At What Age Did You Start Reading SF? Effects?

[JunkMonkey]

My dad was an SF reader from his youth. I still have his battered copies of the HG Wells books he had as a kid. The first SF stories I remember reading - aged 9 or so - were Four in One by Damon Knight and the War Against the Yukks by Keith Laumer but they probably weren't the first but they are the first I remember with clarity. My dad had shelves full of copies of Galaxy, Analog, and Worlds of If that I just consumed. Then moved on to Robert Heinleins which I loved (I find him unreadable today) and Asimov's Foundation books etc etc.

 

[Orcadian]

My dad was an SF reader from his youth. I still have his battered copies of the HG Wells books he had as a kid. The first SF stories I remember reading - aged 9 or so - were Four in One by Damon Knight and the War Against the Yukks by Keith Laumer but they probably weren't the first but they are the first I remember with clarity. My dad had shelves full of copies of Galaxy, Analog, and Worlds of If that I just consumed. Then moved on to Robert Heinleins which I loved (I find him unreadable today) and Asimov's Foundation books etc etc.

Four in One... Is that the story where four men are embedded in some sort of jelly, and they struggle to control it so that they can fight each other? I read this when I was a teenager and the line I remember is "Longer! Stronger! More Arm!".

 

[JunkMonkey]

Four in One... Is that the story where four men are embedded in some sort of jelly, and they struggle to control it so that they can fight each other? I read this when I was a teenager and the line I remember is "Longer! Stronger! More Arm!".

That's the one (though I think one of the four was a woman).

 

[psikeyhackr]

A few months ago I ran across this concept called "unschooling". I have watched a bunch of videos about it and perused a few books.

Unschooling - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

It occurs to me that I accidentally "unschooled" myself with science fiction back in the day. I ignored a lot of crap from school because paradigms from SF authors made more sense. I saw this on TV back in the 90s:

Harvard graduates could not explain summer and winter!? I nearly busted a gut. I knew that in grade school. When I finally calmed down I had to think about why I knew it; Science Fiction. It was never mentioned in any course I took but some books somewhen had me reading about orbital mechanics and that got included.

So far I have not seen anyone deliberately mentioning science fiction as part of Unschooling. I am going to have to look into that.

 

[Alex The G and T]

Wow. I think I got the low-down on the orbital mechanics of seasons in grade school. But Dad is a huge fan of Asimov. Non-fiction foremost and I was an asimov fiction fan from a very young age, so who knows where it came from. Seemed like a pretty obvious concept to me.

 

[Orcadian]

When I was at high school (1960s) we were not taught any astronomy at all - so to see it taught at all is an improvement! But evidently it is not being taught well, for even bright pupils haven't taken it in. Is this because their teachers never understood the concepts themselves, or it is the teaching method faulty? In the cases we see here, evidently there was little checking to confirm that pupils had absorbed and understood the material. Surely 'the solar system and how it works' (and how we discovered what we know today) should be part of a general curriculum. Apparently this video is from 2015. One wonders how well this course is working now.

 

[psikeyhackr]

. Surely 'the solar system and how it works' (and how we discovered what we know today) should be part of a general curriculum. Apparently this video is from 2015. One wonders how well this course is working now.

Actually it was a very long time before I learned how the speed of light was figured out even though I had memorized the number in grade school. How information is organized and prioritized in this society is very strange.

In the 90s I began thinking that accounting/finance should be mandatory in high schools, but when has AUTHORITY suggested that? If that had been done since Sputnik what would the economy be like today?

That's it! Accountants writing SF, alternate history. SF as boring as accounting. ZZZZzzzzz!

 

[Orcadian]

Actually it was a very long time before I learned how the speed of light was figured out even though I had memorized the number in grade school. How information is organized and prioritized in this society is very strange.

Ah, sorry if I wasn't clear: I meant how we know what we know about the Solar System. It's very interesting and goes right back to the Greek thinkers/experimentalists. The speed of light measurements require some knowledge of maths & physics that would not be part of a general-education high school course.

In the 90s I began thinking that accounting/finance should be mandatory in high schools, but when has AUTHORITY suggested that? If that had been done since Sputnik what would the economy be like today?

Actually I think it would be an excellent idea for high-school kids to know something about money! How it's managed, how it grows (or not!), the various sorts of interest, tax, bank account etc. The fact that it's not 'the government' that pays for this - it's us. When I left school aged 16 the only thing I knew was that I should have a savings account and should put some money into it every month 'in case of a rainy day'. And since it rained almost every day and the money didn't seem to help with that, I don't think the proverb taught me much.

 

[Parson]

I was a secondary teacher in the States in the mid 1970's and at that time there was a move about for some more "practical" classes and I did teach a class in "Consumer Living" where I taught check book keeping, the basics of cooking, etc. But that like so much else has generally left the playing field because of decreasing test scores in math and science.

In general, I think that being well read (which would include SF) helps a person to learn a lot of things that can be brought together in a synthesis.

 

[psikeyhackr]

In general, I think that being well read (which would include SF) helps a person to learn a lot of things that can be brought together in a synthesis.

Science fiction makes one better read rather than well read. I think it tends to focus one's mind on the future and it's possibilities while "great literature" like Charles Dickens is rehashing the past. Where are grade school kids going?

 

[Mans]

I have not read any story books except a few; only technical or scientific books. But I have always been interested in watching SF movies.

 

[smellincoffee]

I've been reading science fiction since late elementary school, at least -- reading versions of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne -- but I don't think I appreciated it as Science Fiction until my early or mid twenties. That was when I began actively exploring it as an genre. I don't know what its effect on me was: I was always an introverted, thoughtful kid who didn't mesh with anyone around him, and I imagine it gave me a lot to think about. Some of it was just simple adventure stuff -- Bruce Coville comes to mind -- but Star Trek was often challenging both on a speculative tech level, and on the issues it raised.

Science fiction makes one better read rather than well read. I think it tends to focus one's mind on the future and it's possibilities while "great literature" like Charles Dickens is rehashing the past. Where are grade school kids going?

I don't think it's rehashing the past. Humanity does not change, even if outside trappings like tech and society do, and some of the same struggles and questions we see being thrashed about in Greek plays or whatever still exist today.

 

[Bookworm]

I've been reading science fiction since late elementary school, at least -- reading versions of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne -- but I don't think I appreciated it as Science Fiction until my early or mid twenties. That was when I began actively exploring it as an genre. I don't know what its effect on me was: I was always an introverted, thoughtful kid who didn't mesh with anyone around him, and I imagine it gave me a lot to think about. Some of it was just simple adventure stuff -- Bruce Coville comes to mind -- but Star Trek was often challenging both on a speculative tech level, and on the issues it raised.



I don't think it's rehashing the past. Humanity does not change, even if outside trappings like tech and society do, and some of the same struggles and questions we see being thrashed about in Greek plays or whatever still exist today.

I'm obsessed with classic sci-fi. H.G. Wells' novels and short stories are the best. You can read them over and over again and they never get old.

 

[smellincoffee]

I'm obsessed with classic sci-fi. H.G. Wells' novels and short stories are the best. You can read them over and over again and they never get old.

Some of them are a little odd now -- The Year of the Comet, especially. Once was enough for that one!

 

[ablackenedrose]

I got started with Heinlein juveniles - Tunnel in the Sky, specifically (my father owns a ton of books and loves science fiction, so naturally he owned them). Needed it for a book report, fell in love with the book and kept reading the juveniles after the report was finished. This would've been around 2003.

Unsurprisingly, as I grew older my tastes shifted towards stuff aimed at older audiences, but my love of sci-fi is something I have Heinlein's juveniles to thank for.

 

[smellincoffee]

I got started with Heinlein juveniles - Tunnel in the Sky, specifically (my father owns a ton of books and loves science fiction, so naturally he owned them). Needed it for a book report, fell in love with the book and kept reading the juveniles after the report was finished. This would've been around 2003.

Unsurprisingly, as I grew older my tastes shifted towards stuff aimed at older audiences, but my love of sci-fi is something I have Heinlein's juveniles to thank for.

I may have to look for that. I've never gotten into Heinlein beyond The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, which isn't the work he's most known for.

 

[Karapace]

I started reading for fun in Primary school. We had a teacher who would read Enid Blyton books to us in the afternoon. My first introduction to SF was through comics, TV21 and early DC and Marvel purchased from the news agents next to my Grandparents house. The American comics often confused me because they never arrived in sequence so if a story continued from one comic to the next you were unable to follow it.
In secondary school we did John Wyndham "The day of the Triffids" and the, then new, novel "Chocky". I developed a taste for SF short stories and also in an unrelated parallel to that magic and the occult (my Dad gave me Dennis Wheatlely novels in the hope that it would put me off, had the opposite effect). I was a very questioning teenager and curious about the underlying truth of things, even if I got it wrong.

 

[paranoid marvin]

We were quite lucky growing up un the 70s, as there was loads of great sciebce fiction tv shows and comics. There seemed to be a belief that space exploration and the discovery of intelligent alien life where just aroubd the corner.

Blakes 7, Doctor Who, Chocky, Battle of the Planets, Star Trek, Thunderbirds and Lost in Space were just some of the programmes that drew us into the wonderful world of science fiction.

 

[paeng]

Around 8. It was a collection of sci-fi short stories from an adult magazine, and located in an elementary school library. For some reason the librarian accidentally left it in general circulation.

The first story was about sex robots, and one husband who took revenge on his wife for having too much fun with her toy by putting an explosive in it that would detonate when you-know-what.

Partial aside: a few weeks after that, I finished SRA early, and waiting for dismissal time, decided to take a look at the reading textbook because it had nice pictures in it. That's when I discovered Poe's "Masque of the Red Death."

During the weekend, I and some cousins trashed Pop's den, and found his stash of Newsweek and Playboy. The first reminded me of Omega Man, Soylent Green, but the second was notable because we saw pictures of rocket ships accompanying a sci-fi short story, probably by Clarke.

Later, I looked for more Poe in Pop's bookshelves, and saw something about amorous tales from The Decameron. I think one story's about a clergyman fleeing the plague, and a young woman accompanying him, and later how she had to help him "tame the devil".

 

[paeng]

We were quite lucky growing up un the 70s, as there was loads of great sciebce fiction tv shows and comics. There seemed to be a belief that space exploration and the discovery of intelligent alien life where just aroubd the corner.

Blakes 7, Doctor Who, Chocky, Battle of the Planets, Star Trek, Thunderbirds and Lost in Space were just some of the programmes that drew us into the wonderful world of science fiction.

Those were great, together with Space: 1999, UFO, and Sapphire and Steele.