Ok folks, can you remember the first SciFi novel you ever read?
What was it?
How old were you?
Any affect on you?
I was like 12, A Wrinkle in Time. Granted I had been reading Stephen King since I was 10, so nothing really has an effect on me 
I suppose every kid reads The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe fairly early. It’s fantasy, but so is a lot of science fiction. 
The first science fiction novel that I read that I recognized AS science fiction was the incomparable Ringworld by Larry Niven. I was probably ten or eleven at the time. I still have the original paperback copy of it that I bought in a used book sale on Cape Cod.
I followed Ringworld with the equally stunning Dune.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture written by Gene Roddenberry.
The novel starts with Admiral Kirk receiving a transmission that plays through an implant in his head. These images are what we see in the opening sequence of the movie. I always thot it was cool since having read the novel I had inside knowledge.
I read it at age 9. Looking back, I’m surprised I didn’t read more as a child. In my freshman year of High School, there was a Barnes and Noble by my school. Since I was a shy lad, I didn’t have many (if any) friends. So, I would peruse the Star Trek novels section. Since the books were like 3 dollars, I used my lunch money to buy them. I started with The Prometheus Design and was hooked. Once I finished one I would head back to the book store and buy the next. My favorite is Spock’s World written by Diane Duane.
My first non-Trek sci-fi novel was ‘Foundation’ and I was 19. I was becoming bored with Star Trek, if that is possible to believe, and wanted to branch out. After reading the first Foundation book, I found out there was a whole series (15 books in all, including Robot, Empire, and Foundation series). I went to the store and bought all of them.
I had a scifi anthology by Issac Asimov when I was 11. But I gotta say, my first real scifi novel was given to me by my godpa on my 13th birthday - Frank Herbert’s Dune :o
Wow.
This is a tough, tough question. It’s gonna take me some thinking to remember.
No idea, I was quite young. Possibly one of Asimov’s Lucky Starr books, or similar old skiool YA Sci-Fi.
The first science fiction book I’ve ever read was Isaac and Janet Asimov’s “Norby: Robot for Hire”.
day of the triffids, and i loved it for its cheesiness… good book (anything postapocolyptic i cant get enough of)
I just remembered. The first Sci Book I read in school was “Runaway Robot” (I think it was called that.) But did I read that before I read any Star Trek books at home? I can’t remember.
One of the earliest Trek books I read were the “Star Trek Logs”–they were novelizations of the Star Trek: Animated series. But when I read them (even though I’d watched Star Trek of course) I’d never seen or heard of the Trek Animated series.
And as a result, when I read them the images in my head weren’t the animated Trek images. From those Star Trek Logs, “Yesteryear” was the first Trek story that I think I read.
Easy - “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” - at about age 9.
I was hooked.
You and Jules Verne went to high school together, right?
(I kid. I kid. I know you’re not THAT old :rolleyes: )
I actually don’t remember what it was called. I know it was something similar to
“My teacher is an Alien” But that book was published to late in my life for that to be it. Whatever book it was it changed my life. It actually got me to love reading which i previously hated. I know i read it when i was about 8 or 9. It got me into the Sci Fi/Fantasy genre (now i read mostly Sci Fi).
Soon after reading that book i totally got into reading books such as theBunnicula series about a Vegetarian Vampire Bunny. Also i got into I, Houdini The story of the escaping hamster. But most influential Sci Fi book i ever read wasA Stainless Steel Rat is Born by Harry Harrison That book alone introduced be to the Space Opera and was the first semi-hard Sci Fi book i read (albeit a comedy version of one).
From there i have pretty much read excursively only Sci Fi/Fantasy and Stephen King Horror (which has alot of grounding in Sci Fi/Fantasy).
Wow, that is a hard one. First book? My first fantasy book was the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings which I read in fourth grade. Those books led me to Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles and Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain.
Oui. (H.G. Wells and I were friends as well. In fact the second sci fi book I recall reading is, indeed, “The War of the Worlds”.)
Oh craaap. That might have been it.
Quick google finds this, but my cover was different. The robot was more duct-punk (to coin a word.)
Ah, here it is. Not sure if it was the first, but it was way early.
First sci-fi book (also first chapter book) was The Disappearing Bike Shop. It was the summer before second grade, so I was 7. If I recall correctly, there was a bike ship that disappeared and traveled through time. Since then, most of what I have read has been science fiction/fantasy and classics.
Ahh!! Yes. That’s the one. I recognize the cover.
That’s great that we both read that as (possibly) one of our first scifi books.
Mine was also A Wrinkle in Time. It would have been the summer between 3rd and 4th grades. Although my eldest sister is a big fan of scifi, so I am sure she and my other sister’s read Asimov to me before that one.
Dune.
BALTAR