Our Gateways into Fantasy

[.matthew.]

Found this and thought a few people here might find it interesting. It's quite a long read with lots of pie charts, but I think we all have time on our hands right now.

Our Gateways into Fantasy

Discuss.

 

[BAYLOR]

Two books in particular got me going Conan by Robert E Howard , L Sprague De Camp and Lin Carter and Stalking the Nightmare by Harlan Ellison.

 

[Astro Pen]

Bottom line seems to be that if you are writing a military fantasy there won't be a Mercedes on your drive any time soon.

 

[Overread]

Eragon has a surprisingly big chunk, however I'd wager that having a movie likely helped it along. Plus it was "the" book on all the newspapers and news sites for a short while. So it got a lot of attention and exposure.

That said the real ones that stand out are Lord of the Rings and Narnia which have big chunks and their works/authors have defied the test of time. Many of the left side of the pie charts are all great books and authors, but often they are much older works. Younger new readers might never have encountered them, plus older readers who might have grown up in those generations likely had a bigger impact from both Tolkien and Narnia.
I'm surprised that Discworld ranks so low, but then this is a test of FIRST fantasy books and Discworld just isn't on the "Mum and Dad's recommended reading" lists like Narnia, Tolkien and, I'd say, Harry Potter.

Plus there's possibly a bunch of books forgotten on this list, things like the Worst Witch - those really short early reading stories that can still define a persons early exposures/experiences, but which are swiftly forgotten.






As for me I often say my gateway was the joint Hobbit and Lord of the Rings; though its somewhat a lie since Narnia came before them and before both of them were the Invented Stories by Dad - which I dimly recall typically took on a fantasy theme, but which were never the same nor written down. Just made up bedtime story stuff.

 

[soulsinging]

Interesting article, but I think some of the conclusions are a little off. Happy to see Dragonlance holding so strong. I could very easily see this getting the series treatment at some point.

On that first graph, though, every series besides GoT is trending downwards. These books just aren’t grabbing people like they used to.

Since the questions focused on FIRST novel, this seems very unsupported. It makes total sense people's "gateway" is something current, and I bet this curve always looks like this. Many of my generation (me included) read Dragonlance or Drizzt before going back to LOTR. Doesn't mean the older books aren't grabbing people.

That said, I've always struggled with LOTR. Oddly, I like the Silmarillion (even wrote my thesis on it) better, and probably the Hobbit too. LOTR seems like an attempt to liven his mythic tendencies that I don't feel always works.

So it turns out just over three quarters of fantasy fans were read fantasy books by their parents, or started consistently reading fantasy books as a kid…

I feel like these are two very different questions and thus make it hard to conclude anything from this one.

 

[Boneman]

Interesting. GOT was massively popular as a TV series, but I don't think many of those viewers then bought the books.

 

[Overread]

Interesting. GOT was massively popular as a TV series, but I don't think many of those viewers then bought the books.

Thing is its a very mature TV series which means most of its viewership are going to be older. By that stage in life chances are they've read more than one fantasy book in their life up to that point. So for those who are more likely for Game of Thrones to spark a fantasy interest; if asked about their first reading experience/gateway (many will mix the two up), they won't think of Game of Thrones.

So its actually where I'd expect it. I'm sure its inspired many, but its unlikely to be many peoples "first". That's why we see so much more impact from Harry Potter, Tolkien and Narnia. One is a kids book the other two also have kids books, but are also very firmly on all those lists that advise parents what their children should be exposed too (either reading too them or having the child read the book). I fully expect that Harry Potter will make its way (and likely already is) onto those lists. Plus with the media hype, films and franchising I expect it to join Tolkien and Narnia as long term addition. It might possibly get pushed out by a new generation young book.

 

[mosaix]

Thing is its a very mature TV series which means most of its viewership are going to be older. By that stage in life chances are they've read more than one fantasy book in their life up to that point. So for those who are more likely for Game of Thrones to spark a fantasy interest; if asked about their first reading experience/gateway (many will mix the two up), they won't think of Game of Thrones.

So its actually where I'd expect it. I'm sure its inspired many, but its unlikely to be many peoples "first". That's why we see so much more impact from Harry Potter, Tolkien and Narnia. One is a kids book the other two also have kids books, but are also very firmly on all those lists that advise parents what their children should be exposed too (either reading too them or having the child read the book). I fully expect that Harry Potter will make its way (and likely already is) onto those lists. Plus with the media hype, films and franchising I expect it to join Tolkien and Narnia as long term addition. It might possibly get pushed out by a new generation young book.

That's a bit weird @Overread. That was @Boneman who said that not me.

 

[Overread]

Ahh I think I quoted something from you both, then didn't use your bit and just removed the quote code and quoted content - it basically left your name at the start of the quotation instead of Bonemans.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I was reading children's fantasy, most of it obscure, and I have only the dimmest memories of stories about young witches, etc. and not the names of the books or authors, as far back as I can remember. Of course such books were not numerous back in the fifties, but when my school library had them I found them. But if I had to mention a specific book that was the gateway for me, it is one that is not even mentioned: the book of Norwegian folk tales collected under the title East of the Sun and West of the Moon (which I found much more enthralling for some reason than either Grimm or Perrault).

Of course a lot of books mentioned hadn't been written at that time, or else weren't available to me. I'd no doubt have read them if they had been.

 

[.matthew.]

I think mine was my mum reading The Hobbit. I read the LotR myself later and it may have put me off fantasy for a while. I liked it, but it's fairly hefty and has long periods of little excitement. Harry Potter then got me back into reading as it came out.

The main issue I had with the methodology was the age of participants. I can't imagine many younger people would have found their way into the study, so I'd expect to see more Harry Potter and I suppose even Twilight and Hunger Games in there as well. These aren't the traditional epic fantasy that made up the majority, but fads that are encouraged by other kids in schools could certainly be someone's first introduction to a fantasy world.

 

[hitmouse]

My mother read to us. The Magician’s Nephew, The Hobbit, The Princess and the Goblin amongst others.
I didn't really think of those, or the rest of the Narnia books, or The Magic Faraway Tree as fantasy. Just books I enjoyed.

The first books I deliberately read as fantasy were Moorcock: Elric of Melnibone, and Knight of the Swords.

 

[Vince W]

My earliest fantasy was Diana Wynne Jones' The Ogre Downstairs. The Hobbit followed shortly after.

 

[Boneman]

Enid Blyton's Magic Faraway Tree. Read to me by an older sister when I was 4. Older sisters have a lot to thank for: me lying in bed aged 16 with rotten tonsillitis, one went to the shops, asked if I wanted anything. No daytime tv in those days, so I asked for a really big book, gave her 10 shillings from my holiday job earnings. She came back with Dune....

 

[Astro Pen]

I nearly forgot The Misfortunes of Elphin by Thomas Love Peacock.
Quite wonderful, (if you skim the poetry).
Review:

The Misfortunes of Elphin—The First Historical Arthurian Novel

Thomas Love Peacock was a writer of the Romantic Age known for his friendship with writers like Percy Bysshe Shelley and for books such as Nightmare Abbey (1818) a parody of Gothic novels. Being a …

childrenofarthur.wordpress.com

I notice going to look for it that it is currently represented by a space on my bookshelf. I am reminded of rules 1,2 and 3.
1. Never
2. Lend
3. Books

 

[Toby Frost]

I'm pretty sure that my first run-ins with fantasy would have been in something very basic like Meg and Mog, and then a Richard Scarry book called Peasant Pig and the Terrible Dragon, which I remember very fondly. From there, The Worst Witch, which my mum used to read to me. But an awful lot of my children's books had some kind of fantastical element.

After that, I suppose it would have been The Hobbit. I also remember being fascinated by a book about how to play chess, which had great pictures of all the pieces as medieval soldiers. I was very interested in castles and dinosaurs, and that probably blurred into fantasy in my mind (I pretty much lived in a dream-world until 12 or so).

 

[.matthew.]

Enid Blyton's

I had her Famous Five books and remember loving them. Wouldn't call them fantasy and completely forgot about her until I read your post. Weird what this thread is dragging up.

(I pretty much lived in a dream-world until 12 or so).

Only 12? I'm still living in one.

You bring up an interesting point though, I had a lot of different non fiction books on things like ancient mythology (Greek and Egyptian mostly). That probably influenced my tastes in the fantastical.

 

[Boneman]

I had her Famous Five books and remember loving them. Wouldn't call them fantasy and completely forgot about her until I read your post. Weird what this thread is dragging up.

The Famous Five (and the Secret Seven) were definitely not fantasy, but the magic faraway tree was.... The Faraway Tree - Wikipedia

 

[tinkerdan]

I just don't understand.
My interest in fantasy started with Dr. Suess.
...the Oz books--Frank Baum
......the Mushroom Planet series--Eleanor Cameron

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I just don't understand.
My interest in fantasy started with Dr. Suess.
...the Oz books
......the Mushroom Planet series

Good point. "The Five Hundreds Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins" made a huge impression on me at a very young age, as did "The Wizard of Oz." Other books by both authors came rather later, as did the Mushroom Planet books (although I think of them as my gateway to science fiction).

I notice that that survey leans very heavily toward newer books. Yes, there are a few old ones. But one suspects the people answering their questions were mostly rather young.