Novel that got you hooked on SF/Fantasy genre

[aja_christopher]

Belgariad stands the test of time. R.A. Salvatore's stuff is more box office movie. Quite enjoyable but not as much depth. Drizzt Do'Urden is still darned cool.

That's because Salvatore is a great writer -- he also worked on the "Kingdoms of Amalur" game (with Todd MacFarlane doing the character design) which you should check out if you get the chance.

I created a dark elf character based on the female drow elves in his series -- she's the half-sister of a "grey elf" and both are key characters in a fantasy graphic novel I've written (but never published) called "Moon".


http://nihilon.deviantart.com/gallery/43494887/MOON

[Panfoot]

The Hobbit. When I was in high school, we had to pick out a book in the library to read and write a report on. One of my friends told me it was a good book, so I checked it out and read it. I was blown away.

Same for me, though I think I actually read the LOTR Trilogy before reading the Hobbit, but the Hobbit was the one I went back to several times afterwards.

[GOLGO 13]

Warhammer 40k rocked me really hard. There is nothing like it. Well, yes OK WH40k has borrowed from plenty of genres liberally but by the Emperor how I love it so!

Never a fantasy fan. Now I do love Conan, but before the LOTR movies, nothing.

[Mike]

Many years ago I read X-Factor by Andre Norton.
After that I couldn't get enough SF/Fantasy.
n8529.jpg

[Scott Taylor]

Probably something by HG Wells.

War of the Worlds for me. Also the first book I read more than once.

[zevious zoquis]

Back in my early-mid teen years I had a school friend who's dad was a voracious reader. He had just hundreds of paperbacks and much of his stuff was in the mystery/horror/adventure/sci-fi genres. I was instantly drawn to all those 1970's paperback collections of Robert E Howard Conan stories with the Frazetta covers. I just found them completely irresistable, mostly thanks to those cover images...but once I started reading the stories I fell in love with those too.

[valerian]

It wasn't a novel, it was Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction No. 2

[Chicken Pocket]

More of a series of novels:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Belgariad

The Belgariad got me into Fantasy too, though didn't get around to reading the Mallorean - one of these days soon hopefully.

[ERON]

The two paperbacks based on the '70s Buck Rogers TV series got me started.

[aja_christopher]

The Belgariad got me into Fantasy too, though didn't get around to reading the Mallorean - one of these days soon hopefully.

It's worth reading in my opinion, if only because you get a lot more of Zakath in the book. I didn't find the new characters from the second series as interesting as the ones in the first, but Eddings was smart enough to keep Belgarath, Silk, and Ce'Nedra around and they didn't disappoint for the most part.

The Demon Lord of Karanda is probably my most read of that series -- you get Belgarath and Silk on a stealth mission getting drunk and raising demons to fight like Pokemon (not at the same time though, as that would be a bad idea).

The Belgarath solo book is pretty good too -- dude marries a wolf.

[aja_christopher]

Here's another book that I read when I was younger that really stuck with me for some reason -- it seemed really prescient back then, and I think it pretty much nails what's happening right now.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Shock

[buffalorock]

Old Wells and Verne were very impressionable to young me, but it wasn't until I was a little older and would find Ray Bradbury that I discovered my favorite Scifi author.

I was a big fan of the Redwall series (and still am) for fantasy, I didn't read Lord of the Rings until later, and love that as well.

The White Mountain Trilogy (or Tripod series) by John Christopher (and prequel) are still some of my favorites though. They were some of the only scifi books available as a "Battle Book" in middle school back in the day so I took a flyer, and enjoyed them all.