"Dune" was totally transformative for me; my uncle John told me to read it when I was about 8; I did, and every year afterwards, thinking "I have until I'm 15 - Paul's age - to take over the world, or I'm a failure!"

Har har har!

My dad was a big influence in my SF reading habits. His bookshelf was always full of the greats, including Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. Never would have discovered it without him. These days I'm more into the TV than the books (I'm sad to say - it just seems to work out like that) and I'm the one who introduces him to things.

I bought him the first season of Battlestar Galactica for his birthday last month. He appears to be enjoying it: he called me last night. "I'm afraid that Matt [his dog] is a Cylon." Why? I inquire. "Because we went to the Grange [assistance dog training centre] last month, and we met his brother. And they looked exactly alike."

Dad-level attempts at humour are the same the world over.

My Dad and I had to stop buying each other books after 3 years in a row buying each other the same book for our birthdays (which are 6 days apart). Now we just email back and forth to see who bought what first.

It just occurred to me that I have no idea of the reading tastes of any of my family. How odd. I got into science fiction in my teens, when I was trolling the school library for something interesting and was intrigued by A is for Android by Andre Norton. Dear Andre, my gateway drug.

Dear Andre, my gateway drug.

Me too. I think I read Daybreak, 2250 and then the Moonstone first.

My folks weren't readers so I backed into fantasy through comic books. In the early seventies, DC published comic book versions of John Carter, Warlord of Mars and (more importantly) Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.

Then I crossed company lines to buy Conan and soon I was haunting the used bookstores for ERB, Howard and Leiber.

hm ... it just struck me that I was reading '50s SF magazines, but comic books were not allowed (except for Junior Illustrated Classics). My father also had various ER Burroughs books, E.E. "Doc" Smith, the Conan books, Ace SF Doubles ... all of which I was reading. But no comics.

But no comics.

Blame Fredric Wertham.

connie and David are me. Daybreak 2250 AD was my maiden voyage, quickly followed by several years' collections of The Year's Best Science Fiction, plus Analog. Asimov, Heinlein, Sturgeon, Bradbury, Ellison, E.E. "Doc" Smith, so much social commentary at a time my social conscience and consciousness was burgeoning. I don't think I read outside the SF/F genres for several years, only branching into gothics as an offshoot of some of the more romantic fantasies. And from thence into historical romance, always with one foot firmly in space/otherworld. It wasn't until my late thirties that non-fiction even registered on my radar.

At twelve, I read Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie, and some of my mother's procedurals when I thought she wasn't looking.

Poul Anderson, Alfred K. Bester, Herbert, Brian Aldiss, Alan Dean Foster, Niven, Gordon Dickson, Delaney, Zelazny, Clarke, the list is endless.

Oh, I'd forgotten, I also devoured Christie, Allingham, Dorothy Sayers, PD James, Ellis Peters/Edith Pargeter, Barbara Michaels(Mertz)/Elizabeth Peters, the last two being mystery-romance-fantasy crossovers or "fusion" as the kids are calling it these days.

I haven't had the same sense of discovery with authors or genres as I had discovering all these people. You think this means maybe I'm jaded?