Can You Remember Your First Science Fiction Novel?

[2DaveWixon]

Rocket Jockey[/URL], by Philip St. John AKA Lester del Rey. It was about a space race within the solar system; each planet and its inhabitants were given their own character. (The inhabitants of Mars were clearly Soviets; it was a Cold War novel, but one that had a happy ending.) The most striking chapter is where the spaceship must skim close to the sun. The entire chapter consists of the characters waiting, in slow agony, to see whether they will die of the heat. It was such an incredible contrast in suspense to the hectic danger of TV that it helped to make me fall in love with science fiction.

Oh, the beloved ROCKET JOCKEY! Not the first sf novel I ever read, but the first that I ever saved my money to buy in hardcover (I'd read it as a library book, and was enthralled!). Still have that copy, too -- and autographed!


Dave

 

[2DaveWixon]

A related matter:

After you started reading sf, was it easy to come by in libraries and bookstores?

At the risk of provoking some envy: it was, for me, back then, circa 1970.

envy-envy-envy!
Once I discovered sf, I could not get enough of it. But there was little of it in our county library, and in any case they would not let me even look at books in the "adult" section. And the only bookstore around had neither sf nor paperbacks. So until I discovered the sf magazines and learned that I could get sf by mail, all I could do was read the sf in the juvenile section of the library...over and over and over...
(I should perhaps explain that the first sf novel I read was purchased off one of those revolving metal racks in the drug store -- I intend to say that there was only one such rack in that drugstore -- and sf did not appear there very often, and when it did it was from Signet (if you remember that imprint and the kind of things they usually published...) A wonder I didn't give up!)

Dave

 

[2DaveWixon]

My first was Eat Them Alive. Not sure who the author was, but i read it in the 6th grade, followed by Alien Art. I still have them laying around someplace.

Never encountered EAT THEM ALIVE, and perhaps it's just as well... But ALIEN ART, by the late and missed Gordy Dickson, right?
Dave

 

[Bick]

Still have that copy, too -- and autographed!

Cool. Did you meet Lester to get the signature?

 

[2DaveWixon]

Cool. Did you meet Lester to get the signature?

Oh, yes, and a couple of other books too. While I was on the Minicon Committee, Lester and Judy-Lynn came to several Minicons... It was particularly easy to get them to come west because Cliff Simak was one of their biggest authors, and they could count on Cliff to get together with them if they were in town. And the Minicon Committee, being no dummies, did its best to facilitate such things. (And it also did not hurt that in those days the bookstore chain called B. Dalton was also headquartered in Minneapolis -- so our visiting authors got to schmooze people in that organization, too...all in all, lots of reasons for sf authors to come to Minicon! -- and don't think we didn't let people know about it...)

Two delightful people.

Would you like another memory? My very first sf convention was a Minicon. It was held in a year when there were two Minicons; so I attended the one in the spring as my first con, and by the fall Minicon I was on the con committee -- and it happened that Ed Hamilton and Leigh Brackett came to that con (Ed was a particular friend of Cliff Simak's from 'way back, as was Jack Williamson). So on Friday evening of that con I happened to have volunteered to tend bar in the con suite, and Ed came up to the bar with a copy of the program book -- and asked me to autograph it!
Turns out that he and Leigh had a young neighbor, back in California, and Ed had promised to get him some autographs. And Ed thought committee people were good targets for that...
Not many people in this world can say that Edmond Hamilton asked them for an autograph!

Thank you, Bick -- for stimulating my memory, I mean; I had not thought of these things in quite a while. But now I'm smiling.

Dave

 

[Extollager]

What a great anecdote, Dave!

 

[Extollager]

A related matter:

After you started reading sf, was it easy to come by in libraries and bookstores?

At the risk of provoking some envy: it was, for me, back then, circa 1970.

I didn't use the card catalog, where, I suppose, all the books with the science fiction sticker on the spines would, I now assume, have been listed under "science fiction" as a subject heading. Perhaps it's just as well that I didn't get such a windfall as that would have been in one swoop. The sf was shelved in the general fiction (that was back in the day, wasn't it?) in the Coos Bay library when I was a kid there in the second half of the 1960s. So I just looked from shelf to shelf, scanning for titles. Now that I think of it, it surprises me that I didn't simply look for the sticker -- but I don't think I ever methodically went shelf by shelf looking for it. Perhaps I'm misremembering about the sticker.

But at any rate the kids' section included sf juveniles by del Rey, Wollheim, Silverberg, Heinlein, etc. I believe I found The John Wyndham Omnibus in the kids' section. The adult shelves included Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions and a number of anthologies -- Galaxy, Magazine of Fantasy and SF... I remember Fred Hoyle's October the First Is Too Late being there, but I don't suppose I read it through. I don't know if there was all that much sf in the CB library, but there was some; and they had the Narnian books, Tolkien's fantasy, etc.

When we moved to Ashland, Oregon, I found that the library had a science fiction section in the adult collection...! I'm curious, Dave -- when as a youngster you were not supposed to go into the adult section, how old were you, approximately?

As for books to buy, you'd see sf paperbacks all the time in drugstore racks, etc.

 

[hitmouse]

I never bothered with card catalogues. I read everything that was there, and the only function of the cards for me was to show other interesting books that were lost or stolen.

Toorak library, Melbourne, 1970s: the children's room had a shelf of SF, especially the Heinlein juveniles, starting with Starman Jones
Burgess Road library, Southampton, England. Several shelves of SF in the Adult section, filed underneath Westerns. The John Christopher novels were in the children's section.

 

[2DaveWixon]

What a great anecdote, Dave!

Yes indeed! As I said, I had not thought of that time in years...and it was wonderful how Bick's comment led me back to it.

 

[2DaveWixon]

I didn't use the card catalog, where, I suppose, all the books with the science fiction sticker on the spines would, I now assume, have been listed under "science fiction" as a subject heading. Perhaps it's just as well that I didn't get such a windfall as that would have been in one swoop. The sf was shelved in the general fiction (that was back in the day, wasn't it?) in the Coos Bay library when I was a kid there in the second half of the 1960s. So I just looked from shelf to shelf, scanning for titles. Now that I think of it, it surprises me that I didn't simply look for the sticker -- but I don't think I ever methodically went shelf by shelf looking for it. Perhaps I'm misremembering about the sticker.

But at any rate the kids' section included sf juveniles by del Rey, Wollheim, Silverberg, Heinlein, etc. I believe I found The John Wyndham Omnibus in the kids' section. The adult shelves included Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions and a number of anthologies -- Galaxy, Magazine of Fantasy and SF... I remember Fred Hoyle's October the First Is Too Late being there, but I don't suppose I read it through. I don't know if there was all that much sf in the CB library, but there was some; and they had the Narnian books, Tolkien's fantasy, etc.

When we moved to Ashland, Oregon, I found that the library had a science fiction section in the adult collection...! I'm curious, Dave -- when as a youngster you were not supposed to go into the adult section, how old were you, approximately?

As for books to buy, you'd see sf paperbacks all the time in drugstore racks, etc.

Forgive me, but this will get a bit long-winded, because the story is complicated...
There actually was no real library in my home town -- it was too small for that. But a café in my town kept a bookshelf off to one side, and every couple of weeks someone drove over from the library in the county seat, with a batch of books, that were swapped for the ones that had been in the café for the previous two weeks...got the picture?
We did not get to go to the county seat (Ok, it was Marshall, Minnesota) very often -- my parents worked 12-hour days, seven days a week. But when I did manage to get there, I could not go into the main floor of the library building -- that was for adults. Kids had a separate space that was entered through a separate door that let one into the basement. The check-out desk was right inside the front door of the adult floor, so it was really difficult to sneak in...though I did try now and then...
And as for the auxiliary library in my town's café: the lady who ran the café was even stricter about the age restriction than they were in Marshall.
Frankly, I don't know exactly what age you had to be to be allowed into either library, but around the time I became a freshman in high school (which was also in Marshall), I began to get there more often -- and frequently with a valid research project to carry out -- so perhaps they just became used to me being around, or maybe I had just gotten old enough... at any rate, by the time I was at the end of my sophomore year, I was reading what I wanted.
As for the café branch: I think I just wore Adeline down with trying...

And in either library, there was so little sf that there was no separate section for it; when allowed to look, I -- like you -- just scanned the shelves for titles that sounded sf-nal. I think at that point I did not even have the concept of there being enough sf in the world to merit a separate section... (But as it happens, one of those few sf titles was RING AROUND THE SUN, by Clifford D. Simak...I don't know how many times I read it...)

"...see sf paperbacks all the time in drugstore racks, etc.": well, no drugstore in my hometown, either. (There were two drugstores in Marshall. One did not bother with books -- it was pretty small, probably no room -- and the other had one (count 'em, one) of those metal revolving racks that could hold about fifty paperbacks, or thereabouts -- but sf did not show up there very often (the local market appeared to require romances, westerns, and detective stories). (But that was where I found, and bought, my very first science fiction book: DOUBLE STAR by Robert A. Heinlein.) (I think I imprinted on it...)

by the way: are you still in Ashland? I have a cousin who lives there now...

Great talking to you!

Dave

 

[BAYLOR]

Starship Troopers. Only now, years later do I really get what Heinlen was trying to say, and boy is it relevant today.

Im not fond of the movie adaptation.

 

[BAYLOR]

Triple post

 

[BAYLOR]

Triple post.

 

[Extollager]

Dave, you grew up not all that far from where I live now. My wife and the two (of ultimately four) kids we had then lived in Willmar, Minnesota, for a year, before we moved here to eastern North Dakota. I haven't lived in Ashland since 1981. When I arrived there around 1970, it was to be plopped into a setting where there was more sf around than I, a slow reader, could very well keep up with. In addition to the public library, there were stores in Ashland and nearby Medford, which we visited fairly often eventually, selling new and/or used sf. I've written elsewhere on Chrons about some of those places.

Mourn for Bygone Used Book Stores Here!

Moving out here as an adult who, as a kid, had lots of access to sf, I've wondered what it was like to have a taste for sf and fantasy but live without much access to such books. I guess it was catch as catch can: like my revered colleague who still remembers spotting one of the Tolkien books in a drug store here in town.

 

[2DaveWixon]

Im not fond of the movie adaptation.

Baylor, I suspect you of dealing in understatement... "Not fond"? I would put it this way: it was awful!

 

[2DaveWixon]

Dave, you grew up not all that far from where I live now. My wife and the two (of ultimately four) kids we had then lived in Willmar, Minnesota, for a year, before we moved here to eastern North Dakota. I haven't lived in Ashland since 1981. When I arrived there around 1970, it was to be plopped into a setting where there was more sf around than I, a slow reader, could very well keep up with. In addition to the public library, there were stores in Ashland and nearby Medford, which we visited fairly often eventually, selling new and/or used sf. I've written elsewhere on Chrons about some of those places.

Mourn for Bygone Used Book Stores Here!

Moving out here as an adult who, as a kid, had lots of access to sf, I've wondered what it was like to have a taste for sf and fantasy but live without much access to such books. I guess it was catch as catch can: like my revered colleague who still remembers spotting one of the Tolkien books in a drug store here in town.

I used to pass through Willmar on my way to and from the college I attended for two years...and occasionally still do, if I've been down in Marshall for a visit or a funeral and want to return to the Cities by some different route...
What with me now in the Twin Cities, I suppose we're not all that far apart even now.
But you just triggered a memory, which I will dump whether anyone likes it or not: it's about "spotting one of the Tolkien books in a drug store...": as it happens, that's how I discovered Tolkien, too: I was on my way back to college after Christmas vacation, and stopped at a drugstore in Olivia, Minnesota -- and stumbled on LORD OF THE RINGS in that pirated Ace three-volume edition. I bought them all, got back to college around 2pm, and started reading...and I read all night and into the next day, until, finished, I managed to drag the wreck I had become to my last class of the day...
I've never been good at all-nighters.

Catch as catch can, indeed! I was desperate for sf, but in its absence, I'd read anything at all...I think I've read a thousand westerns over the course of my life, ditto spy novels and detective stories. and lesser numbers of other categories... if I hadn't lived life with that reading monkey on my back, I might've done better in life...I coulda been a contender!

I feel so sorry for those people who never developed an addiction for reading!


Dave

 

[galanx]

But at any rate the kids' section included sf juveniles by del Rey, Wollheim, Silverberg, Heinlein, etc. I believe I found The John Wyndham Omnibus in the kids' section. The adult shelves included Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions and a number of anthologies -- Galaxy, Magazine of Fantasy and SF... I remember Fred Hoyle's October the First Is Too Late being there, but I don't suppose I read it through. I don't know if there was all that much sf in the CB library, but there was some; and they had the Narnian books, Tolkien's fantasy, etc.

When we moved to Ashland, Oregon, I found that the library had a science fiction section in the adult collection...! I'm curious, Dave -- when as a youngster you were not supposed to go into the adult section, how old were you, approximately?

As for books to buy, you'd see sf paperbacks all the time in drugstore racks, etc.

For my part, in the New Westminster Public Library, it was when I turned thirteen (1967)- getting that adult card : "Today you are a man...". They had a "Young Adult" section, seperated, where I first pulled down "The Fellowship of the Ring"- before the fantasy boom, so had never heard of it. I was just fascinated by the cover- olive green, with a big red eye- and flipped it open to the map. The Shire!- I recognised that from The Hobbit, back in the children's room.

IIRC, there weren't any special markers or sections for SF: I remember a friend in elementary school asking how I'd developed such a good eye for spotting them on the shelf just from their spines- mostly the publishers' style, I would guess.

The kids' section I remember for Heinlein and Andre Norton; short stories would be either single-author- Asimov, Clarke, Del Rey- or "Greatest SF" collections, mostly from the 1930s to 1950s, so my reading tended to be older stufff.

 

[Extollager]

I'm not sure that I can trust my memory, but it seems that, at the Coos Bay library (when I was starting out in reading sf) and Ashland (mostof the teen years), the sf books were marked with the yellow design here:

As I've said, it seems that in the Coos bay library the books were shelved with the general fiction, while Ashland shelved sf in its own section and had more offerings.

From time to time I revisit some of those early reads. Others who do the same would be very welcome to write their observations here:

From Way, Way Back in Your Reading Life

That thread isn't limited, like the present one, to one's first sf book. Activate it! : )

 

[Mythopoet]

My first science fiction novel was Dune by Frank Herbert.

Up to that point I had read maybe a short story or two and had not even read much fantasy (only Narnia and LOTR). Nor had I ever watched much sci fi through tv or movies. I was about 19 at this time. Then I met a guy who was a big SFF fan and he recommended several different SFF books to me... and offhandedly remarked that Dune was a magnificent book, but would obviously be above my head at this point. He was right, of course, but I wasn't going to let such a challenge pass. (Turned out this was his goal all along.) So I bought a copy of Dune and proceeded to get pulled in way over my head.

It took me a long time to finish it that first time. It was like nothing I had ever read before, and I was a teenager inclined to reading classics that most in my age group shunned. The second time I flew right through it and into the sequels. The Dune books by Herbert are still some of my absolute favorite SFF books with some of my all time favorite characters of any genre. I think reading them so early on in my journey into SFF really shaped the reader and writer I became. And I ended up marrying the guy who recommended them to me.

 

[2DaveWixon]

I'm not sure that I can trust my memory, but it seems that, at the Coos Bay library (when I was starting out in reading sf) and Ashland (mostof the teen years), the sf books were marked with the yellow design here:

: )

Now that I see the yellow design (above), I realize that I've seen it now and then -- not in libraries, but in used books stores...stolen library books, maybe?