I can't really say what started me on it, given how much of, well, EVERYTHING I read as a child, but I think the first real fantasy/scifi adult stuff I owned was a gift from a friend for a birthday (5th or 6th grade?). I have no idea how or why she got it for me, or whether she even picked it--she wasn't one of my geekier/closer friends, but she gave me the Anne McCaffrey Dragonsong/Dragonsinger/Dragondrums trilogy. I still have those copies, all beat to hell, after a million and one re-readings.
(And though she and I lost touch for a few years after that, we became friends again in high school, better friends, and I went to her wedding last year! ...but for all that she's a doctor, she's still not really a geek)
My mother picked up the picture book of the LotR cartoon movie when I was, er, about seven, and I read it with fascination...and then got to the end, and was all OMGWTFNoEnding!!!??? Because of course the cartoon only covers FotR and part of TTT.
Much
distress Chez Jay
I got hold of copies of the three real books and then was busy reading them from aged 8 to 9. Slooooowly, with zillions of other books interspersed in between.
I was always more into fantasy than hard SF, for which I blame JRRT. I read
The Hobbit
when I was ten or eleven - wrong order to do it, but there you are.
I still remember the moment of !!!!! when I ventured away from the kidlit shelves in the bookshop and stumbled across a whole SECTION of books that were Fay-friendly in the grownup section, and looking up wide-eyed to find the heading 'Science Fiction'. That was when I discovered the existence of Genre as a specific entity, and fell upon it with arms outstretched in joy.
I honestly think my love of fantasy/mystery/adventure/historical AU came from very early exposure to the works of Carl Barks. My dad read me his old Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge comics when I was a wee thing.
I've enjoyed reading this thread, and have been nodding like a bobblehead upon seeing many of the names. I'd almost forgotten about Barbara Michaels - I'd stumbled across one of her books in the library and plowed through as many as I could find.
Say, has anyone here read Rebecca, by Du Maurier? Does it really end with
the De Winters coming upon Manderley in flames
or did I just get a book that's missing the last few pages? It doesn't really need more to resolve the plot, but it did seem kind of abrupt.
I first read sci-fi when I was...5 or 6. Elementary school library had a copy of "Star Beast" by Heinlein. One of his YA type books, but I was hooked.
Funny, thinking about it, as I can't stand Heinlein now.
Other than the Narnia series, I didn't read much Scifi as a kid. That changed as an adult with Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.
I was lucky, as it turns out - we had a Carnegie library in my town, so even though there was no science fiction or fantasy in my parents' extensive library, I was never more than 3 blocks away from everything I could want.
I was late to the Andre Norton though (midschool), because she was on the top shelf and I couldn't reach them for a long time.
Aww, Andre Norton. I think the first one of hers I read was
CatsEye.
Got an email a few years ago from Misty Lackey (God knows how I happened to be on her email list?) saying that Norton was really ill & feeling very bleak about her writing & having not achieved anything, and asking if people would email her if they HAD loved her books. I sent a long email about how I'd adored her SF books as a teen, and how they'd shaped my mental landscape and all that jazz - and being a teacher & passing on a love of literature now etc etc. But seeing Norton's name now always makes me feel sad for her.
