I was more taken with Grand Concepts like Foundation when I was younger. I don't know whether I'm more pessimistic about the long-term success of Grand Concepts or my attention span is just shorter.

My discovery of SF is one of those crystal memories like the moon landing. I spent the years until I could drive in a constant scramble for books. My mother would only drive me to the library every two weeks and I could only get something like seven books at a time. We had library at elementary school once a week and could get two books. I was burning through about a book a day, so there was always a shortfall. My parents were not really readers, but they had the standard '50s assortment of books, so as a last resort I read things like Keys to the Kingdom and Forever Amber. It was therefore crucial to get two books from the school library, but that day I couldn't find anything I wanted. At the end of the period, I grabbed a book pretty much at random. It was Robert Heinlein's Time for the Stars.

I haven't had the same sense of discovery with authors or genres as I had discovering all these people.

It's been a long time for me, but my neighbor kept recommending C.J. Sansom to me. I just finished the fourth one he's written set it Tudor London and I want more. Many more. Now.

I read a few books that were science fiction when I was youner -- including a lot of asimov short story collections ( not all asimov stories , I think) A lot of them creeped me out -- including one that DH remembers. I wasn't big into science fiction until college.

Blame Fredric Wertham.

Incidentally, Wertham wrote the introduction to this brilliant book I just read called Murder For Profit by William Bolitho. It's from 1926 and is, I think, the first attempt to profile serial killers in literature. But damn, Bolitho could write, and, as a bonus, has this arch sense of humor that reads like P.G. Wodehouse writing about Jack The Ripper. I mean, he's wrong about most of his conclusions, but he fascinatingly wrong. The Wertham part doesn't mention comic books, to its credit.

Tolkien first for me. When I was seven my Dad started reading The Hobbit to me as a bed-time story, with voices in character, one chapter at a time. I got so impatient at the pace when we were in Mirkwood that I picked up the book and finished it myself. That was my transition from picture books to text-only books. Then I received a volume of The Lord of the Rings each birthday after that. I re-read them all about once a year. I tried to read The Silmarillion when I was 13, but couldn't maintain interest. Picked it up again when I was 16 and devoured it.

Other early authors: H. Beam Piper, then Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov all made big impressions on me. Foundation was okay, never much cared for the sequels. I liked his other stuff better. There's certainly plenty to choose from. My favorite Isaac Asimov joke (I think originated with Harlan Ellison): Isaac Asimov had writer's block once. It was the scariest ten minutes of his life.

I tried to read The Silmarillion when I was 13, but couldn't maintain interest. Picked it up again when I was 16 and devoured it.

You have greater fortitude than I; it took FIVE tries (as a teen) to get through Silmarillion. I got terminally confused (literally! I'm dead as I type this!) by all the similar names - Finrod and Finarfin and Fingolfin and so on. And it's important to keep that all clear. Stupid Greek tragedy of Elf angst.

(Of course, OCD that I am, I have the Ainulindale memorized. It makes great campfire recitation, especially Morgoth smashing things up like a testy 3-year-old.)

I feel like a total outsider in the cool kids club. I don't read scifi and only very limited fantasy. I cut my teeth on historicals and mysteries and of course, romances and the big glitzy, smutty roman à clef novels of the late seventies and eighties.

I cut my teeth on historicals and mysteries and of course, romances

Have you read any Jane Aiken Hodge? I adore her.

Historicals and historical fiction, all I remember from my early teens is Kipling and Wilbur Smith. Does Gerald Durrell count as historical?

Mysteries, I went from Hardy Boys and Tom Swift to Desmond Bagley and Dick Francis.

Have you read any Jane Aiken Hodge? I adore her.

Not that I recall, connie. I take it I should look her up? (Not that I don't have a HUGE stack of books waiting for me already.)

Speaking of mysteries, anyone wanting to pick up a Regency-set with a wonderful lead, the Sebastian St. Cyr mysteries by C.S. Harris are a lot of fun. I was sent the fourth book in the series to judge in the RITA finals and loved it so much, that I went back and ordered the first three and am currently mainlining.

I read Hodge, and remember liking her. Has anyone read Charlotte Armstrong? She's delicious, but very very dated--late 50s to early 70s, I think. She's sort of a counterpart to Christie for me, though she's a bit creepier.

Also?

Stupid Greek tragedy of Elf angst.

Anyone in need of a new tagline?