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A Song of Ice and Fire / Other Topics / Our Fantasy Upbringing

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cgob
User ID: 0053014 Nov 3rd 10:40 PM
What were your favorite fantasies growing up?

Mine were (in no particular order)
1)Taran Wanderer series (book of Three...Llyod Alexander)
2)Chronicles of Narnia (C.S.Lewis..Christain fables but good)
3)John Carter of Mars (shoot me, what IS his NAME!)
4)LOTR and the Hobbit (Tolkien...duh)
5)Boys Life (haha jk u still reading?)
6)Greek and Roman Mythologies
7)John Christopher Books (Sword of Fire<?> series and the <Martian/tripod?> tales)
8)Piers Anthony's Xanth (1st 4, and half of the fifth)
9)Any Playboy,Penthouse,Hustler,Chic,Oui,Gallery magazines(HEY we are talking about fantasy here)
10)McCaffery's Dragondrums
and many more......

Ser Benjen
User ID: 1195644 Nov 4th 8:04 AM
1. Peter & The Wolf (Disney version, w/ album)
2. The Hobbit (THe little picture book and the album. I was like five years old)
3. Star Wars
4. Chronicles of Narnia (Lewis)
5. LOTR (Tolkien)
6. Dungeons and Dragons (Started playing at age 9)
7. Dragonlance(Weis & Hickman)
8. Sword of Shannara (Brooks)
9. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeleiver (Donaldson)
10. The Belgariad (Eddings)

cgob
User ID: 0053014 Nov 4th 8:56 AM
I cant believe I forgot the Shannara series(Brooks). Edgar Rice Burroghs wrote the 'John Carter of Mars' books. I still have (in terrible condition) the Hobbit record. I love the song "Fifteen Birds in 5 fir trees".

Min
User ID: 9433023 Nov 4th 2:30 PM
Let's see...

- Tolkien. First the hobbit, later the LotR.

- Chronicles of Narnia.

- Mythologies, just as cgob, and fairy tales (read all from greek, roman, german, celtic, all I could get that was mythology or fairy tale)

- The last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle - The Book That Changed My Youth. :-)

- Burnett's The Secret Garden

- All Arthurian kinds of stories. From the Mists of Avalon to the Originals I read later, of course.

- Charles Tazwell. Dunno of he's fantasy, but still. I wasn't able to celebrate Christmas without his The Smallest Angel :-)

- Joan Aiken. Great mystery author

- A dutch book I loooved: The Book of Dwarves. The WHole Truth about Heritage, Life and Living of the Dwarf Peoples". By Rien Poortvliet and Wil Huygen. WOnderful book made like a science book, descibing all about the dwarfs (or gnomes, I don't know the English title again). Awesome, not only for children.

- Michael Larrabeiti: The Borribles. Again, great not only for children.

- Poems. Not really fantasy at all, but I started to fall in love with poems when I was five, and never lost this love.

And so many others I forgot. Especially some german books you would not know anyway. :-)

Ah... memories :-) Whole lives. :-)

Snake
User ID: 0018434 Nov 4th 6:14 PM
Well,

- The Hobbit, LoTR, Silmarilion, basically all Tolkein had written.

- Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K. LeGuin.

- Star Wars

- Star Trek

- Dabbled at Dungeons & Dragons.

That's about it.

LindaElane
User ID: 7733333 Nov 4th 7:20 PM
Essentially none. My parents thought it was stupid. Well, they told us fairy tales until about age 7, but then they stopped. My elementary librarian encouraged the reading of biographies. She did tell me to read Wind in the Willows once but I have never been into talking animals (except I later learned Narnia was wonderful, of course.)

Under age 10, my favorite reads were a series of biographies on the childhoods of famous people, and Nancy Drew. I can barely force myself to read a mystery as an adult, oddly.

I did check out everything on Norse mythology I could get my hands on, though Then when I was 10, something wonderful happened to me. I got hold of a copy of Pilgrim's Progress (I can hear a few of you sneering, but please reserve judgement). I was at a camp with my family. I completely disappeared, the whole camp was searching for me. I had gone to the top landing of the outdoor stairs, refusing to put the book down, not even realizing that I was supposed to report for lunch and dinner. I just knew, symbolism and imagination were the way stories were supposed to work! What a relief it was to find something that challenged my intellect and imagination.

After that I read HG Wells, then in Jr High I read Heinlein and Orwell.

Min, I did read The Secret Garden at 9, but I think the symbolism in it somehow escaped me. I had lots of fantasies of finding my own secret garden though.

Oberyn
User ID: 8394983 Nov 4th 9:10 PM
Lord of the Rings
Dune
Dragonlance Chronicles
Anything by Robert A. Heinlein
Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion books (Elric, Corum, Hawkmoon, etc.)
Stephen Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle
Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy

Green Gerg
User ID: 1815634 Nov 8th 12:50 PM
In chronological order:
My mom always read me Greco-Roman/Norse mythology from early childhood, so that came first. Then, when I started to read on my own, around 1973, it was ERB all the way, especially the John Carter of Mars and Pellucidar series, though I also had a soft spot for the usually reviled Carson of Venus series.
Quickly after that, I started diving into Rob Howard's Conan books, and Lin Carter (Callisto, Thongor, and Green Star series).
Then came Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd & Gray Mouser series, Moorcock's Elric saga, and some stuff that I liked as a kid but think is mostly bad now (Alan Akers' Kregen/Antares series and the Gor series).
This was all in the 1970s. By the end of that decade I thought most of the fantasy coming out was pretty ridiculous, and I had discovered King and others, so aside from Tolkien in high school, the Dune series which I read in the late '80s, and some fantasy-related stuff by King (Dark Tower), GRRM (Dying of the Light, Windhaven), and Card, I didn't read hardly any fantasy at all until the last year or two. Reading LEGENDS has gotten me interested in checking other authors out...

Rebecca
User ID: 0303694 Nov 9th 7:42 AM
In no particular order:

A Wrinkle in Time (Madeline L'Engle)

Narnia Books (esp. The Lion, the Witch...; though now I find my favorite to be The Silver Chair)

LOTR

'Salem's Lot

Fairytales and mythology; and anything to do with ghosts, vampires and the occult.

Like Linda, I was into mysteries--Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, Nero Wolf, any Agatha Christie.

I didn't start reading a lot of scifi/fantasy until High School, at which time I discovered:

Dune (could never get into the others in the series though)

The Belgariad (it had just come out)

Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy plus one.

Book of the New Sun (Gene Wolfe)

PikaFreak
User ID: 9092003 Nov 9th 11:52 PM
i have to admit that i'm pretty young....14 but i started reading early (in the 2nd grade). My brother handed me the last book of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles (Patricia C. Wrede) and i was hooked.

these were the earlier books
-Song of the Lioness & Wild Magic Quartets (Tamora Pierce)
-Prydain Chronicles (Lloyd Alexander)
-i also read a lot of children's mysteries (encyclopedia brown or something like that)
-Howl's Moving Castle & a couple of other books (Diana Wynne Jones)
-Dragon something books (something Yolen)

recently...
-Elenium & Tamuli (David Eddings)
-Crown of Stars series (Kate Elliott)
-Baker's Boy series, Barbed Coil, Cavern of Black Ice (J.V. Jones)
-First King of Shannara (Terry Brooks) i think i read sword of shannara but i don't remember it very well.
-Legend, Quest for Lost Heroes, Ghost King etc.. (David Gemmell)

the list goes on...

Jaeger
User ID: 7378223 Nov 10th 0:19 AM
Well, my list prolly resembles most of yurs, but one could easily add the Hitchhiker's Guide, and its lot, as well as Dirk Gently's items. Also, not exactly upbringing, but a SciFi worth mentioning is the Hyperion/Endymion books by Simmons.

Chris Greenway
User ID: 9510053 Nov 10th 3:27 AM
Wow! What a topic! The Enid Blyton stuff at first then I moved onto the Moomintrolls and onto the Narnia Chronicles. I never looked back after the Hobbit, though.
If anyone is looking for something different and fairytalish try the Bone comics by Jeff Smith. Great for kids and adults

pikafreak
User ID: 9092003 Nov 12th 1:06 AM
i love the bone comics but i've only read the beginning part. can't locate the other chapters.

Relic
User ID: 8980403 Nov 12th 1:17 AM
Dune
The DragonLance Books
and a WHOLE lot of AD&D in high school.

haaruk
User ID: 0387824 Nov 13th 6:32 AM
In The Night Kitchen - Sendak
The Nutcracker - Tchaikovsky
The Cat In The Hat - Seuss
A Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare
Faust - Goethe
Dracula - Stoker
The Odyssey - Homer
The Hobbit - Tolkien

Icura
User ID: 0213374 Nov 13th 8:23 PM
Alas, I was deprived.�I started Enid Blyton at 5 and did not budge further than the hardy boys by 13. But then I started Fanatsy, with a fasination of Dragons"�I Had the hobbit read to me three times and have never actually read it myself.�I remember falling asleep listening to the hobbit in Primary school. (Elemantry School in US I think) and dreaming I was that fat dwarf having to be carried. and then waking up with a texter mastache.

cgob
User ID: 0053014 Nov 14th 4:28 PM
haaruk-all before the age of 5 right? :)

haaruk
User ID: 0387824 Nov 15th 2:02 PM
Cgob. No.

Bill Hall
User ID: 0777594 Nov 15th 2:28 PM
Fantasy:
Bullfinch's Mythology
Fairy tales in the "Book of Knowledge"
Pratt/de Camp's "Incompleat Enchanter"

Science Fiction:
Flipping through my father's pulp magazines (before I could read)
E. E. Smith's "Lensman" series

And, oh yes, a few stone tablets Gilgamesh inscribed for me.

Telisiane
User ID: 2233684 Nov 15th 7:31 PM
What a fabulous topic!

1) The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, especially A Horse and His Boy
2) The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander
3) A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and A Ring of Pure and Endless Light, by Madeleine L'Engle
4) Beauty, by Robin McKinley
5) The Dragonrider and Dragonsinger trilogies, by Anne McCaffrey
6) The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
7) Charmed Life, by Diana Wynne Jones
8) Dune, by Frank Herbert
9) The Earthsea Trilogy, by Ursula LeGuin
10) Firestarter, 'Salem's Lot, and The Dead Zone, by Stephen King

Next 20 Messages Newest Messages

cgob User ID: 0053014	Nov 3rd 10:40 PM What were your favorite fantasies growing up? Mine were (in no particular order) 1)Taran Wanderer series (book of Three...Llyod Alexander) 2)Chronicles of Narnia (C.S.Lewis..Christain fables but good) 3)John Carter of Mars (shoot me, what IS his NAME!) 4)LOTR and the Hobbit (Tolkien...duh) 5)Boys Life (haha jk u still reading?) 6)Greek and Roman Mythologies 7)John Christopher Books (Sword of Fire<?> series and the <Martian/tripod?> tales) 8)Piers Anthony's Xanth (1st 4, and half of the fifth) 9)Any Playboy,Penthouse,Hustler,Chic,Oui,Gallery magazines(HEY we are talking about fantasy here) 10)McCaffery's Dragondrums and many more......
Ser Benjen User ID: 1195644	Nov 4th 8:04 AM 1. Peter & The Wolf (Disney version, w/ album) 2. The Hobbit (THe little picture book and the album. I was like five years old) 3. Star Wars 4. Chronicles of Narnia (Lewis) 5. LOTR (Tolkien) 6. Dungeons and Dragons (Started playing at age 9) 7. Dragonlance(Weis & Hickman) 8. Sword of Shannara (Brooks) 9. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeleiver (Donaldson) 10. The Belgariad (Eddings)
cgob User ID: 0053014	Nov 4th 8:56 AM I cant believe I forgot the Shannara series(Brooks). Edgar Rice Burroghs wrote the 'John Carter of Mars' books. I still have (in terrible condition) the Hobbit record. I love the song "Fifteen Birds in 5 fir trees".
Min User ID: 9433023	Nov 4th 2:30 PM Let's see... - Tolkien. First the hobbit, later the LotR. - Chronicles of Narnia. - Mythologies, just as cgob, and fairy tales (read all from greek, roman, german, celtic, all I could get that was mythology or fairy tale) - The last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle - The Book That Changed My Youth. :-) - Burnett's The Secret Garden - All Arthurian kinds of stories. From the Mists of Avalon to the Originals I read later, of course. - Charles Tazwell. Dunno of he's fantasy, but still. I wasn't able to celebrate Christmas without his The Smallest Angel :-) - Joan Aiken. Great mystery author - A dutch book I loooved: The Book of Dwarves. The WHole Truth about Heritage, Life and Living of the Dwarf Peoples". By Rien Poortvliet and Wil Huygen. WOnderful book made like a science book, descibing all about the dwarfs (or gnomes, I don't know the English title again). Awesome, not only for children. - Michael Larrabeiti: The Borribles. Again, great not only for children. - Poems. Not really fantasy at all, but I started to fall in love with poems when I was five, and never lost this love. And so many others I forgot. Especially some german books you would not know anyway. :-) Ah... memories :-) Whole lives. :-)
Snake User ID: 0018434	Nov 4th 6:14 PM Well, - The Hobbit, LoTR, Silmarilion, basically all Tolkein had written. - Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K. LeGuin. - Star Wars - Star Trek - Dabbled at Dungeons & Dragons. That's about it.
LindaElane User ID: 7733333	Nov 4th 7:20 PM Essentially none. My parents thought it was stupid. Well, they told us fairy tales until about age 7, but then they stopped. My elementary librarian encouraged the reading of biographies. She did tell me to read Wind in the Willows once but I have never been into talking animals (except I later learned Narnia was wonderful, of course.) Under age 10, my favorite reads were a series of biographies on the childhoods of famous people, and Nancy Drew. I can barely force myself to read a mystery as an adult, oddly. I did check out everything on Norse mythology I could get my hands on, though Then when I was 10, something wonderful happened to me. I got hold of a copy of Pilgrim's Progress (I can hear a few of you sneering, but please reserve judgement). I was at a camp with my family. I completely disappeared, the whole camp was searching for me. I had gone to the top landing of the outdoor stairs, refusing to put the book down, not even realizing that I was supposed to report for lunch and dinner. I just knew, symbolism and imagination were the way stories were supposed to work! What a relief it was to find something that challenged my intellect and imagination. After that I read HG Wells, then in Jr High I read Heinlein and Orwell. Min, I did read The Secret Garden at 9, but I think the symbolism in it somehow escaped me. I had lots of fantasies of finding my own secret garden though.
Oberyn User ID: 8394983	Nov 4th 9:10 PM Lord of the Rings Dune Dragonlance Chronicles Anything by Robert A. Heinlein Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion books (Elric, Corum, Hawkmoon, etc.) Stephen Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy
Green Gerg User ID: 1815634	Nov 8th 12:50 PM In chronological order: My mom always read me Greco-Roman/Norse mythology from early childhood, so that came first. Then, when I started to read on my own, around 1973, it was ERB all the way, especially the John Carter of Mars and Pellucidar series, though I also had a soft spot for the usually reviled Carson of Venus series. Quickly after that, I started diving into Rob Howard's Conan books, and Lin Carter (Callisto, Thongor, and Green Star series). Then came Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd & Gray Mouser series, Moorcock's Elric saga, and some stuff that I liked as a kid but think is mostly bad now (Alan Akers' Kregen/Antares series and the Gor series). This was all in the 1970s. By the end of that decade I thought most of the fantasy coming out was pretty ridiculous, and I had discovered King and others, so aside from Tolkien in high school, the Dune series which I read in the late '80s, and some fantasy-related stuff by King (Dark Tower), GRRM (Dying of the Light, Windhaven), and Card, I didn't read hardly any fantasy at all until the last year or two. Reading LEGENDS has gotten me interested in checking other authors out...
Rebecca User ID: 0303694	Nov 9th 7:42 AM In no particular order: A Wrinkle in Time (Madeline L'Engle) Narnia Books (esp. The Lion, the Witch...; though now I find my favorite to be The Silver Chair) LOTR 'Salem's Lot Fairytales and mythology; and anything to do with ghosts, vampires and the occult. Like Linda, I was into mysteries--Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, Nero Wolf, any Agatha Christie. I didn't start reading a lot of scifi/fantasy until High School, at which time I discovered: Dune (could never get into the others in the series though) The Belgariad (it had just come out) Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy plus one. Book of the New Sun (Gene Wolfe)
PikaFreak User ID: 9092003	Nov 9th 11:52 PM i have to admit that i'm pretty young....14 but i started reading early (in the 2nd grade). My brother handed me the last book of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles (Patricia C. Wrede) and i was hooked. these were the earlier books -Song of the Lioness & Wild Magic Quartets (Tamora Pierce) -Prydain Chronicles (Lloyd Alexander) -i also read a lot of children's mysteries (encyclopedia brown or something like that) -Howl's Moving Castle & a couple of other books (Diana Wynne Jones) -Dragon something books (something Yolen) recently... -Elenium & Tamuli (David Eddings) -Crown of Stars series (Kate Elliott) -Baker's Boy series, Barbed Coil, Cavern of Black Ice (J.V. Jones) -First King of Shannara (Terry Brooks) i think i read sword of shannara but i don't remember it very well. -Legend, Quest for Lost Heroes, Ghost King etc.. (David Gemmell) the list goes on...
Jaeger User ID: 7378223	Nov 10th 0:19 AM Well, my list prolly resembles most of yurs, but one could easily add the Hitchhiker's Guide, and its lot, as well as Dirk Gently's items. Also, not exactly upbringing, but a SciFi worth mentioning is the Hyperion/Endymion books by Simmons.
Chris Greenway User ID: 9510053	Nov 10th 3:27 AM Wow! What a topic! The Enid Blyton stuff at first then I moved onto the Moomintrolls and onto the Narnia Chronicles. I never looked back after the Hobbit, though. If anyone is looking for something different and fairytalish try the Bone comics by Jeff Smith. Great for kids and adults
pikafreak User ID: 9092003	Nov 12th 1:06 AM i love the bone comics but i've only read the beginning part. can't locate the other chapters.
Relic User ID: 8980403	Nov 12th 1:17 AM Dune The DragonLance Books and a WHOLE lot of AD&D in high school.
haaruk User ID: 0387824	Nov 13th 6:32 AM In The Night Kitchen - Sendak The Nutcracker - Tchaikovsky The Cat In The Hat - Seuss A Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare Faust - Goethe Dracula - Stoker The Odyssey - Homer The Hobbit - Tolkien
Icura User ID: 0213374	Nov 13th 8:23 PM Alas, I was deprived.�I started Enid Blyton at 5 and did not budge further than the hardy boys by 13. But then I started Fanatsy, with a fasination of Dragons"�I Had the hobbit read to me three times and have never actually read it myself.�I remember falling asleep listening to the hobbit in Primary school. (Elemantry School in US I think) and dreaming I was that fat dwarf having to be carried. and then waking up with a texter mastache.
cgob User ID: 0053014	Nov 14th 4:28 PM haaruk-all before the age of 5 right? :)
haaruk User ID: 0387824	Nov 15th 2:02 PM Cgob. No.
Bill Hall User ID: 0777594	Nov 15th 2:28 PM Fantasy: Bullfinch's Mythology Fairy tales in the "Book of Knowledge" Pratt/de Camp's "Incompleat Enchanter" Science Fiction: Flipping through my father's pulp magazines (before I could read) E. E. Smith's "Lensman" series And, oh yes, a few stone tablets Gilgamesh inscribed for me.
Telisiane User ID: 2233684	Nov 15th 7:31 PM What a fabulous topic! 1) The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, especially A Horse and His Boy 2) The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander 3) A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and A Ring of Pure and Endless Light, by Madeleine L'Engle 4) Beauty, by Robin McKinley 5) The Dragonrider and Dragonsinger trilogies, by Anne McCaffrey 6) The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle 7) Charmed Life, by Diana Wynne Jones 8) Dune, by Frank Herbert 9) The Earthsea Trilogy, by Ursula LeGuin 10) Firestarter, 'Salem's Lot, and The Dead Zone, by Stephen King