coincidence!


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## steve12553

I have memories of a story or book being read to my class when I was under ten about a pair of children pursueing a parent(s) through what seems now like an interdimensional portal. I read the *Martian Chronicles* by Bradbury at a young age. I remember picking up  *I, Robot* by Asimoz from a local library branch when I was in grade school. I also remember acquiring *Revolt on Alpha C* (Silverberg)and *the Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek* (I can't remember). from Scholastic Book Club (You order the books from a flyer you got at school and waited patiently for a couple a weeks till they were brought into the classroom. It was very important to have your $1.35 to take in with your 3 book order.)


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## Loner

steve12553 said:
			
		

> I also remember acquiring *Revolt on Alpha C* (Silverberg)....


Revolt was a popular word in titles in my childhood. I remember reading _Revolt at 2100_, in grade 5.




			
				steve12553 said:
			
		

> from Scholastic Book Club (You order the books from a flyer you got at school and waited patiently for a couple a weeks till they were brought into the classroom. It was very important to have your $1.35 to take in with your 3 book order.)



 We had that too! But I was too poor to ever order any...  i used to have to wait for my friends to get theirs and read them before I could borrow them. The suspense was the worst!


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## Nesacat

It's more fantasy than sci-fi really. It's Ray Bradbury's Fog Horn. I read it when very little in the Reader's Digest. The story stuck in my head although I'd forgotten both the title and the name of the author. I'd tried to find it off and on over the years with no success until just a couple of years ago. I was in Pay Less Books and picked up a book with an illustration of a lighthouse and this beast. It was the right tale. It was the most amazing feeling.

Loner is right. Sometimes a tale just creeps under your skin and stays there even if you first read it years and years ago.


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## Harpo

TV: Doctor Who, I had a toy dalek that I was scared of.  The earliest episode I remeber actually watching (rather than seeing as a repeat later on) was a Patrick Troughton one involving life sized toy soldiers, but I forget the title.

Book: My dad had a series of Sci-Fi stories which I think he'd got from Reader's Digest.  The only one I can remember reading was called "Tiger By The Tail" (I've just checked, it was by Alan E. Nourse)


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## Brian G Turner

Star Wars and Star Wars figures, aged 5.


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## Perpetual Man

For me it must be Doctor Who (again) I have vague memories of Daleks beign crushed or destroyed by a giant Metal worm which I guess if probably Death to the Daleks, and the Sontaran Lynx from the Time Warrior, which would make me three years old...

The first book I ever bought for myself was Doctor Who and The Invasion of Time

But the books that got me into reading (after a badly stalled start) were a series of Pirate books, filled with wonderful pictures of Dragons and Griffins featuring pirates by the names of Benjamin the Blue, Roferick The Red and Gregory the Green!


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## Paige Turner

Well, one hates to date oneself, but I was a psychotic fan of Fireball XL-5 as a (very!) young child. It was the first show I ever declared to be "my show," and I _had _to watch it. (There was an elaborate TV watching ritual I won't go into here.) Rockets, romance, robots… today's science fiction could take a page from that book, I can tell you.

I wish I was a space man. 
The fastest guy alive. 
I'd fly you round the universe, 
In Fireball XL-5. 
Way out in space together, 
Compass of the sky, 
My heart would be a fireball, 
A fireball, 
Everytime I gazed into your starry eyes. 

We'd take the path to Jupiter, 
And maybe very soon. 
We'd cruise along the Milky Way, 
And land upon the moon. 
To our wonderland of stardust, 
We'll zoom our way to Mars, 
My heart would be a fireball, 
A fireball, 
If you would be my Venus of the stars.


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## Tau Zero

The earliest sf I can remember reading had to be some of the Danny Dunn series written by Abrashkin and Williams.  (I had to look up the authors on the Internet.)  I don’t actually remember any of the stories, but I know I read some of them.  I must have been about 7-9 years old.  Then I read some Tom Swift books, but not many.  When I was 11, I read The Hobbit and then the Lord of the Rings, which rocked my world.  

On TV, I remember Fireball XL-5 but it’s very vague.  The show I got into, mind and soul, was Astro Boy.  Man, did I love Astro Boy!  I must have been about 8 year old.

Hey, look!  There’s Astro Boy as my avatar!

And, of course, the theme song:

There you go Astro Boy. 
On your flight into space. 
Rocket high, through the sky 
What adventures soon you will make. 

Astro Boy bombs away 
On your mission today 
Here's the countdown, and a blast off 
Everything is GO Astro boy. 

Astro Boy as you fly, 
Strange new worlds you will find 
Atom celled jet propelled, 
Fighting monsters high in the sky. 

Astro Boy there you go 
Will you fight friend or foe? 
Cosmic ranger, life of danger, 
Everything is GO Astro Boy. 

Friends will cheer you 
You're our hero 
As you go go GO Astro Boy.


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## Parson

My earliest Sci-fi memory would be a book by Andre Norton, which I do not even remember the title of. It was a story a young herder from the planet Norden, who was a herder. He had been transplanted into another star system where immigrants were only allowed to the main planet (?) if they had a job. He got a job at a pet store but soon pets who had been inhanced to the point that they were no longer pets are sent there. He finds he can speak with them telepathically. And so on. If anyone recognized this and can tell me the name of the book I would appreciate it a lot.


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## Pyan

Paige Turner said:
			
		

> Well, one hates to date oneself, but I was a psychotic fan of Fireball XL-5 as a (very!) young child.


Yes! another fan of Steve Zodiac! It's a very good way of finding someone's approximate age, by the way: just ask them the name of the earliest Gerry Anderson (all hail! all hail!) series they remember.


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## j d worthington

Harpo said:
			
		

> TV: Doctor Who, I had a toy dalek that I was scared of. The earliest episode I remeber actually watching (rather than seeing as a repeat later on) was a Patrick Troughton one involving life sized toy soldiers, but I forget the title.


 
The title of that one was _The Mind Robber_, Harpo. It's available on DVD now, should you want to give it another viewing.


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## Dave

pyanfaruk said:
			
		

> It's a very good way of finding someone's approximate age, by the way: just ask them the name of the earliest Gerry Anderson series they remember.


STINGRAY

But Thunderbirds was the best. I even saw the films at the cinema!


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## carrie221

Well I am not sure what the earliest would be but I remember in 1997 when the 20 year anniversary of Star Wars came to the theaters.

I can remember watching the opening scene for "A New Hope" and just being in awe of the movie


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## chrispenycate

Kemlo and the space cadets; a group of children who could breath vacuum because their mothers had birthed them therein.
I must have been about seven, so we hadn't yet aquired a T.V., and I was already a fast reader, so the local library children's section saw a lot of me.


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## mosaix

Dan Dare in the Eagle. I was six.

Edit: That would be 1952.


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## jackokent

Battlestar galactica - I remember the film coming out in the cinema and thinking it was brilliant.  It was around 1978.


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## steve12553

Nesacat said:
			
		

> It's more fantasy than sci-fi really. It's Ray Bradbury's Fog Horn. I read it when very little in the Reader's Digest. The story stuck in my head although I'd forgotten both the title and the name of the author. I'd tried to find it off and on over the years with no success until just a couple of years ago. I was in Pay Less Books and picked up a book with an illustration of a lighthouse and this beast. It was the right tale. It was the most amazing feeling.
> 
> Loner is right. Sometimes a tale just creeps under your skin and stays there even if you first read it years and years ago.


 
Some time in the fifties, Ray Harryhausen did the special effects for a movie based on *the Fog Horn* ( Which I think I referred to as the Lighthouse mistakenly in another thread. And you were there and Toto and.....) called *The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms*. If you've never seen it and appreceated the original *King Kong*, It's well worth the effort.


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## Loner

Parson said:
			
		

> My earliest Sci-fi memory would be a book by Andre Norton, which I do not even remember the title of. It was a story a young herder from the planet Norden, who was a herder. He had been transplanted into another star system where immigrants were only allowed to the main planet (?) if they had a job. He got a job at a pet store but soon pets who had been inhanced to the point that they were no longer pets are sent there. He finds he can speak with them telepathically. And so on. If anyone recognized this and can tell me the name of the book I would appreciate it a lot.



Wait, was he a herder?  Could be Andre Norton's _Beastmaster_...it has a character called Storm who becomes a rancher on frontier planet and has telepathic rapport with a team of animals. 

Could be the one. Maybe. She wrote so many books and I definitely haven't read them all.

**after Googling Andre Norton and planet Norden I think it's Catseye you read!**


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## Cloud

I guess the earliest one I can identify (there might have random books or stories before) is watching Star Trek--yes, the original season of the original show, 40 years ago now--on my little black and white tv in my room.  Captain Kirk was my first crush!


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## Loner

Cloud said:
			
		

> Captain Kirk was my first crush!



Aw!   But I wouldn't tell _too _many people ....


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## nixie

It would have to be Doctor Who


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## Harpo

Nixie, what's your earliest memory of Doctor Who?


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## Nesacat

steve12553 said:
			
		

> Some time in the fifties, Ray Harryhausen did the special effects for a movie based on *the Fog Horn* ( Which I think I referred to as the Lighthouse mistakenly in another thread. And you were there and Toto and.....) called *The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms*. If you've never seen it and appreceated the original *King Kong*, It's well worth the effort.



I have seen the original King Kong and for some reason like it the best of all although I will admit Jackson did a visually stunning job. It just didn't 'feel' the same as the original somehow. Shall keep as eye out for The Beast. Thank you steve.


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## Rosemary

Dr Who and then Star Trek...


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## Thadlerian

Mine... I don't know if anyone recognizes this, it would have been sort of cool to know what it was...

I think it was a film or a TV series, I hardly remember anything, but there was a spaceship landing on a planet with red sky and some bushy vegetation. And there were some scenes inside the ship, and then it exploded, which felt kinda sad... That's all.


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## Ozymandias

Watching Star Wars when I was nothing more than wee lad, four or five years old maybe, and believing that battles like this actually took place in space. The getting into X-men and and comic books and H.G. Wells and Jules Verne when I was elementary school.


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## nixie

Harpo said:
			
		

> Nixie, what's your earliest memory of Doctor Who?


 
Daleks, but for the life of me I can't remember if the Doctor was Patrick Hartnell or Jon Pertwee


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## Harpo

I imagine Daleks are an early memory for many people here.


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## Loner

Thadlerian said:
			
		

> I don't know if anyone recognizes this... I think it was a film or a TV series, I hardly remember anything, but there was a spaceship landing on a planet with red sky and some bushy vegetation. And there were some scenes inside the ship, and then it exploded, which felt kinda sad... That's all.




Intriguing... sorry I can't be more help!


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## Parson

Loner,

Thanks! That was exactly what it was, "Catseye!" It is amazing how certain parts of book read (we don't want to say how many decades ago) can still tickle the imagination, while yesterday's news, or an recent aquaintances name can be utterly beyond reach.

Parson


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## Loner

Parson said:
			
		

> while yesterday's news, or an recent aquaintances name can be utterly beyond reach.




I'm old. What's your excuse? Haha!  Sometimes the books don't live up to expectations when you re-read them, though...


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## Parrot0123

I remember reading a book about a boy who was in some sort of telepathic contact with an alien who needed his help to stop an alien criminal who had made his way to Earth.  I wish I could remember the name of the book.  I believe I was in grade 6 or so.

I remember being a fan of Astro Boy when I was young.


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## Steffi

My first memory was William Hartnell as Dr. Who.
Fireball XL-5
Remember playing Lost in Space in the school playground


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## davlaurjen

Radio,Journey into Space
Later,Dan Dare in "the Eagle"
Quatermass on BBC 1


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## mightymem

lost in space, land of the giants and the original star treks. I also remember playing with sci fiction lego. I never read sci fiction to much later


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## hypocriticHarkonnen

umm...does Voltes V count?   
comics. Lotsa comics.
star trek and star wars.
this large comic book about how beings from space helped civilization develop and why 
back to the future!


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## Valko

nixie said:
			
		

> Daleks, but for the life of me I can't remember if the Doctor was Patrick Hartnell or Jon Pertwee


 
I think you mean Patrick Troughton, the 2nd Doctor. William Hartnell was the 1st. 

Mr Troughton was my first encounter with Timelord. Scared the pants off me & I was hooked.


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## Stenevor

I have vague memories of Doctor Who, The Tomorrow people, Space 1999, and Planet of the Apes though I dont think I watched them a lot. The earliest things I can remember really enjoying were more fantasy than sci-fi, films like Jason and the Argonauts , Jack the Giantkiller and the Sinbad films.
One TV show I can remember liking was a US show called The Fantasic Journey.


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## Cloud

I can tell you my daughters' first SF memories.  Sort of.  

When I was pregnant with Daughter No. 1, in 1977, I went to a showing of Star Wars (the first movie) in San Francisco.  It was a BIG deal--long lines, lots of hype, packed theater and all.

When I was pregnant with Daughter No. 2 in 1982, I was on bed rest, but snuck out once--to go see E.T. in the theater.  Again, a pretty big deal since there was so much buzz about the movie at the time.


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## nixie

Valko said:
			
		

> I think you mean Patrick Troughton, the 2nd Doctor. William Hartnell was the 1st.
> 
> Mr Troughton was my first encounter with Timelord. Scared the pants off me & I was hooked.


 
Woops my mistake always get those names mixed up


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## Valko

Stenevor said:


> I have vague memories of Doctor Who, The Tomorrow people, Space 1999, and Planet of the Apes though I dont think I watched them a lot. The earliest things I can remember really enjoying were more fantasy than sci-fi, films like Jason and the Argonauts , Jack the Giantkiller and the Sinbad films.
> One TV show I can remember liking was a US show called The Fantasic Journey.


 
I used to love The Tomorrow People, John was the leader and Tim was the computer. Most of the other series you've mentioned have been repeated at one time or another, most recently, Planet of the Apes and Space 1999 on ITV4. The Tomorrow People seems to have been overlooked, I can't even find them on DVD.

Was it The Fantastic Journey or The Fantastic Voyage?


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## Dave

Valko said:


> The Tomorrow People seems to have been overlooked, I can't even find them on DVD.


It was shown on UK Gold about 2 or 3 years ago and DVDs have been released though they may now been out of stock.

And I think it was 'The Fanatstic Journey' in the UK, but 'The Fantastic Voyage' in the US.


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## Valko

Dave said:


> It was shown on UK Gold about 2 or 3 years ago and DVDs have been released though they may now been out of stock.


 
That's just my luck. Thanks for the info Dave.


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## littlemissattitude

I keep thinking that it was seeing the original version of _The Mummy_ on TV when I was five years old and my cousins kept trying to make me leave the room becaue I was "too young and would get scared."  And, before you say that _The Mummy_ wasn't science fiction...it had archaeologists, so it qualifies, at least in my opinion.

But I think I was even younger than that when I was staying the night at my grandma's house and I watched an old science fiction movie on TV with her.  But I know I had seen science fiction even before that, because my father loved it and watched it all the time, as well as reading it.


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## Stenevor

"The Fantastic Journey" (1977) - Fantasic Journey according to IMDB. Had the boy who was in the Witch Mountain films in it. Ive got a couple of episodes somewhere that I found on a torrent site and looked forward to watching them. I was a bit underwhelmed if im honest, not as good as I had remembered.


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## j d worthington

On _The Tomorrow People_ -- I've recently seen a boxed set of the DVDs here, so I think it's probably still available most places. No guarantees, but it's worth looking into....


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## Valko

Thanks JD, I found the complete series on Amazon and ordered them


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## nixie

Remember rushing in from school to watch the Tomorrow People.


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## Loner

nixie said:


> Remember rushing in from school to watch the Tomorrow People.



I used to get up at 6am to watch The Tomorrow People! Now _that's_ dedication! I remember the god-awful haircuts and the theme music and the lava-lamp effect during the credits. I had no idea it was so deeply embedded in my psyche...


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## Loner

Cloud said:


> I can tell you my daughters' first SF memories.  Sort of.
> When I was pregnant with Daughter No. 1, in 1977, I went to a showing of Star Wars. When I was pregnant with Daughter No. 2 in 1982, snuck out once--to go see E.T. in the theater.



I love it! Invitro indoctrination into sci-fi!


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## littlemissattitude

Cloud said:


> I can tell you my daughters' first SF memories.  Sort of.
> 
> When I was pregnant with Daughter No. 1, in 1977, I went to a showing of Star Wars (the first movie) in San Francisco.  It was a BIG deal--long lines, lots of hype, packed theater and all.
> 
> When I was pregnant with Daughter No. 2 in 1982, I was on bed rest, but snuck out once--to go see E.T. in the theater.  Again, a pretty big deal since there was so much buzz about the movie at the time.



I didn't see this post before, but come to think of it my first exposure to science fiction probably came while I was in the womb.


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## warp9

close encounters is my first memory and i thought i like it but my mum said i **** my self and wouldnt get off her lap all though the film


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## steve12553

The more people post in this thread, the more I remember. 
I remember now the tagline from *Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea*, 
"_You'll live in the year 1970_!" That was a decent show for about half a season before it became "Monster of the Week." *Lost In Space* had an interesting pilot but went down hill rapidly. Even at 12, I watched it only because there was little else in the way of Science Fiction TV. There was *the Twilight Zone* and *The Outer Limits*. The former frequently move from Science FIction to Fantasy or just straight irony and the latter eventually sunk to the "Monster of the week." Life was tough until 1966 when *Star Trek* first showed itself. My parents had divorced and occasionally I got to see the episode at my Dad's house. He had bought a color TV and I actually got to see some of the original episodes first run in color. Life was good!


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## Clank

'Thunderbirds' by Gerry Anderson. Saw it as a very young child and was blown away by it. Couldn't stop drawing spaceships and machines and building them with Lego afterwards. Other early Sci-Fi memories: Star Wars of course and various cartoons and comics. Too many to mention really. My imagination was kick-started and I was off!..


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## Caretaker66

_Star Wars Episode IV when I was like 4! ~Basically THE ultimate sci-fi experience of all time._


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## Quokka

My earliest memories are definately the cartoons... with Astroboy, Battle of the Planets, Robotech and Starblazers among them.

Then the movies such as _When Worlds Collide_ and _It Came From Beneath The Sea_

As for novel's my first memories are of _The Tripods, The Legionary Quartet_ and earlier still a series called something like Earth 2 or second earth?


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## Robert M. Blevins

This is an easy one, indeed.

Age 10...Catholic school in Roseburg, Oregon. Strict nuns, wearing full black and white habits, and carrying hickory rulers...

I read '1984' and it scared the hell out of me.
Read 'The Martian Chronicles,' and I felt better.

So, I started writing my own sci-fi and trying to pass it off on the nuns as essays. Didn't work, except on this younger nun. The others would give me the ruler and sometimes drag me to the priest for lectures on 'proper writing.'

'Say Goodbye To The Sun'
'Dimensions' (with Geoff Nelder)
'The 13th Day of Christmas.' 
'The Corona Incident'
I authored these books. *They're all sci-fi, of course.* (LOL)
_I can't remember the names of the nuns who told me 'no,' but I will *never* forget the one who encouraged me:_ Thank you, Sister Maureena...wherever you are.


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## Loner

steve12553 said:


> That was a decent show for about half a season before it became "Monster of the Week."



That is not a problem unique to the _earlier_ TV shows: _SeaQuest DSV _anyone?

And hurrah for sister Maureena, Mr Blevins! It's just as easy to be nice as nasty and so much more productive!

Hah! I read _1984_ and it made the 21st century scare the hell out of me!  I don't like where we're heading!


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## Nuria

The earliest memory I have was....star wars! 

In fourth grade, my mom forced me to see 'A New Hope' when it came out in theatres again. She and my aunt were really excited, but I thought Star Wars sounded stupid. Then my mom told me there was a "princess in it" and I was like, "Oh, okay!" and agreed to see it. I remember sitting in my seat absolutely astonished. I remember my mouth was literally hanging open when the credits rolled. HAHA! 

Then, I got obsessed with reading the "Junior Jedi Knights" series and developed a big crush on Anakin Solo. I used to play Star Wars in my room when I was bored (only child...lol!) and I was always an academy student who was friends with Tahiri and Anakin. I was SOOO depressed two years ago when I went on the boards on Starwars.com and discovered Anakin had been killed off. I felt like a childhood friend had died :/

DORK! 

My mom and I also used to watch Earth: Final Conflict and Star Trek DS9 and Voyager together. *Sigh* Good times.


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## j d worthington

Hi, Nuria, and welcome to the Chronicles. Glad to see you jumping right in... by all means, browse around, get to know people, and put in your comments/questions/likes/dislikes/opinions or any silliness you'd like to share... Have fun, and I hope to see you around!


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## Triceratops

I do believe I really got behind Lost in Space.  Especially Judy.  Gak!

Tri


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## K. Riehl

My first and extremely scary contact was Quartermass and Pit. I had nightmares about 3ft insects jumping all over me. I was 9 or thereabouts.
First book was Slan and I never stopped reading. Going on 4,000 volumes in the collection now.


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## Loner

K. Riehl said:


> First book was Slan and I never stopped reading. Going on 4,000 volumes in the collection now.



That's what I like to hear!


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## KZCat

I think there may be a stray clip from Star Trek rattling around in the o'l neurons, but the one that is the "land mark" is when I stumbled across "The Time Machine by H.G.Wells" in the local library. At the time I was probably around 7 years old.

The book was a bit to high level for me to read but I talked my mother in to reading it for me (<voice type="Southpark:Cartman">but maaa</voice>).

She thought I would quickly tire of it after the first night. But I remember night after night asking her to read more of it. In later years she spoke of reading it to me and being amazed that I could remember where to pickup where she had left off reading it the previous night.

I remember being a little scared of the Morlocks and she asking if I wanted her to stop, but I would ask to hear more because I had to know what happened.

That was the last book she read to me at night. From that point on she turned the nightly book reading over to my own devices and I went on from there. 

Ones after that were Heinlein, and Silverberg, and especially Asimov...


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## KZCat

steve12553 said:


> ... *Lost In Space* had an interesting pilot but went down hill rapidly. ...



Ooooo, how I learned to hate Dr. Smith!! Every week I wanted to see them just push him out the airlock!

There is a fellow at the place I work who I've dubbed, "Dr. Smith" -- it fits him so perfectly.


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## ScottSF

Thinking hard on this one.  I really think it was a Sid and Marty Kroft show called Lost Saucer with Jim Neighbors a.k.a Gomer Pyle.  Him and, was it Ruth Buzzy?, had these silver suits with buttons on the front.  I even remember part of the song.  "Where are ya goin to, Lost Saucer!. . . oi. I remember some crazy stuff.  I even remember a Kroft show called Ghost Busters waaaaaaaaay before Bill Murray donned the suit.  Only these Ghost Busters were dressed like 40s Gangsters and one of them was an Ape.


----------



## Loner

ScottSF said:


> I even remember a Kroft show called Ghost Busters waaaaaaaaay before Bill Murray donned the suit.  Only these Ghost Busters were dressed like 40s Gangsters and one of them was an Ape.



Ooh, that rings a teeny little bell in the back of my mind. 
Was it part of something called the Kroft Super Show? 
I also seem to remember something about Electro Woman and Dyna Girl - a kind of mix of Wonder Woman with a Robin-like sidekick. It was horribly cheap and tacky but very tongue-in-cheek. If I recall correctly (which is rare) it was supposed to be educational in some way...


----------



## ScottSF

I remember Electro Woman and Dyna Girl and their song.  I also remember Dr. Shrinker.  I have a sick memory for tunes and lyrics from way back.  Well I Only remember the first line usually.  "Dr. Shrinker, Dr. Shrinker, he's a mad man with an Evil mind!" or "When you hear the horn, help is on the way, clap your hands and say "Hooray" for Wonder Bug the magnificient Wonder buuuug!"  I don't remember the exact adjective for wonderbug but I'm pretty sure it was four syllables.  Or "Where the Ghooost Busters, he's Spencer he's Tracy, I'm Kong."  The funny part was The Ape's name was Tracy I think.


----------



## ScottSF

oh man, this is from amazon

Ask any fans about the menacing dinosaurs of the pre-_Jurassic Park_ adventure show _Land of the Lost_, the proto-feminist superheroes Electra-Woman and DynaGirl, or the fantasyland of H.R. Pufnstuf and friends, and they'll rhapsodize with a goofy smile on their faces. The lasting power of these shows is due more to nostalgia than quality; they're pricelessly over the top and campy, and the parade of familiar faces--such as Ruth Buzzi and Jim Nabors in _The Lost Saucer_--can bring back memories faster than an old home movie. This three-tape set features one episode each from the Krofft treasure trove, including the ever-popular _H.R. Pufnstuf_, the Brit-inspired _The Bugaloos_, _Wonderbug_ the talking dune buggy, the odd coupling of _Bigfoot and Wildboy_, and much more. Grab your favorite cereal box, put on your pajamas, hunker down on the floor in front of the TV, and watch for six--count 'em, six--hours. _--Mark Englehart_ 

I forgot all about Bigfoot and Wild boy!  I thought that was a spin off of the 6 million dollar man. . . was it?


----------



## Kostmayer

I would say either somebody shooting a Pterodactyl in The People That Time Forgot, or somebody getting his stomach drilled in The Black Hole. Saw The Black Hole years later and only realised it was the same film halfway through. It was strange to think such a cheesy film could have terrified me so much when I was little.


----------



## Ian Whates

I always trace my SF roots back to Andre Norton -- the _Janus_ books, _the Beast Master, Catseye, Moon of Three Rings_ etc. My first SF book leading on from there was the Asimov collection _Through a Glass Clearly _but muddled in there somewhere was a BBC radio adaptation of John Wyndham's_ the Chrysalids_... and yes, I too was an avid fan as a kid of both Fireball XL-5 and Lost in Space... so now I'm not so sure...


----------



## Ash59

'Fireball XL5' and 'Supercar' in the _very _early sixties - i was tiny and cherubic then. Ah me...


----------



## bruno-1012

Very hard to say for sure -

TV would probably be either Dr Who or Star Trek.

Not sure what episode I started with in Dr Who but I was of the Pertwee era.  Worst monsters were the Sea Devils....the thought that they could be just across from the house I was sleeping in near the beach in Troon.

I do remember seeing Fireball XL5 on TV (and having an annual) - was it first time around or a repeat though??

For books again I think it might have been the Tom Swift adventures from the local Library.  They competed with The Three Investigators/Hardy Boys/Secret Seven and Famous Five for my reading when I was young.

I still have the first book I bought myself which was from the school book club - Ben Bova's 'The Duelling Machine'.  (Books before that were bought by my parents for me - OK they were the ones I wanted but it wasn't my money)

Kept on getting into trouble about my book choices for prizes at school - we had a budget and all prize winners went into John Smiths in Glasgow to pick any books up to your budget.  Always SF/F which was looked down on by the teachers since the local dignitary who would be handing out the prizes on the night would see the books and be 'black afronted'.

One teacher was very down on the genre but he did get me into PG Wodehouse...oh and helped me pass Higher English so it wasn't all bad.


----------



## Circus Cranium

Star Trek, TOS, as well as _The Brain that Wouldn't Die_, shown on Creature Double Feature Sunday afternoons. 

Blew my tiny 8 year old mind.


----------



## HoopyFrood

bruno-1012 said:


> One teacher was very down on the genre but he did get me into PG Wodehouse...oh and helped me pass Higher English so it wasn't all bad.


 
Ah, *P.G Wodehouse* is a legend! And it was because of a sci-fi author (*Douglas Adams*) that I started reading his books (seeing as *Wodehouse* was a big influence on *Adams, *I thought I'd check him out). 

Hmm, earliest sci-fi memory...well I can't say for certain, but it's probably like many other people around here...watching _Star Trek_ and _Doctor Who_ on the TV etc.


----------



## ice.monkey

My earliest SF was when I was so young I can't actually remember how old! But I was old enough to read, was visiting an aunt and picked up a copy of 2000AD. Judge Dredd vs. Judge Death where Judge Death was doing his thing; ripping hearts out of victims with his bare hands! What is disturbing is that I didn't find it disturbing, but was hooked!

Earlist Fantasy was reading a Tarzan comic strip in primary school!


----------



## Happy Joe

Enter the Wayback machine...
Pip Pip and his flying saucer, followed closely by the Doctor Doolittle books (must have been 7 or 8 years old at the time).  Appleton's Toms Swift (senior) books followed by his son's versions.  Norton and Heinlein were also part of the early library.

Enjoy!


----------



## Loner

Some picture books are soo trippy theuy might as well be fantasy - like the Barbapapa books. I mean what _were_ those blobby shape-changing guys? Aliens?  

But if you don't count picture books I have fond memories of Heinlein's books for kids - _Have Spacesuit, Will Travel_; _Citizen of the Galaxy_.

They really made me think about the world. And once my mind had grown enough I actually rejected Heinlein's works. But I still have to give him credit for starting the growing process.


----------



## HardScienceFan

What,no Thunderbirds?
Ancient Relic AKA HardScienceFan 
1st book ever: Simak's "Time is the Simplest Thing",darned if it didn't blow me away at age 11, 2nd probably Anderson's Guardians of Time,then I knew there was no going back:I HAD to keep reading this stuff


----------



## Talysia

I think Thunderbirds would be one of the earliest sci-fi shows I remember, followed by Terrahawks and Star Fleet.   I loved those shows when I was young.


----------



## Anomaly

I remember being maybe 6 years old. This was probably in the mid 1950's. I had persuaded my mother to take me to a movie on a shopping trip in our small town.
It wsas a sci fi movie about spacemen returning to earth. They had eggs from another planet that upon reaching earth began hatching into very scary gross beings.

After 1/2 hour I insisted on leaving as it scared the @#$% out of me.

I have been hooked ever since. Still hate the hatching alien eggs!!!!


----------



## Anomaly

It was the late 1950's(Yes 1950's!). My mother and I had gone shopping and I had been on good behavior for once, so we went to a matinee. It was something about returning astronauts who had crash landed on return from another world. They didn't survive, but they had brought back a cargo of alien eggs which began hatching.........
At this point I got scared and demanded to be taken out of there right away.

I've been hooked ever since.

No idea what the movie was, but Aliens sure has a strong resemblance in premise.


----------



## Ragnar

Dr Who - The Sea Devils - particularly the bit where they came out of the sea for the first time. It was 1972 so I would have been about 5 years old. I was totally hooked from then on.

The first 'proper' SF book I read was Wyndham's 'The Midwich Cuckoos' after seeing the film 'Village of the Damned" on TV when I was about 8 or 9.


----------



## Summ3rDaze

My earliest t.v. s.f. memory is "My Favorite Martian", from 1963.  I was five years old and I was entranced. I *loved* that show so much.  
(Uncle Martin...lol!)

The first s.f. book I ever read was from around that time as well and was called "Star Girl".  It's about a little girl called "Mo" with big violet eyes (how exotic is that?) who falls out of her father's spaceship and the children of the village have to help her get to the meeting place in time for him to pick her up again.  I actually found a library discarded copy of "Star Girl" a few years back, it's so nice to actually have a copy of the story!


----------



## bruno-1012

Ragnar said:


> Dr Who - The Sea Devils - particularly the bit where they came out of the sea for the first time. It was 1972 so I would have been about 5 years old. I was totally hooked from then on.
> 
> The first 'proper' SF book I read was Wyndham's 'The Midwich Cuckoos' after seeing the film 'Village of the Damned" on TV when I was about 8 or 9.




Glad to have someone else mention that episode.  Welcome.


----------



## littlemissattitude

Summ3rDaze said:


> My earliest t.v. s.f. memory is "My Favorite Martian", from 1963.  I was five years old and I was entranced. I *loved* that show so much.
> (Uncle Martin...lol!)



Ah, yes.  Memories...I used to watch that show every week; I wish they would run it again on TVLand or somewhere.


----------



## HardScienceFan

Parrot0123 said:


> I remember reading a book about a boy who was in some sort of telepathic contact with an alien who needed his help to stop an alien criminal who had made his way to Earth. I wish I could remember the name of the book. I believe I was in grade 6 or so.
> 
> I remember being a fan of Astro Boy when I was young.



Could that one have been by Hal Clement(Needle?)


----------



## Coops

I would have to say film-wise, the films of the early 50"s as a child

The Day the Earth Stood Still
Forbidden Planet
Invaders from Mars
Godzilla

Reading-wise:  Tom Swift Jr. books


----------



## Captain B

I remember watching the early Dr Who & Supercar on TV

As for reading – I loved TV21 (Thunderbirds, Fireball XL5, Captain Scarlet), not to sure if it had Dr Who, But it did have the Daleks on the back page.

First Sci-Fi Film I went to was "THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO"


----------



## deletrix

Mine is reading a book in 5th grade, I can't remember the title or author (the author was female though maybe L'Engle  ). These children lived underground in a massive, tube-like structure because the outside was supposedly contaminated. They got out, and discovered it wasn't.


----------



## Loner

Sounds like The Island, doesn't it? Its a common theme in sci-fi.

I don't think it was L'Engle, but I'm not sure who did write it. That bugs me. I want to find out! Off to do some Googling!


----------



## HardScienceFan

Thin I made a mistake in my earlier post.
Earliest encounters with fantastic literature:
Fantastic Four comix
Archie,the Man of Steel(Loved it)
Tintin Rocket to the Moon(Herge)


----------



## Fahim

If you leave out all the comics (Marvel, DC, Tarzan etc.) I guess it's probably Dr. Who, Blakes 7 and Star Trek  Of course, I believe I read some science fiction before that in Sinhalese but that's probably my first run in with science fiction in English ...


----------



## Triceratops

Great to see you over here, Fahim.  I thought I was alone from the other place.  Wonderful digs here, huh?

Tri


----------



## Fahim

Hey Tri  Was wondering if I would actually run into anybody I knew - good to know you're here. I love this place - lots of spec fiction goodness.


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## The DeadMan

Besides comics, my first Sci-Fi experience was reading Forbidden Planet. After that I never went back to comics!


----------



## daisybee

A scary tv show when I was small that had huge alien creatures that turned into piles of salt or something, can not recall the name, but I'm sure they were called the Wilbeforces and I lived next to Wilbeforce Street! 
Book wise, the first sci fi book I read was The Stainless Steel Rat, by Harry Harrison. I still have a copy somewhere


----------



## Loner

daisybee said:


> Book wise, the first sci fi book I read was The Stainless Steel Rat, by Harry Harrison. I still have a copy somewhere




I used to love Harry Harrison!  The Death World series! Pure gold!


----------



## daisybee

Loner, have you read West of Eden? I keep trying to find the rest of the books, Deathworld noted, will give it a go- I still think Jimmy diGriz is wicked.


----------



## Connavar

Bladerunner but i cant remember much of it  i think i was too young when i saw it, actually the movie is as old as i am.

After i have read the novel its based on i am gonna see the movie and see if its as i remember it.


----------



## Supersith

Mine would definitly be Star Wars. I'm rather young only 15 soon to be 16, but when I was 6 they were releasing A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi in theatres(special edition versions) and wow, I saw those so many times, and then we got them on vhs <_<. I never read Sci-Fi a superlot until a few years ago, and when I started reading sci-fi I started reading fantasy(some in 5th grade but it took another year or two before I got really into it), I read the Hobbit, and then Lord of the Rings and, well, last year I finished reading it for the fourth time.


----------



## wrave

There are a couple of very early memories for me that could have been the beginning of my travels in SF. My dad subscribed to a men's magazine called "True" that had various outdoors types of stories, fishing tips and so on. But they had stories too. One story was about a farmer that went out to the barn one dark, snowy Winter night to check on his livestock. He was gone longer than he should have been so his wife went out to see what was going on. She followed his foot tracks in the snow and they passed the door to the barn, went around the corner of the structure and disappeared. Standing there, she could hear her husbands voice calling for help from seemingly high above her. The story could have been authored by Frank Edwards, a reporter that specialized in wierd stories. I read most of his books that were something like a "Stranger Than Science" series. He reported on stuff like spontaneous combustion cases, psychics and other unexplained phenomena. I don't know if this stuff is fact or fiction. Some of it has the ring of truth while the rest is definately fiction. But it got my interest.

One afternoon when I was in the first grade my Mom called me in to see a new TV show. It was called "Superman" starring George Reeves. Following that was "Captain Video" and later they began running Buster Crabbe in the old "Flash Gordon" films on Saturday mornings. All of this was my introduction to SciFi.

The first book I remember reading was Heinlein's "Revolt in 2100". But at that time I remember bringing home a paperback I had bought at the local drug store that was a collection of SF short stories. It was one of the "Year's Best SF&F" collections. I remember my Dad seeing it and asking, rather gruffly as I remember, why I was reading "that" book. I guess he didn't exactly know what "SF&F" stood for. I have wondered myself what he thought?

Anyhow, somewhere between Superman, Flash Gordon and SF&F, I got hooked. I expect the first SF book I read is the one that I posted in the forum where I asked for help trying to recall the title. The story was about a boy finding what I remember he thought of as a "magic marble" that he and his sister kept secret. He learned to manipulate the marble using just his mind and if I remember correctly, eventually he gave the marble back to it's alien owner. It's similar to "Mimsy Were the Borogroves" but different I think.

Whatever and however it started, I've been a fan all of my life.


----------



## Loner

daisybee said:


> Loner, have you read West of Eden? I keep trying to find the rest of the books, Deathworld noted, will give it a go- I still think Jimmy diGriz is wicked.



Nope. I have not read _West of Eden_. Why? Are you recommending it?


----------



## JDP

Unfortunately, the Visitors wiped my entire memory when they returned me to my cabin.


----------



## Loner

JDP said:


> Unfortunately, the Visitors wiped my entire memory when they returned me to my cabin.



If they had done it properly you wouldn't be able to remember they had done it...

Pff! Amateurs!


----------



## JDP

I guess they're not nearly as smart as they think they are. And call that a spaceship? Visitors just aint what they used to be.


----------



## Loner

Well seeing as you don't have an earliset sci-fi memory anymore, maybe you should write your memoirs so others can read it and have it as _their_ earliset sci-fi memory?


----------



## JDP

It would be one in the eye for the Visitors, eh?


----------



## Raoul Mitgong

Wow! I am as old as dirt.

I was a big fan of jungle stuff as a kid, Jungle Book, White Pongo, etc. Then I read Heinlein's Farmer In The Sky and I was hooked for life. 

Also, the old EC Comics scifi editions helped.


----------



## Kostmayer

Now that Visitors have been mentioned, I remember watching V at an early age. The effects look bad now but at the time this series scared the hell out of me. Lizards, gerbil swallowing, ruddy big flying saucers. And of course the great Michael Ironside.


----------



## Loner

Well I loved Heinlein as a child - _Have Spacesuit, Will Travel_ and _Citizen of the Galaxy_ being two favourites.
The effects on V might have dated badly but some of the topics they covered are still relevant today. 'Aliens' will always be a substitute for the 'other' that society shuns!


----------



## Kostmayer

The source of my avatar 

Benji Zax and the Alien Prince - cheesiest kids show ever, not that I thought so at the time  I've just got hold of the series. The floating robots were cool, and the bad guys black van, was, dare I say, cooler then the A-Teams.


----------



## HBP

If i remember correcty ........my earliest sci-fi memory would Star Wars or Star Trek one of the two, whichever came out first.


----------



## Anomander

I saw star wars and a couple of other movies, but I was hooked first on my dad's collection of SF literature - in particular there was this immortal space cowboy called Perry Rhodan. And there was also Buck Rogers on TV.


----------



## fantasy noob

when i was maybe 10 or 11 my dad put ringworld in my hands and said "read this, i know you will like it" and i did thats the earlist sci-fi memory that i have


----------



## Gothic_Angelica

My mum read diggers, truckers and wings to my sister and me when we were younger. 

I also remember that my childminder had star wars on video and used to watch it every so often.

Gothic


----------



## old wallie

I know I read some SciFi before, but the thing I remember is Heinlein's "Citizen of the Galixy".  I remember picking up a copy of Astounding SF, and subscribing to it to finish the rest of the story.  It was serialized in four parts.  I even bought a copy of it lately, and it is still a good story.  His analizing of cultures in the book hold up well even today.


----------



## ilthaniel

Remembering what my earliest SF-memory is isn't that easy, since both my parents and all of my brothers are also SF-fans. But I guess it would be a youthseries about a Dutch (Friesian, one of our provinces) inventor who made all kinds of futuristic inventions, among which a Discus shaped craft in which he all kinds of adventures with his sons.
 I think that my earliest memory of a internationally known author would be Herbert's Dune, which I read when I was about ten or eleven. A book like that certainly made an impression on me at that age. I did read the translation, though...


----------



## Wyrm Publishing

I think my fascination with the genre started with Lost in Space re-runs when I was about 4 or 5.  I've since bought the DVDs and now my son is hopelessly addicted.    The first SF book would have been the Foundation Trilogy when I was about 10 years old.


----------



## swish

I belive it was a book by Connie Möller, _Kriget om källan_ (The War of the Well). The plot was that a village is suddently poisoned and need to get water from a mountain spring, but the mountain villagers will not allow it. The valley village was built on a storage place for nucular waste which is now leaking, but since such technology is longe since forgotten there is not much they can do about it. 
It is implied that only us, now, can do something to prevent it from ever happening.


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## brsrkrkomdy

*Mine's the Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Night Gallery, and Science Fiction Theater that showcased all the SF/horror movies, good, bad, and indifferent.  Then I read several Ray Bradbury stories, and others like Clifford D. Simak, L.P. Davies.  That's about it, so far.*


----------



## appiehappie

It was definitely The Blob.  The came Rodan and Godzilla--but I guess those are action/adventure/horror.

Tri


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## Phlip

My earliest SF memory is the book, _Donovan's Brain_ which my father irritatingly tossed to me at age 13. I had been pestering him abou, "There's nothing to Do!" , "I'm bored!", etc. That book launched a lifetime of appreciation for SF and also Fantasy... little did he know what he was starting, lol!


----------



## j d worthington

Phlip said:


> My earliest SF memory is the book, _Donovan's Brain_ which my father irritatingly tossed to me at age 13. I had been pestering him abou, "There's nothing to Do!" , "I'm bored!", etc. That book launched a lifetime of appreciation for SF and also Fantasy... little did he know what he was starting, lol!


 
Ah, yes.... Curk Siodmak -- now, there's a name you don't often hear these days (more's the pity).....


----------



## tarifa

Was Starwars!

Grandad took 3 of my male cousins (all about 11-13ish) to see it when it originally came out, they snuck me in too, don't know how I was only 6!

But I still remember sitting entranced as those white words scrolled by and grandad read them to me, then princesss leia  and Darth Vader! 

and then of course I fell hoplessly in love with Luke Skywalker ahhhhh . . .

Took my god-daughter to see it at the cinema when it came out again a few years ago, she fell in love with luke (bless, he was so young!)and I watched Harison Ford yum.

When I'm old it'll be OB1! hehe

Can't watch those scrolling intros without a shiver to this day . . . an have never looked back!


----------



## TK-421

Star Wars as well. Completely blown away...


----------



## tarifa

TK-421 said:


> Star Wars as well. Completely blown away...


 
why arn't you at you post . . . (sorry must be old but i couldn't resist!)

P.S R u on another forum, not SF or book related, under the same name?


----------



## TK-421

I am on several forums but that depends what kind you had in mind.


----------



## ironvelvet

This was a great idea, really forced me to plunder my memory. I remember Dr Who being Tom Baker with the scarf. I read 2000AD, so getting towards the sci fi side. But I've got it down to two as the earliest. Either the TV series of Logans' Run, especially this episode where you got to have a sense of fun and humour till a certain age and then they put you in a machine which stripped it away from you forever and this one female character deliberately chose to strip out her entire mind instead of living without which left her dead. Probably shouldn't have watched at a young age, too formative. 
The other one was old black and white Flash Gordon serials. Ming the merciless and the guys with the giant wings and especially the costumes the girls wore. And of course a flying car or monkies aren't reasonable either so I'll throw in Chitty chitty bang bang and the Wizard of Oz.


----------



## rebornintheglory

My older brother and father loved _Dune_ from as far back as I can remember. We watched the films, I grew playing Dune 2 on my DOS PC, and before I knew many things in life I knew that the Spice must Flow. It was a few years before I read _Dune_, but I loved it from the first chapter and I've never looked back.


----------



## Steve Jordan

My earliest memory is being allowed to stay up past my bedtime one night, to watch an episode of the original _Star Trek_ during its second season.  I've been hooked on SF ever since.


----------



## Triceratops

Gak!  I can't forget Lost In Space, with the wonderful Judy Robinson (My first space crush).

Tri


----------



## jemcaesar

I was about 7 years old and watching The Empire Strikes Back with my brother and cousin on television. I was terrified of the dinosaur-looking robot things at the start of the movie... they gave me nightmares! A few months later I watched Return of the Jedi and really enjoyed it.


----------



## Vortex Manipulator

Being wide eyed & excessivley excited that there were 2 more Star Wars films.. and I was going to be getting BOTH on video... after almost wearing out the video of the original film by watching it so often!


----------



## faerietalegoddess

My earliest of SF memories were of the times that I used to sit and watch Star Trek with a few friends.  I was never a huge fan of the actors, but I thought that the stories were excellent and even wrote nerdy little stories that put myself in their situations.  

And then I started watching a show called "Alien Nation"...I think it only lasted about a year, but I thought it was absolutely superb.  I also enjoyed "Quantum Leap" and still remember almost all of the episodes I saw.  And then I decided to give Star Wars a try and just absolutely fell in love with those movies and the books as well.

But Alien Nation is my fondest memory of the entire genre.  It just completely rocked my socks.


----------



## Kostmayer

I loved Alien Nation too


----------



## pie'oh'pah

My earliest memory is getting out of bed and going downstairs when I was about 5 or 6. I wasn't well and I was probably a bit fevered. I walked in on my parents watching the last 10 minutes of 'The Man With X-ray Eyes' - the gruesome bit in the church. I had nightmares for months after that. But it has to be said that I was hooked from that moment on in the worst way


----------



## Musky

There were more than a few movies or TV shows that kindled my interest in Science Fiction. As far as books, I would say I was around nine (1970) and remember really loving a Wrinkle in Time, which is of course a timeless classic. Another book I remember ordering in third grade through scholastic books was Stranger from the Depths by Gerry Turner. A little less well known, obviously. Anyone know this book published in 1970?

If I remember correctly, it was about two children that become involved with an undersea being from a civilization a lot older than humanity. I recall they burrowed to the Earth's center in a mole machine that used a laser to burn the rock in front of it and it then fused behind the ship. 

Very cool book. I remember always hoping to find a book on those Scholastic order forms that I would like as much. I wish I still had all the paperbacks I ordered through Scholastic when I was a kid. They were at my parents home in boxes for many years, but were ruined when their basement flooded.


----------



## Naryaló S dú

Star Wars of course


----------



## manephelien

I remember role-playing Star Wars with my friends. We lived out in the boondocks without a car (!) and didn't get out to the movies very often, especially as neither of my parents is a movie fan (my Mom last saw The English Patient in theater, and I don't think my dad's been to the movies since my parents dated 40 years ago...), only when friends' parents invited me too. Anyway, I role-played SW long before I saw any of the movies, even though I was 5 when ep. 4 came out. The first SF I saw was ET and it gave me nightmares for weeks.

The show that really got me hooked on SF was Knight Rider, KITT was so cool (and Michael Knight/The Hoff was my first celebrity crush. Well I was 12!).


----------



## Kostmayer

I remember staying up late watching Quatermass and the Pit. Channel 4 in the uk had a scifi night on a Friday I think it was. I stayed up till about 4 am watching Godzilla films. Quatermass was the scariest.


----------



## Steve Jordan

Kostmayer said:


> I remember staying up late watching Quatermass and the Pit. Channel 4 in the uk had a scifi night on a Friday I think it was. I stayed up till about 4 am watching Godzilla films. Quatermass was the scariest.



Oh yeah... I saw that for the first time at about midnight.  Seeing that image of the alien, and realizing how it looked like the Devil... creepy!


----------



## matt-browne-sfw

Star Trek the original series. I was totally intrigued by Spock's pointed ears.

The most intense memory however was in a cinema in the early 80ies when watching "Alien". The whole crowd including myself made a violent jerk in total shock when the baby alien cut through the belly of one crew member. This collective gasp of all the spectators was overwhelming...

Later when watching it again on television it wasn't the same anymore. If you know what's coming... and the smaller screen...

Anyone else who saw Alien in a cinema first? Not on television or DVD?


----------



## HardScienceFan

me in a series of cheap reruns in the 90's
the cinema tried to raise visitor numbers artificially
10 movies for fl 12.50,plastic seats,little airco


----------



## Dave

matt-browne-sfw said:


> Anyone else who saw Alien in a cinema first? Not on television or DVD?


I saw it on the first release, which was 1979, I think. I was already a scifi fan, but I also used to go to the cinema more regularly. I was much less choosy; I would see whatever was on, once every week or two; some films that were quite appallingly bad. So, I had no idea of the chest busting event before it happened (and neither did the cast themselves from all accounts.)

I totally agree with you, except to add that after frequent viewings the puppet itself and the special effects are not a patch on what could be achieved today. It is only John Hurt's acting that covers it.


----------



## Ian Whates

I also saw _Alien _in the cinema on its first release, but was already a firm SF fan long before that (showing my age). The film's advent coincided with a TV campaign by the Egg Marketing Board here in the UK, under the slogan "Go to Work on an Egg". When combined with the posters advertising _Alien_, this opened up all sorts of comic potential.


----------



## j d worthington

*holds up hand* I did. In fact, I saw it on the day it opened down in Houston (where I was living at the time), and again about a year or two later... when there was only one poor guy who was the "virgin"... and whose reactions soon made him the center of the show.... When they're in the escape pod, and the creature flashes that arm out, everyone had turned to look at this guy, not the screen... His popcorn went one way, his drink went the other... and he lifted about two feet of his seat.....


----------



## Vladd67

My earliest memory is of Jon Pertwee as Dr Who, and the first sci fi books I read were from the Puffin book club at Primary School, I remember reading Islands in the Sky by Arthur C Clarke, I can remember having Catseyes but I can't remember anything about the book. I also remember a book called Space Hostages about a group of kids on a space ship who are left to run it when the crewman went mad. TV wise I watched Land of the Giants, Time Tunnel, The Invaders, Lost in Space, Space 1999, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, UFO, I also vaguely remember a series called Moonbase 3.


----------



## angrybuddhist

The first sci-fi book I can remember reading was *The Wonderful Flight to the* *Mushroom Planet* by Eleanor Cameron.The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
One of the first fantasy books I read was *Black and Blue Magic* by Zilpha Keatley Snyder.  Black and Blue Magic - Google Book Search

I also saw Alien in the theater, first.  I thought I was going to watch a sci-fi film, but was surprised to find it was a horror film.


----------



## Bant Warick

My earliest sci-fi memory is watching Laputa: castle in the sky on tv when I was 7/8 years old. But at the time I had no idea of the genius that was Miyazaki, and over time I forgot about the film.
Fast forward to 28 years of age; I bought a film magazine that I don't usually buy but just wanted something to read on a train. In it, somebody wrote in asking if they knew the name of a film he watched when he was little, about a flying castle that had pirates in it! suffice to say I went straight out to the the nearest dvd store and bought Laputa that very day!


----------



## Tielhard

Let's see it was a long time ago that's for sure.

I remember hiding from the Daleks behind the settee to afraid to come out too fascinated to leave the room. I think that Troughton was Who at the time but it may have been Hartnell. I remember the transparent robot from Fireball XL-5 and the way it took off but little else.

When I was about 5, maybe 6, my aunts began buying me Project Sword toys and that, I think, is what really got me interested in space.

I was a late reader, the first science fiction I read was a picture book called 'Major Matt Mason Moon Mission' all about the space toy of the samme name which I loved. I still have it today.  Then in the year of the moon landings my father took me to see 2001: A Space Odyssey and as a little boy I understood an awful lot more of it than he did, I had to explain it to him on the way home on the bus and my father was a clever man.  For me the experience of the film especially the bone and the bush baby was an epiphany.  It changed my life.  I went into the sciences and never regretted it even though my talents lie elsewhere.


----------



## littlemissattitude

Tielhard said:


> Then in the year of the moon landings my father took me to see 2001: A Space Odyssey



Yeah.  My dad took me to see that one, too.  It was the only movie we _ever_ went to see when it was still just in limited release.  It was that important to him.  Not anywhere near my earliest sf memory (I was 12 or 13 at the time), but a definitive one.


----------



## UnderTheOath

Star Wars FTW!

My big bro was obsessed. I remember being about five or so when we watched A New Hope together. Ten years ago. Geez that's a while.


----------



## AJS

Seeing William Hartnell regenerate into Troughton.

Go I am old!


----------



## j d worthington

AJS said:


> Seeing William Hartnell regenerate into Troughton.
> 
> Go I am old!


 
*sigh* Now, I'd like to see that episode... actually, I'd like to see the whole bloody story......


----------



## loreth

Button moon!!!

not sure if it counts as sci fi but every episode mr spoon would use his space ship to fly to button moon. it was a great childrens series. there was also my favourite childhood book zig and zag which involved two very small aliens (their ship was the size of a tennis ball) who were sent to earth by their emperor and ended up flying all round the world before stealing some gold from fort knox before returning home to get married


----------



## Dave

j. d. worthington said:


> *sigh* Now, I'd like to see that episode... actually, I'd like to see the whole bloody story......


I find it amazing that they made most TV live and dumped these films shortly after. No one, not even those working on Doctor Who could forsee future Video players and DVD players, and the huge market for recorded programs. Now they are scrabbling around, begging, stealing and borrowing copies of episodes to make up whole stories, adding readings from original scripts where they still exist to fill in the gaps.

I probably watched practically every episode, but I barely remember anything.


----------



## pixymiss

i remember a Dr Who episode with William Hartnell, it had Tweedledum and Tweedledee in it! and that is all i can remember about it! i was probably behind the sofa!!


----------



## Harpo

Having just posted in OR's new thread about how we first got into SFF, I remembered having replied to a similar thread years ago.  Here's what I said, back when I'd only been here a couple of weeks



Harpo said:


> TV: Doctor Who, I had a toy dalek that I was scared of.  The earliest episode I remeber actually watching (rather than seeing as a repeat later on) was a Patrick Troughton one involving life sized toy soldiers, but I forget the title.
> 
> Book: My dad had a series of Sci-Fi stories which I think he'd got from Reader's Digest.  The only one I can remember reading was called "Tiger By The Tail" (I've just checked, it was by Alan E. Nourse)


----------



## Rodders

I probably watch a little of Doctor Who too, but my earliest memory is reading 2000AD comics back in 1976 (i think). Then my dad took me to see Warlords of Atlantis, (which i loved), then going with my family to see Star Wars at Leicester Square. Truly a life changing moment for me.


----------



## Graymalkin

pixymiss said:


> i remember a Dr Who episode with William Hartnell,


wow... I just missed him. He and Patrick Troughton have a mythic status for me. John Pertwee's the first one I remember seeing the terrifying sea-devils and some giant cucumbers that lived in a swamp I think or maybe that was Tom Baker (fighting the cucumbers.)

I have vivid memories from about age 9 or 10, listening to my older brother's Kraftwerk album on my grandmother's radiogram and drawing epic space battles on my dad's plasterboard panels waiting to go up on the walls.

2000AD - amazing, Star Wars - still haven't recovered - the force IS real, Astounding Tales, Weird Tales, Marvel comics from jumblies, fragments of James Mason and Gertrude the duck to Bernard Herrmann's antediluvian score...wow, how did I ever grow up? Oh...of course ... I never did.


----------



## Onyx

Sometime around when I was three I liked listening to the 2001 soundtrack and looking at the photos in the LP. Around the same time I recalled watching Space 1999 and Quark on TV, but found 1999 terrifying.


----------



## Cathbad

Wasn't *1999* a comedy?


----------



## WarriorMouse

Can't remember how old I was but I had started to read SF. My parents were looking at buying a house and in those days there was no furniture filled model houses, you just drove to where houses were being built and climbed into one that was under construction. (No health and safety nannies) I can remember being in one house that was in the wall board stage and seeing foot prints on walls and ceiling's of the rooms. I really mulled over how those foot prints got there and finally decided that they must have invented anti gravity boots and that allowed the workers to walk up the walls and to work upside down on the ceilings. Thankfully I never voiced my theory as I felt quite stupid when I found out how those footprints actually got there.


----------



## Graymalkin

WarriorMouse said:


> Can't remember how old I was but I had started to read SF. My parents were looking at buying a house and in those days there was no furniture filled model houses, you just drove to where houses were being built and climbed into one that was under construction. (No health and safety nannies) I can remember being in one house that was in the wall board stage and seeing foot prints on walls and ceiling's of the rooms. I really mulled over how those foot prints got there and finally decided that they must have invented anti gravity boots and that allowed the workers to walk up the walls and to work upside down on the ceilings. Thankfully I never voiced my theory as I felt quite stupid when I found out how those footprints actually got there.


Wow. Yes but kind of logical conclusion given the evidence ☺


----------



## Amberlen

ahh, i totally remember staying up with my dad to watch Planet of the Apes..i had to have been somewhere between 6 and 7? (lest a younger person be mistaken, the original tv series)
also, does Land of the Lost on saturday mornings count?


----------



## Graymalkin

Hello Amberlen. I had to look up Land of the Lost. Can't post the link below for interest yet. I have a vague memory of some of the weirder looking characters but nothing clear. But I would say that dimensional travel definitely counts.
Planet of the apes was another weekly staple. Seem to remember each episode ended with Burke and Virdon walking off down another dusty road. Great wanderer format like Incredible Hulk. And so many others I guess. Saturday mornings - wonderful.


----------



## Amberlen

@Graymalkin  yes! lol..alot of shows had that wandering ending during that era of tv...PoA, Hulk, Kung Fu..etc
also, omg...remember Isis? the tv show? loved it, along with BG, and i am somewhat embarrassed to say Buck Rogers


----------



## Omits

'Journey Into Space' series on the radio in the 50s got me interested.


----------



## BAYLOR

Cathbad said:


> Wasn't *1999* a comedy?



It became a full blown comedy sensation in season 2


----------



## Cathbad

"NUCLEAR EXPLOSION ON MOON KICKS OFF ARMAGGEDON ON EARTH, SENDS MOON INTO FASTER THAN LIGHT FLIGHT - NO ILL AFFECTS ON HUMANS LIVING ON MOON."

~smh~


----------



## BAYLOR

Cathbad said:


> "NUCLEAR EXPLOSION ON MOON KICKS OFF ARMAGGEDON ON EARTH, SENDS MOON INTO FASTER THAN LIGHT FLIGHT - NO ILL AFFECTS ON HUMANS LIVING ON MOON."
> 
> ~smh~



Moonbase Alpha would have gotten fried. And there is no possible way that the moon would have achieved faster then light velocity.


----------



## dask

Think it might have been one of the early Quatermass movies, Destination Moon, Battle In Outer Space, something like that. Or those early House of Mystery and Tales Of The Unexpected comics my brother brought home in the late 50s (and which were promptly taken away from us).


----------



## logan_run

8 years old and finding a  star wars trading card.


----------



## mosaix

Omits said:


> 'Journey Into Space' series on the radio in the 50s got me interested.


That and Flash Gordon at the pictures on a Saturday morning.


----------



## night_wrtr

The movie Krull. It was the most mesmerizing thing I had ever seen. I was in the single digits of age, but still. It was great.


----------



## Amberlen

night_wrtr said:


> The movie Krull. It was the most mesmerizing thing I had ever seen. I was in the single digits of age, but still. It was great.


oh yes! i liked that movie too!


----------



## AstroZon

My earliest memories would have been the stuff on TV: The Jetsons, Flash Gordon, and a few movies like The Deadly Mantis.  

When I was 9, I started reading science fiction anthologies.  They consisted of short stories but included authors like Ray Bradbury and Hal Clement.

But as a kid in the 60s, I was just as interested in the real world space race.  I loved it.


----------



## Sum Dude

Probably Men In Black and the Megaman/Megaman X series.


----------



## Steven H Witnall

For me, it was Dr Who, Space 1999 and Joe 90


----------



## Graymalkin

Steven H Witnall said:


> For me, it was Dr Who, Space 1999 and Joe 90


Hi. Classics. Joe 90 theme tune was amazing.


----------



## Steven H Witnall

Please tell me how to quote posts


----------



## Graymalkin

hi Steve.You should see - Like  Quote and Reply icons, bottom right of this and each posted message. clik on quote. cheers.


----------



## Graymalkin

sorry that was incomplete. click on quote. that opens a new* reply to thread*  window. You can write a new message within the quote box, under the words you are quoting. preview and press reply. cheers


----------



## Steven H Witnall

Graymalkin said:


> clik on quote


Cheers - I have it now



Graymalkin said:


> Joe 90 theme tune was amazing.


Alas I do not recall the theme tune just the glasses


----------



## Graymalkin

the theme tune was Barry Gray's surf/r&b inspired masterpiece. He also did the theme for Space 1999, T.Birds and others...
here's the original    --   



or you can hear its influence on this little known gem   --    




__
		https://soundcloud.com/tony-martucci-1%2Fsurf-actant-with-kramer-tapelo-air-master
Yes, the glasses were unforgettable.


----------



## Steven H Witnall

Graymalkin said:


> the theme tune was Barry Gray's surf/r&b inspired masterpiece. He also did the theme for Space 1999, T.Birds and others...
> here's the original    --
> 
> 
> 
> or you can hear its influence on this little known gem   --
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> https://soundcloud.com/tony-martucci-1%2Fsurf-actant-with-kramer-tapelo-air-master
> Yes, the glasses were unforgettable.


Cheers thanks for that brings back memories


----------



## BigBadBob141

Watching "Supercar", "FireballXL5", "Space Patrol" and seeing bits of "Forbidden Planet".


----------



## Graymalkin

Wow. Forbidden Planet. Still beats majority of sci-fi films in a lot of respects. The Krell: a sobering tale.


----------



## Cathbad

I just watched *Krull*.   Since I fear being beat up, I'll refrain from commenting.


----------



## Graymalkin

dask said:


> Think it might have been one of the early Quatermass movies, Destination Moon, Battle In Outer Space, something like that. Or those early House of Mystery and Tales Of The Unexpected comics my brother brought home in the late 50s (and which were promptly taken away from us).


Wow ... the golden/silver age of comics. I hunted out the uk 1970s reissues at school and village hall jumblies.


----------



## Graymalkin

Cathbad said:


> I just watched *Krull*.   Since I fear being beat up, I'll refrain from commenting.


I take it you weren't that impressed? I seem to remember a kind of weak, cheesy feel to Krull. Bernard Breslaw was much better in the Carry on films.


----------



## Cathbad

Graymalkin said:


> I take it you weren't that impressed? I seem to remember a kind of weak, cheesy feel to Krull. Bernard Breslaw was much better in the Carry on films.


Perhaps if it had at least a little better acting...


----------



## Graymalkin

Cathbad said:


> Perhaps if it had at least a little better acting...


Which? Krull or the carry on films?


----------



## Cathbad

I only watched Krull.


----------



## Graymalkin

Ah. Carry On team never really got into the sci-fi genre anyway. They missed a trick there I think
http://nikolai-dante.webs.com/carry on camping.jpg


----------



## Graymalkin

And of course Krull is a fantasy anyway.


----------



## M. Robert Gibson

Graymalkin said:


> Carry On team never really got into the sci-fi genre anyway



You missed this film then


----------



## Graymalkin

M. Robert Gibson said:


> You missed this film then


Haha! Yes I did. More's the pity.


----------



## psikeyhackr

I saw the original movie The Blob in 1958 at The Louis theater.  Scared the crap out of me.  Of course I knew nothing about it being SF at the time.  It was a Monster Movie!

First conscious encounter with SF was reading Star Surgeon by Alan E. Nourse.


----------



## Cathbad

Brian G Turner said:


> Star Wars and Star Wars figures, aged 5.


*shoots Brian for being so young*


----------



## psikeyhackr

Brian G Turner said:


> Star Wars and Star Wars figures, aged 5.


----------



## Alan Aspie

Loner said:


> What are your earliest sci-fi memories?



Space 1999
The Six Million Dollar Man
Barsoom series books
Asimov
Bradbury
Planet of the Apes

Can't remember well. Too long time.


----------



## Lew Rockwell Fan

_Mutiny in the Time Machine_ (1963)
Tom Swift, Jr. and his Flying Lab


----------



## dask

Never heard of it. Going to have to check it out. Could be an obscure gem.


----------



## HanaBi

i think my first introduction to SF was probably back in the very early 70s, watching a classic H.G. Wells film "*The Time Machine*" with Rod Taylor. I was probably a preteen back then, and had very little concept of what sci-fi actually was. But I enjoyed the sfx of tripping through Time, along with the rather creepy "Morlocks".

I think shortly after that I went onto watch the original "*The War of the Worlds*". I was still too young to understand the nuances, but those weird spacecraft from Mars blowing away cities of Earth, really scared the hell out of me for a week or so afterwards.


----------



## Russiano

Unfortunately, I don't remember the name neither the author of my first SF book, but it amused me a lot when I was a kid. I could read it again and again until all pages were stored safely in my head. There is no doubt that's a children's book, however I'm not sure if that belongs to Soviet times or later. I read it somewhere between 2000—2008, most probably 2004. It told a story about a young boy that recently went to school. He met another kid (my blurry memory won't confirm whether that was a girl or also a boy) which happened to be a guest from the future. They then travel one century further and the second kid shows the future school. She/He encourages the guest from the past to learn more and be a responsible student, from which I'd suppose that the main character had issues in school what was the idea of the whole story. My brightest memory about the future school is robots as teachers. They had nothing in common with humans except their height and looked like clumsy machines with a big bulb encircled by a transparent half-sphere instead of head. It popped out in my mind like a providence when I started reading Asimov several years later. I'm still in process searching for it's name and the writer. It's nothing special, just a regular children's book that almost nobody knows about but it was my start.


----------



## Russiano

*Update*: The book is called _Petya Ivanov and wizard Tick Tock_ (2000). In my previous post I put many details incorrectly, however since the main ideas I mentioned in every sentence are the same, it's unnecessary to try retelling the particularities more accurately. I only have to add that it isn't about travelling to the future school only, because before the main character went there, he had been to other timelines including the Neolithic and Russian Empire.


----------



## Justin Swanton

My earliest Sci-fi memory? Tall grey humanoids leaving me in a cot at a doorway with the words: "We haffff made you humannnn....go rule planet for usssss."

I think I might have come a little short in my mission objectives....


----------



## Graymalkin

Justin Swanton said:


> My earliest Sci-fi memory? Tall grey humanoids leaving me in a cot at a doorway with the words: "We haffff made you humannnn....go rule planet for usssss."
> 
> I think I might have come a little short in my mission objectives....



 well funny ( I assume ...)


----------



## Justin Swanton

Graymalkin said:


> well funny ( I assume ...)



Funny? Oh yes, they did cover humour in the prepping sessions.


----------



## Nozzle Velocity

Fireball XL-5


----------



## Joshua Jones

For me, it was when I was about 7 or 8. I always liked science, and I liked fiction, but I didn't realize how well they could go together until I was assigned _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea_ in school. I read the entire, unabridged work in 2 days.


----------



## Anthoney

Not my first sci-fi memory but the first time I went to a sci-fi movie by myself.  It was a double planet feature. * Fantastic Planet* with the second feature of* Forbidden Planet*.  Forbidden Planet was an older film but I hadn't seen it yet.  It was a great afternoon.


----------



## Justin Swanton

My first SF movie I recall was _The Green Slime_. I had nightmares for a week afterwards.


----------



## psikeyhackr

Justin Swanton said:


> My first SF movie I recall was _The Green Slime_. I had nightmares for a week afterwards.



LOL

How old were you?  My sister said that was a good flick so I watched it.  I thought it was terrible.  But I saw the original *Blob* as a kid and it scaired the sh!t out of me.


----------



## Justin Swanton

psikeyhackr said:


> LOL
> 
> How old were you?  My sister said that was a good flick so I watched it.  I thought it was terrible.  But I saw the original *Blob* as a kid and it scaired the sh!t out of me.



Ten or less. I saw it in Rhodesia in the 1970's.


----------



## Ray Zdybrow

Dave said:


> The rain story could have been by Ray Bradbury. He wrote many rain stories. I know I've read "All Summer In a Day" but that is opposite to what you said as the children are preparing for sunshine after seven years of rain.
> 
> My earliest memory is from TV. At age one or two I would watch 'Dr Who' at my grandfathers on a Saturday afternoon while the tea was made. I used to bounce on the sofa to the music. All I can remember is the music, that it came on after the football results, and the Daleks, of course.


Doctor Who got me into a lifelong love of both Science Fiction and electronic music. The first Dr Who serial I saw was the one with the Yeti in the London Underground.


----------



## Lisa_Who

When my grandpa took me to see the very first Star Wars. I was teeny tiny but it's one of my earliest most vivid memories!


----------



## Danny McG

Lisa_Who said:


> When my grandpa took me to see the very first Star Wars. I was teeny tiny but it's one of my earliest most vivid memories!


So was that a long time ago?
_
Geddit? Huh? Star Wars... a long time ago?_


----------



## -K2-

Edit: Second thought, I think I'll keep this to myself.

K2


----------



## Vince W

My earliest scifi memories are a jumble of Thunderbirds, Doctor Who, Space: 1999, and Star Trek.


----------



## Elckerlyc

I'm not entirely sure but I think my first SF experience was a radio play, about a mission to Mars which, of course, went horribly wrong.
This probably was in my early teens, 1964 thereabouts. Perhaps even earlier, come to think about it.


----------



## olive

E.T. I think I was around six. The first movie I have seen on the big screen. My mother took my sister, my cousin and me to the theatre. Oh, what fun. My mother believes that that movie has affected us the most. (Like general attitude to authority, to adults, taking sides, interest in science fiction... This was a long-standing discussion between us. But my sister and I believe it is the 2001 A Space Odyssey. Because she made us watch it and we both remember that day very vividly, exactly the same; her telling us we should 'sit and watch this, because it is important'. She doesn't remember. LOL She never did that before -or after- for a movie so it was marked and the movie well, naturally unforgettable. It is a precious, lovely 'trauma'. It changed us forever. I was 11, sis was 9. Sunday. Noon. Stunned two kids, eyes wide, pinned to the couch, thinking 'Aaaaaa what's happening?!' Thanks for reminding me that.  )


----------



## tinkerdan

The Angry Red Planet 1959
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Destination Moon (1950)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
The Thing from Another World (1951)
Them! (1954)
Forbidden Planet (1956)
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
The Fly (1958)
The War of the Worlds (Byron Haskin, 1953)
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (Fred F. Sears)
The Blob (Irvin Yeaworth)
20,000 Leagues under the Sea (Richard Fleischer, 1954)
Creature from the Black Lagoon (Jack Arnold, 1954)
Back in 59 when I was 8 we went to the drive in theatre to see the Angry Red Planet.
Then Journey to the Center of the Earth.

After that we had this late night movie show on the black and white tv that showed the above films from 3 down and more.
However Somewhere Before this I began reading.
Eleanor Frances (Butler) _Cameron_   Mushroom planet series.

Somewhere in the early mid 60s I moved quickly on to

Marion Zimmer Bradley's  The Colors of Space
Poul Andersonj's After Doomsday.
My reading  just started rolling after that.


----------



## CupofJoe

In the cinema, I was taken to see 2001: A Space Odessey
It was not the original 68/69 release but a re-run at a local fleapit. Even so, it was the early 70s and I was only 4 or 5.  I can remember loving it, especially the trippy bit at the end. Don't think I understood a word of it now or then.
About the same time in the early 70s Thunderbirds was on Sunday morning repeat and I fell in love with them. And I still do.


----------



## Guttersnipe

I remember reading Flowers for Algernon best. My memory of reading a Goosebumps book about a comic book supervillain is hazier.
In film, it was Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.


----------



## Lisa_Who

dannymcg said:


> So was that a long time ago?
> 
> _Geddit? Huh? Star Wars... a long time ago?_



IT WAS because I'm old!!


----------



## Lisa_Who

Guttersnipe said:


> I remember reading Flowers for Algernon best. My memory of reading a Goosebumps book about a comic book supervillain is hazier.
> In film, it was Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.



I read the short story version of Flowers for Algernon when I was in the single-digits of age...I can't remember when I discovered that there was a whole, entire expanded novelization of it, though I remember loving it nearly as much as the short version!


----------



## Werewoman

OMG! I was 4 years old sitting in my dads lap and watching Star Trek, the original series. I was amazed years later when I saw them again and remembered a few. Freaky.


----------



## Lisa_Who

CupofJoe said:


> In the cinema, I was taken to see 2001: A Space Odessey
> It was not the original 68/69 release but a re-run at a local fleapit. Even so, it was the early 70s and I was only 4 or 5.  I can remember loving it, especially the trippy bit at the end. Don't think I understood a word of it now or then.
> About the same time in the early 70s Thunderbirds was on Sunday morning repeat and I fell in love with them. And I still do.



My absolute earliest favorite Saturday morning cartoon was Battle of the Planets.  I was totally obsessed with repeating Zoltar's dialogue while standing in front of my grandma's fan and I remember being amazed at how _much _that made me sound like him! (and now, knowing what I know about the production budgets of those shows, I'd be totally unsurprised to discover that that's how the voice actor sounded like Zoltar too  )


----------



## Rodders

Battle of the Planets was awesome. I used to enjoy Star Fleet too. Space 1999 was must see viewing grousing up.

my mum got me 2000AD when it came out and I prefer this to DC and Marvel.


----------



## Vince W

I preferred Star Blazers to Battle of the Planets.


----------



## BAYLOR

Vince W said:


> I preferred Star Blazers to Battle of the Planets.



Star Blazers produced in 1974, had better writing then almost all  of the live action science fiction shows of that era  It had a continuous  story arc which was largely unheard of in Prime time tv series.

Battle of the Planets , The local station that broadcasted  called it The " Most exciting show since Star Wars" .  Forgetting that Star Wars was Neve a show.  What ruins this series for me was the way it was  edited combined with the crapy voice acting  and  and the 7Zark7 to fill in the scene cut out .


----------



## Rodders

Simpler times, Baylor.


----------



## Jo Zebedee

A Blake’s 7 episode. Cally on a windswept planet. I suspect the episode was Terminal.


----------



## Orcadian

Paige Turner said:


> Well, one hates to date oneself, but I was a psychotic fan of Fireball XL-5 as a (very!) young child. It was the first show I ever declared to be "my show," and I _had _to watch it. (There was an elaborate TV watching ritual I won't go into here.) Rockets, romance, robots… today's science fiction could take a page from that book, I can tell you.


Well, I realise Paige Turner's post is from half a lifetime ago but (as a newbie) I have been trawling through things I've missed.  So I too was a Fireball XL5 fan! One of the earliest TV series I  can remember.  Three crew: Steve, Venus and Brainy or Brains?  Even as a 7 year old it bothered me that XL5 wobbles as she runs up the take-off ramp.  

Also Space Patrol, around the same time, I think. Galasphere 347, also with three crew, names forgotten but all men. I have a strong memory of them descending into somewhere in a sort of lift. There was a tube with bubbles travelling up to show that they were moving.


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## Orcadian

Parson said:


> My earliest Sci-fi memory would be a book by Andre Norton, which I do not even remember the title of. It was a story a young herder from the planet Norden, who was a herder. He had been transplanted into another star system where immigrants were only allowed to the main planet (?) if they had a job. He got a job at a pet store but soon pets who had been inhanced to the point that they were no longer pets are sent there. He finds he can speak with them telepathically. And so on. If anyone recognized this and can tell me the name of the book I would appreciate it a lot.


Thinking this might be Catseye, @Parson. https://www.librarything.com/work/152576. "[A] pet emporium ... imports exotic animals from across the galaxy. Horan, born a herder on the lost world of Norden, has an [special] affinity for animals. [The owner spots this] and offers [him] a job."


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## Alex The G and T

Hmmmm.... 20 Kiloleagues under the sea, with Kirk Douglas, 1954.

Well, I wasn't born til '57; but I remember that Mom and Granny would shepherd me through the door of the cinema and bugger off for a couple hours of shopping, lunch and a couple of cocktails.

I might have been left with a playmate, or my younger brother.  If Bro was motile, like age 3 or 4; that would have bumped my age up to 7 ish.

A couple of hours of babysitting for a couple of nickels.  Schweet!


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## psikeyhackr

Orcadian said:


> Well, I realise Paige Turner's post is from half a lifetime ago but (as a newbie) I have been trawling through things I've missed.  So I too was a Fireball XL5 fan! One of the earliest TV series I  can remember.  Three crew: Steve, Venus and Brainy or Brains?  Even as a 7 year old it bothered me that XL5 wobbles as she runs up the take-off ramp.



OMG!

CGI nostalgia!


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## Valtharius

I might be giving away my youth and inexperience here, but I literally cannot remember a time when I _wasn't_ a Star Wars fan.


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## THX1138

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Star Trek, Lost in Space, Twilight Zone and The Prisoner all played throughout the week here, so I had plenty to choose from and can't remember any one being first.  UFO and Space 1999 a couple of years later. Does the Jetsons count? 

As for movies, the first I remember seeing was Silent Running w/Bruce Dern then the original Planet of the Apes around the same year on TV. All of the others I remember seeing after these...On TV of course. I was young then.


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## Parson

Orcadian said:


> Thinking this might be Catseye, @Parson. Catseye by Andre Norton. "[A] pet emporium ... imports exotic animals from across the galaxy. Horan, born a herder on the lost world of Norden, has an [special] affinity for animals. [The owner spots this] and offers [him] a job."


Indeed it was Catseye. Someone recognized it years ago and I've since had a re-read. I was surprised by 3 things: first how well it held up. Second, how some of the scenes I remembered the best were not quite as I remembered them, and third, how much I didn't remember which was actually pretty important to the plot. All in all a pretty good introduction to what I would now call Science Fantasy.


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## Quokka

Quokka said:


> My earliest memories are definately the cartoons... with Astroboy, Battle of the Planets, Robotech and Starblazers among them.
> 
> Then the movies such as _When Worlds Collide_ and _It Came From Beneath The Sea_
> 
> As for novel's my first memories are of _The Tripods, The Legionary Quartet_ and earlier still a series called something like Earth 2 or second earth?




Wow there's a blast from the past but at least I'm consistent, I just posted in similar threads in the Book Discussion section and as I said 16 or so years ago it all started with 50s sci fi movies and a children's sci-fi book series that I still claim was called Earth Two even if I can't find mention of it .


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## magpie Asylum

My first real memory of Sci Fi was watching Doctor Who with my father. This was back when Doctor Who was on PBS. The Tom Baker era. It came on around eight o'clock. My father would pop popcorn and we would sit and watch these amazing stories unfold with the worst visual effects. It was one of the few times I got to spend with my father. He was always working and he was stoic to a fault. It was watching those old re-runs that I decided as a child I wanted to create stories like that.


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## LostCosmonaut

Valtharius said:


> I might be giving away my youth and inexperience here, but I literally cannot remember a time when I _wasn't_ a Star Wars fan.


Same here---my parents started showing me _Star Trek_ and _Star Wars_ before I was even old enough to know what I was looking at. I like to joke that I was raised in the faith. I still have an old painting I did in kindergarten, showing the _Enterprise_ squaring off against the _Reliant _in the Mutara Nebula. 

And I know that one of these doesn't count as sci-fi, but my ideas of space travel, as a very young kid, were mostly informed by the movies _Apollo 13_ and _Armageddon_. I broke the cargo doors off my toy Space Shuttle reenacting scenes from the latter.


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## Rodders

Ahhh, the Space Shuttle. What a wonderful future that spaceship gave us.

I was fortunate enough to have to travel to New York a couple of weeks ago and saw the Space Shuttle Enterprise on the deck of the USS Intrepid. Still beautiful, even now.


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## Elckerlyc

An TV episode (probably) of something SF. It must have been somewhere 1963 or 1964, before we had a TV at home. I watched it at a friends home. I was 11 at the time.

Scene: A guy and a girl in a train compartment, obviously disliking each other for one reason or another. A few other people in the compartment watched this with either annoyance or amusement. Suddenly persons without face emerged in the compartment. I assume they were supposed to be robots, but I wasn't familiar with that concept at the time.
The buy and girl were teleported to someplace else. Stuff happened, which I don't recollect in detail, but during all this the boy and girl managed to transform their dislike into the opposite. At the end of all this they were teleported back to the place and time from which they had been kidnapped, while embracing each other. To the amazement of the other people in the compartment, who had seen nothing but only saw them going from arguing to embracing in a split second.
The whole thing amazed me too, apparently, as I still remember it. But then TV was fairly new to me. The only thing I had ever seen on TV (at the neighbours) was Ivanhoe.


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## johndsal

Invisible Man and Quatermass and the Pit from the late 50s. Just a Young stripling but I can remember the bandages coming off in ‘Invisble’ and the Martians in ‘Quatermass’. Scared the c**p out of me at the time. Quite liked the ‘Quatermass’ shown in the late 70s with John Mills and the hippies. Looks dated now though.


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## Bramandin

I was in the theater for Return of the Jedi but I don't remember it.  Probably a clip of Empire Strikes Back on the VHS or some old movie dad was watching from when nuclear disaster movies were popular.  I was pretty young when I was exposed to Alien.  Not Sci Fi perse, but I enjoyed shows like Connections and Beyond 2000.  I'm using a mug that used to have Sea Quest printed on it, but it's glass and the paint came off.

Books that I remember... Dragonriders of Pern, HHGTTG, parents had a subscription to Analog, and Star Trek TNG novellas.


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## CupofJoe

Bramandin said:


> I was in the theater for Return of the Jedi but I don't remember it.  Probably a clip of Empire Strikes Back on the VHS or some old movie dad was watching from when nuclear disaster movies were popular.  I was pretty young when I was exposed to Alien.  Not Sci Fi perse, but I enjoyed shows like Connections and Beyond 2000.  I'm using a mug that used to have Sea Quest printed on it, but it's glass and the paint came off.
> 
> Books that I remember... Dragonriders of Pern, HHGTTG, parents had a subscription to Analog, and Star Trek TNG novellas.


In late 1979, the older brother of a friend of mine snuck the two of us in to the local cinema to watch *Alien*. The film was a shock to my tender senses and the less said about the effect Sigourney Weaver had on my life the better. At least for this family friendly forum...


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## sciwriterPark

Day Of The Triffids by John Wyndham was the first sci-fi that I remember and it still influences me.


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## Orcadian

Quokka said:


> Wow there's a blast from the past but at least I'm consistent, I just posted in similar threads in the Book Discussion section and as I said 16 or so years ago it all started with 50s sci fi movies and a children's sci-fi book series that I still claim was called Earth Two even if I can't find mention of it .


@Quokka Earth 2 (TV series) - Wikipedia. Obvs this was on TV but based perhaps on the book series you recall?


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## Orcadian

From age 7-12, which I'd say were my impressionable years.

Memorable SF books:  Return to Mars, Rocket to Limbo, Star Surgeon, Pilgrimage (Henderson), The Happy Planet (dorky title, actually good!), The Universe Between, Farmer in the Sky, Scavengers in Space, The Chrysalids.

Memorable TV series:  Space Patrol, Fireball XL5, Lost in Space (the comedy element passed me by completely!), Thunderbirds. Only ever liked the first Dr Who, William Hartnell. When he died the series morphed into something else for me, and I lost interest.

Memorable SF films, mostly seen if/when they came to TV (otherwise too ££ for the parents): The Lost World, Forbidden Planet, When Worlds Collide, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The First Men in the Moon, Quatermass II - the one where something nasty is growing in the tanks of a factory. These day the special effects seem --clunky-- but back in the day suspension of disbelief was a doddle.


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## Quokka

Orcadian said:


> @Quokka Earth 2 (TV series) - Wikipedia. Obvs this was on TV but based perhaps on the book series you recall?




It deoesn't appear to have been at least I have never been able to find it acknowledged anywhere as a possible source material. I read the books in the early 80s and I wouldn't be surprised if the book series was 70s or earlier. The plotlines sound somewhat similar but to be honest its a very hazy recollection except for the name, a cover involving two astronauts, I think on a moon-like setting but could have been a space station, and that the main characters were children or teenagers being a young adult/ children's series.


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## CupofJoe

Quokka said:


> It deoesn't appear to have been at least I have never been able to find it acknowledged anywhere as a possible source material. I read the books in the early 80s and I wouldn't be surprised if the book series was 70s or earlier. The plotlines sound somewhat similar but to be honest its a very hazy recollection except for the name, a cover involving two astronauts, I think on a moon-like setting but could have been a space station, and that the main characters were children or teenagers being a young adult/ children's series.


I think it might have been EarthSearch. I remember the radio show fondly and they were novelised by the author James Follett [who also wrote the radio shows]


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## paeng

It was a collection of science fiction stories from either _Penthouse _or _Playboy_ that, for some reason, was made available in the school library; I was in second grade.

The story was about people in the future who had sex with androids, and the wife preferred that because her android had a large penis. So the husband puts a bomb in the android which explodes when the wife climaxes.

Or something like that.

Anyway, maybe someone recognizes the story or the collection, so I can add it my my Amazon wish list.


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