The First Classic Science fiction novel you ever read.

[BAYLOR]

To your memory, what was the first classic science fiction you read?

 

[Extollager]

Probably Wells’s The War of the Worlds.

Interesting question, Baylor. You might want to say something about how you would like “classic” to be understood.

 

[MikeAnderson]

Didn't get into Sci-Fi until around 16, though I had reading assignments in school that included works by H.G. Wells and the like.

First book that got me into the genre was Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison. Fell in love with his style; witty, caustic, and made people look at life in a different lens.

 

[BAYLOR]

Before I become a fan of the genre, The first purely science fiction book I read was Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein . I finished the book and I liked it but it didn't make a devoted reader out me, That came later.

 

[BAYLOR]

Probably Wells’s The War of the Worlds.

Interesting question, Baylor. You might want to say something about how you would like “classic” to be understood.

I don't know to answer that one.

 

[MikeAnderson]

Before I become a fan of the genre, The first purely science fiction book I read was Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein . I finished the book and I liked but didn't make a devoted reader out me, That came later.

Read that when I was in the Army. Not sure if Heinlein had military experience, but he captured life as a soldier quite well.

 

[jbmwriting]

Does Ender's Game count? If not, then Dune.

 

[MikeAnderson]

Does Ender's Game count? If not, then Dune.

Ender's Game always counts.

 

[BAYLOR]

Read that when I was in the Army. Not sure if Heinlein had military experience, but he captured life as a soldier quite well.

Ive read it twice , very good book . I despise the Paul Verhoeven film .

 

[BAYLOR]

Didn't get into Sci-Fi until around 16, though I had reading assignments in school that included works by H.G. Wells and the like.

First book that got me into the genre was Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison. Fell in love with his style; witty, caustic, and made people look at life in a different lens.

Deathbird Stories is one of the best of Ellison's anthologies.

 

[BAYLOR]

Does Ender's Game count? If not, then Dune.

Both belong on this category.

 

[Trollheart]

I was into Wyndham so you know what I'm going to say... every Triffid has its Day.

 

[Trollheart]

Probably Wells’s The War of the Worlds.

Interesting question, Baylor. You might want to say something about how you would like “classic” to be understood.

Not that you asked me, but I would suggest classic sf to have been written by a well-known author in the field, whose work has advanced the genre, and also a book which is well known among the sf community, and perhaps outside it. Who, after all, does not know War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, 2001 (yes I know but you know what I mean), hell, even Star Wars could I suppose qualify on the second criterion if not the first. Clarke, Vonnegut, Wells, Verne, Wyndham, Bester, Heinlein.. these kind of names, to mention but a few. People now seen as role models by today's authors.

Other may of course have a different definition, but that would be mine.

 

[Parson]

Boy, I don't know..... Maybe The Time Machine or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. When you're as old as I am, you were an adult when a lot of the classics started coming out, ie Dune and Ender's Game.

 

[Alex The G and T]

Probably 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I dunno, I was a precocious and voracious reader and the parental library was chock-a-block with "Adventure" stories. RLS, London, Wells, Verne, Kipling, Baum. By the time I was 8 or 10 years old, I'd read Everything.

Inre Science fiction.... To the best of my recollection, I read 20k leagues (between Captains Courageous, Kidnapped, The Sea Wolf, Moby Dick and Treasure Island, Yummm Sea Stories) before I read War of the Worlds. So that, unless Dr Jekyll;, or Danny Dunn counts.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

The library in the elementary school was in the lobby that served as the front entrance. Some people noticed it, some people didn't. I always thought it was a good idea. Never seen anything like that again. The junior high sold paperbacks in the library. The schools had plenty of Wells and Verne, some Bradbury. The public library was a gold mine, that was where you found old copies of Lovecraft. Lots of stores had a bookrack, some with quite a few books in them. This was over 60 years ago so the authors you saw back then were automatically classics. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea was the first classic science fiction story that I read. I was already reading the second Tom Swift series but those probably aren't classics in the same sense. The TV was the opposite in terms of selection, that ranged from the classics that are still classics to the movies you never saw the monster for more than a split second at a time because that was all the budget allowed.

 

[Elckerlyc]

Not sure but likely it was one of Jules Verne's novels. Probably Journey to the Center of the Earth or Around the World in Eighty Days.
But back then I read these books more as adventurous novels than as SF. Or as books about discovering and exploring the world. Just like I read books about Livingstone, Humboldt, Amundsen and the like.
Having given it some thought about what got me into SF, I think that it was when, being bored and nothing much else to do, I grabbed a small anthology with Robert Heinlein stories owned by my father. One story therein stood out: By His Bootstraps. I was blown away. And still am.

 

[Randy M.]

First classic I recall was for school, Fahrenheit 451.

First I read voluntarily was either Childhood's End or The Gods Themselves.

I think the earliest classic short story would have been "Nightfall" but memory fades a bit about that long ago.

Randy M.

 

[Venusian Broon]

First classic I can distinctly remember is Asimov's Foundation series - everything up to Second Foundation. Which must have been when I was 13-ish. But I had read lots of ACC shorts stories years before that. LotR inbetween those two.

 

[Vince W]

It was either Starman Jones or Space Cadet by Heinlein. I read one after the other and sometimes I get bits mixed up. I should give them another read to sort it all out.