What initially inspired you to get into Fantasy or Science fiction??

Hi Matt
long time no see
Ditto here
I read biographies of great scientists


I liked science


reading about astronomy and geology first
with some other stuff thrown in(archeology,zoology)

didn't consciously start looking for SF/Fantasy
just picked up some Simak,Vance,Anderson,EF Russell,Leinster,Clement and Heinlein juves,Leigh Brackett was brilliant,Kuttner,C.L Moore,Pohl & Kornbluth,
Pohl & Williamson

Heinlein was great with his verisimilitude and attention to detail



Clement was riveting with Close to Critical and MOG
 
I was about four when I remember being taught to read The Lord of the Rings, but the impact had not hit yet. Over the years, the books were fascinating but what really did it was reading Ender's Game. Then I discovered George R R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Enough said.
 
I accidentally got into it.

I was at the school library, everything I had ever read was by R.L. Stine (hehe), and I saw the name 'Rage of a Demon King' by Raymond E Feist.
I didn't realise it was the 3rd book of a series but what really got me was the cover art (judging a book by its cover, how sinful) so I borrowed it and started reading it and I really liked the character Calis.

But it started from there and gotten into it ever since.
 
Don't feel bad, cover art is how I discovered Robin Hobb - honestly, when I end up prowleing the bookstores cover art is one thing I do look at - if nothing but to allow me to make a choice (does this mean I go to hell then?)
 
It was all my mother's fault. She used to read tales from Hindu mythology to my brother and me every evening. Tales filled with elephant-headed gods and great serpents and semi human monkeys and giant birds. I don't think there was really any choice after that. So many wondrous doors had been flung wide open.

She then went on to the myths of China with it's dragons and Greece with gorgons and pegasus and minotaurs and so much more. There were Nordic myths and Egyptian ones as well.

And it would seem that Flight Of Dragons does get around. It played a part here too. And again ... it was my mother who brought it home. I'd been asking her where all the dragons are gone and she found one way to explain.

I still remind her that it's really all her fault when I come home with another bag of books needing shelf space.
 
Overread said:
Don't feel bad, cover art is how I discovered Robin Hobb - honestly, when I end up prowleing the bookstores cover art is one thing I do look at - if nothing but to allow me to make a choice (does this mean I go to hell then?)
Click to expand...

I do it all the time as well. It's eye candy.

If it means we go to hell, I'll see you there. :D
 
I never even knew what SF was until I was 10 or so and I picked up Night Shift. There was a story in there called I Am the Doorway that blew me away. I got really heavy int King after that, then Larry Niven, then some classics. From there I got into fantasy and even deeper into Horror. Now all I really read is SF.
 
I hated reading until I discovered a slew of Star Wars novels back in the mid 1990s. After that I read instead of doing homework (Ouch!)

I've probably amassed over 100 star wars books by now, but I stopped buying them almost a decade ago.

Robert Jordan's WoT saga sort of expanded my horizons. A friend, who also likes Star Wars, introduced me to RJ. But I was finishing the WoT books too fast, and needed something else to read. I stumbled onto Terry Goodkind's stuff in a Thrifties by sheer chance. I loved it. But in hindsight, after I've had a little more experience with reading and writings, I can admit that there is a certain heart that is lost in Goodkind's stuff, while Robert Jordan isn't nearly so good at writing intricate plots as he is straight exciting action.

My hopes hang on GRRM these days, but it takes him so long to write a book. I guess I can wait, because he writes with such wonderful subtlety.
 
As a child I was drawn to fantasy, I adored reading Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree, Wishing Chair etc, Lewis's Narina series things like that.I could watch Wizard of OZ over and over.I loved Dr Who, Tomorrow's People etc.As I got to around 10-11 I discovered horror and black magic. For years I never read anything else then about 20 years ago I was browsing and discovered Feist's Magician after that I was back on the fantasy path.
 
I read Tolkien, Heinlein, and Lewis growing up. I also played AD&D as a kid, up into my late teens. Many of the characters in my book are refined versions of the characters I used growing up.

Jeez, that really sounds cliche. I think I should admit that only sparingly from now on.
 
Learned to read at a very young age, read extremely fast and everything I could get my hands on and was never told that Science Fiction was somehow anything to avoid. It didn't have the stigma that it seems to have in Western Europe and North America over here at that time, although LARP nerds and the like seem to do their best to correct that.

Fantasy is a different story. That I started reading only a couple of years ago, when somebody on another forum recommended aSoIaF.
 
Ironically my fantasy obsession started with the movie "The Hobbit," a notoriously bad adaptation of the book. As a child, however, I loved the film. I don't know when I realized the movie was based on an actual piece of literature, but I do remember it being one of the first books I picked up read the entire way through. It wasn't long after that when I realized there was an entire genre of entertainment containing these similar elements; swords and sorcery; knights, elves, dwarves, gnomes and fair-maidens; malignant dark lords, etc. I quickly latched on to all things fantasy, and haven't turned back since.

My sci-fi obsession began in a very cliche fashion as well. I had seen the movies 2001 and Star Wars. I had fallen in love with Buck Rodgers, Battlestar Galactica and V at an early age. When one of my aunts found out I loved sci-fi movies and television programs she thrust Ender's Game, Ranma, Starship Troopers (which I shouldn't have been reading in my tender youth) and the 2001 series into my hands. Not long after I had finished them all she gave me two entirely too-large boxes filled to the brim with sci-fi novels; which I utterly devoured.
 
Commonmind said:
Ironically my fantasy obsession started with the movie "The Hobbit," a notoriously bad adaptation of the book. As a child, however, I loved the film. I don't know when I realized the movie was based on an actual piece of literature, but I do remember it being one of the first books I picked up read the entire way through. It wasn't long after that when I realized there was an entire genre of entertainment containing these similar elements; swords and sorcery; knights, elves, dwarves, gnomes and fair-maidens; malignant dark lords, etc. I quickly latched on to all things fantasy, and haven't turned back since.

My sci-fi obsession began in a very cliche fashion as well. I had seen the movies 2001 and Star Wars. I had fallen in love with Buck Rodgers, Battlestar Galactica and V at an early age. When one of my aunts found out I loved sci-fi movies and television programs she thrust Ender's Game, Ranma, Starship Troopers (which I shouldn't have been reading in my tender youth) and the 2001 series into my hands. Not long after I had finished them all she gave me two entirely too-large boxes filled to the brim with sci-fi novels; which I utterly devoured.
Click to expand...

Was that the cartoon version of the Hobbit?
 
I liked that. Don't know if it is anything like the book but I really liked the cartoon and the singing Goblins.
 
Initially...that might be Jules Verne's book <The Island>,the first sci-fi novel I've read.
Then, by nature, I get to love the world of Science Fiction.
 
Nothing really 'inspired' me to get into sci fi or fantasy... that would assume that there was a time in my life when I WASN'T into sci fi or fantasy. It's just a natural thing for me. I've always been a sci fi fan. And fantasy also, to a lesser extent.
 
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