What book made you a SciFi reader?

Wow - I remember reading LOTR and just what an impact it had, but I cannot pinpoint the first Sci Fi book - although it was probably something by Ben Bova or Andrea Norton. There are a couple of stories by each of them that stick in my head to this day from my first reading.

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Isaac Asimov's I Robot.

My mother gave it to me back in fourth grade or so when I'd reached the point of needing longer, more complex books than the kids' stories I had.

Then she gave me Edgar Rice Burroughs's Mars and Pellucidar books.

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The Swiss Family Robinson in space? Little House on a New Planet? Why not?

I really loved the movie 'Aliens' and the Colonial Marine comic books, so the first sci-fi book that I really got into was 'Aliens: Earth Hive' and the two books that followed.

The books were originally about Hicks and Newt several years after they survived the Aliens on LV-426, but I looked up the books on Amazon and the characters are now called "Wilks" and "Billie". They must have changed the names after Alien 3 came out.

Dune.

Analog magazine. About 150 pages of serialized science fiction novels and short stories, once a month.

Hmmm where did that name come from for the magazine? It seems so quaint now - almost a parody for a Sci Fi magazine! Yesterday I got laughed at for looking for a converter to connect my old VHS to my new HDTV.

To quote the salesman, "Hah, no we dont carry that. Analog looks crappy on digital screens."

"To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it." - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

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I really got into sci-fi when I read Maximum Ride by James Patterson. There are 5 books now, although I personally think the last 2 sucked. READ THE FIRST 3!!!

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For novels, I don't quite remember. For sci-fi as a whole, it was Star Trek: Generations. I know, it's a crappy movie, but I watched it because there was positively nothing else on TV and came out with the realisation that all this sci-fi stuff was actually pretty cool.

And I must say, watching (and then reading) A Scanner Darkly has recently reinvigorated my obsession with the genre, and I managed to drag a friend down with me into this madnes :D

For me the first I remember reading was Arthur C Clark's ... Rendezvous with Rama

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Doctor Who at a very early age. Ditto for Star Trek. Once I could read, though, it was sci-fi that really grabbed my attention and held it. And I'd definitely call A Wrinkle in Time sci-fi - it made me want to study physics and maths.

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For me Star Wars started me down the path. But the first book would probably be Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.

EE "doc" Smith's Classic Lensman series (That's what was on the cover) I was about 11. Then all the golden age stuff. I read every Science Fiction book in my local library, then all the westerns, then all the thrillers. Ther wasn't really a fantasy section back then.

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I'd been a fan of the genre since I was a kid, thanks to the wonder of 80s cartoons, and then things like Star Wars and Star Trek and Babylon 5.

The first actual SF book I read was Poul Anderson's The Boat of a Million Years. It's a bit of a shock to read non-mainstream SF if you're a fan of the TV stuff and not used to critical thinking, but that's not a bad thing.

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Star Wars and A Wrinkle in Time (I LOVE Madeline L'Engle) were probably what did it for me. Also, Ender's Game. Over the past year I've fallen in love with Star Trek, Edgar Rice Burroughs (Beyond the Farthest Star is probably my favorite book of his), and Isaac Asimov. So, I'm kind of late to the game on some of the classic sci-fi. I'm determined to catch up, though.

And, Maximum Ride fans? Check out James Patterson's When the Wind Blows. It's where Max makes her first appearance. :-)

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That is a tough question to answer. Probably first Science Fiction books that really struck me were Forever War by Haldeman and Dune by Frank Herbert. (So many others though.) Harlan Ellison's works were pretty influential.

I think the first book I read that I was aware was science fiction was The Sentinel anthology of short stories by Arthur C. Clarke. He remains my favorite author to this day. Of course, then I went back and realized that plenty of things I had read/watched earlier qualified as sci-fi, but I didn't realize it at the time. I think I was probably about twelve.

Tunnel In The Sky. It was the ultimate field-trip.

Neuromancer however made me interested in *creating* science-fiction.

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I blame my parents. I had no chance. I don't recall my first sci-fi book, but I couldn't have been more than ten. Ender's Game left an early and lasting impression, as did the comic book habit I picked up from my big brother. (Superheroes are a gateway genre, children. Beware!)

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Ditto. What Han Solo and Darth Vader started, Ender's Game finished. Although I think spending kindergarten and first grade glued to the original Robotech anime definitely had an impact as well.

I was a bit of an oddball - while Ender's Game definitely set the hook, its sequels are what really reeled me in. (In middle school, no less!)

Blast Off at Woomera by Hugh Waltersm, really old school kid sci-fi. I wa sprobably about 7 when I read it. Then ate up the rest of the series (maybe 12 books?) wasn't long till I was reading James Blish, Nicholas Fisk and then onto the big boys. Heinlein was a massive infulence on me. Citizen of the Galaxy and Starman Jones are still two of my fave reads.

To be honest, I really don't remember.

Contact by Carl Sagan, maybe.

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it started visually for me first with the Star Wars films. The first sci-fi books I can remember reading besides the SW novelizations was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, and Journey To The Center of the Earth. 2010 was one of my earlier reads. I tried reading Dune but couldn't get into it. Harry Harrison has long been a favorite, who wouldn't want to be the Stainless Steel Rat? More recently, Timothy Zahn (The ending of The Icarus Hunt blew me away) and Michael Stackpole's Battletech novels (military-scifi classics with complex Machiavellian political plots). Harry Turtledove, if you can stretch the idea of alternative history into sci-fi, and also his Crosstime Traffic series.

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I forgot about Jules Verne and H.G. Wells! My parents bought a bunch of those "Great Illustrated Classics" books, which were abridged versions, but still. I'd read Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Time Machine, and War of the Worlds by the time I was about 11 years old. War of the Worlds was my favorite of the three.

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I think it all started with Jurassic Park. My dad and I read it together. I was about 7 or 8 and we spent hours lying on my parents bed, taking turns reading out loud. For me, scifi books bring back good memories. I'm into Maximum Ride now. I think I've gotten to the ones that are bad, according to a poster above.

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Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea back when I was 10 or so.

For me, the first story to make me a sci-fi fan was Star Wars, followed by Star Trek and then Stargate. But the first book I read that made me a sci-fi fan was Tales from Known Space, bundled in a volume with A Gift from Earth and World of Ptavvs, three books by Larry Niven. Before that I had read A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door, but I never really thought of them as science fiction per se.

It was the collection of books my father had in his office - most by Isaac Asimov. Loved them all.

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Ditto, Nuff said.

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I think for me it was THE TIME MACHINE and THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (H. G. Wells), John Christopher's Tripod Trilogy, and a lot of TV shows are to blame. ;)

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