First Fantasy book you ever read/Introduction to Fantasy

books

The first one I heard was the Hobbit - Mr. Mendez, my 4th grade teacher read it to us for 10 mins every afternoon at the end of school... first one I read of my own freewill, Lord of the Rings, bought as a christmas present in 1981... the first one I picked out on my own - The Enchanter's Endgame, read on a bus from Newcastle to Bristol 7 years later, borrowed from the Library, and no, I hadn't read the other 4 before I read the fifth :) The first one I bought with my own money... The Wizard and the Warrior by Hugh Cook, and from then I was truly hooked.
 
first fantasy novel ever read

*my first post* yaaaay. :)

The first fantasy novel I recall reading is Terry Brooks, Sword of Shanarra in 1989. I read it while at university and I still have that copy sitting on my bookshelf behind me. In turn, that is probably the first fantasy novel my younger sister read as well. She is now quite proud of her collection of 1st edition Terry Brooks novels.

Great site, I really enjoyed reading all of the posts in the recommendation threads.

JagedNS :D
 
'The Silver Chair' by C.S.Lewis

I found it lying around at the house when I was 12yrs old. Turned out to be book 6 of the Narnia series and I promptly got my hands on the rest and read them in order.
From there I moved on to Dragonlance and then Shannara.
 
Seems like an appropriate thread for my first post. The book that got me in to fantasy was First King of Shannara by Terry Brooks. I thought that because it was a prequel it wouldn't spoil much. It didn't really...
 
started reading The Chronicles of Narnia (i began with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe then going back then forwards.....) at about 6 i think i then read The Hobbit then at 10 i read Lord of the Rings, followed by The Sillmarillion at around 10/11 i think. That was my fantasy introduction.
 
I really can't remember-- the first sci fi I read was Animorphs, but for fantasy, I have no idea. I know I read Harry Potter, Redwall and The Golden Compass in 5th grade, but The Dark is Rising might have been before that, and actually, I remember talking about A Wrinkle in Time with my 4th grade teacher, so that was even earlier. And then there's Narnia. I don't even remember which one of those I read first, let alone when it was. My 4th grade teacher was obsessed with Roald Dahl, if any of those count.

So basically, I read a lot of different ones at around the same time. I think we read a lot in my elementary school.
 
I can't remember if it was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe or Harry Potter, but those were both very early on...
 
Oddly enough, I got my introduction to fantasy when I was looking for the sequel to a SF book that my dad picked up to read on a plane.

John Steakley's Armor was an awesome book. I read it and wanted to see what else he wrote, so I was in the SF/Fantasy section of Waldenbooks when I asked someone what a good SF book was. The guy at the store handed me Dune.

I liked that book so much, I went to the library (didn't have much cash back then), went to the SF/Fantasy section, and saw someone pick up The Fellowship of the Ring, so I grabbed the other book that was on the shelf, The Hobbit. :D

Which is like the perfect introduction to fantasy for a 12 year old. Of course, I went on to read all the Tolkien stuff under the sun. :cool:
 
Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones, a present when I was about seven think. Actually, Harry Potter probably came first, but I think more favourably on Witch Week currently xp Actually, now I think on it, it could be any of quite a list. I love reading, my family loves reading and fantasy has always been my genre.
 
Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. First read it when I was ten, I ended up reading the rest of the series. The books were enjoying but I didn't read any more fantasy until much later, during college a friend suggested the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. Since then I have been hooked on fantasy.
 
The first fantasy book(s) I read was The Icewind Dale Trilogy by R.A. Salvatore in 7th grade, because I had been playing the video game of the same name. I did enjoy it, but it wasn't what got me hooked on fantasy. I've got to give that to The Fellowship of the Ring, which my 8th grade class read (and after which I promptly devoured the other two). True, I had read and loved a few other fantasy books up to that point, but LotR was what started my obsession (Dragonlance helped, as well!).
 
The lord of the rings was my first. then david eddings earlier stuff (belgarid/elenium)
 
Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsong

I was in high school and loved to read fiction, but had a hard time finding appealing books. After Dragonsong I was hooked! I proceeded to read all my school library's available Pern selection then branched off into Piers Anthony and have never looked back...
 
Sword of Shannara

My mother was dragging me through Barnes and Noble and the a shiny Sword of Shannara book cover caught my attention. I was maybe 12 when I bought it, and wasn't really into reading before I picked it out. I guess I'm pretty lucky that I picked such a good book/author to introduce me to the genre, since it really was as simple as the cover art catching my eye.
 
Another first time poster here--my fantasy introduction was the original fourteen Oz books. Tamora Pierce, Madeleine L'Engle, Lloyd Alexander, and C.S. Lewis followed. I read a bunch of other children's and YA fantasy until high school when I turned to 18th and 19th century British lit, contemporary literary fiction, and science fiction.

My second introduction to fantasy, during my senior year of high school, was a little book called A Game of Thrones. I also saw a trailer for Fellowship of the Ring and thought, "hey I should read that Tolkien." I never turned from fantasy again.
 
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When I've been hooked...

I read some fantasy material in my early teen years but nothing significant. Nevertheless, I definitly rememberd when I've been hooked to fantasy literature. I was 17 when I read Yves Meynard's Le Livre des Chavaliers (The Book of Knights).

I went to literary fair and had an occasion to talk with the author. We didn't talk about his book but about why he loved the genre. I bought this book, and it was the first I ever chose and bought by myself. It's the story of a young adopted boy who found a book about famous knights and how to become one. The novel is about that young boy's initiative quest to chivalry and manhood.

It isn't the best fantasy novel I've read, there's a lot of cliché in it. Still, by the time I read the last page, I knew fantasy would always be my favorite genre.
 
SusF said:
I'm giving fantasy a broad definition here, because my first Fantasy was in learning about Greek mythology in seventh grade.

I had an excellent teacher who made the heroes and gods come alive. The stories were fascinating. We had nine weeks of mythology. Most of it Greek, and then some Norse. From there I found the mythology section of the library and read the Illiad and Oddssey.

A few years later, I saw Bakshi's Lord of the Rings and read Tolkien, which introduced me to modern fantasy (modern as in not 2000 years old..)
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There are few books that seem as magical to me as Homer or Tolkien. Was it because I was young, or is it because I've read so much since then?

Susan
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Broader Still have none of you spent your childhood reading Snow White, Cinderella anything by CS Lewis, Lewis Carrol, Brother's Grimm or Aesops? those are the very ancestors of the Modern Genre of Fantasy and even before that (though perhaps not read by people as young) Folklore, Myths, early religeon etc.
 
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A friend of mine introduced me to The Belgariad (by David Eddings) which was my first real introduction to fantasy. I'd probably consider the Belgariad to be fairly "average" fantasy if I were to read it again now, having read so many things which I consider to be better than it, but back when I was about 15 or so, I thought it was utterly amazing and read the entire series more times than I can remember (this was possibly also due to the fact that it was the *only* fantasy I had available to read).

I'm not sure if it could be counted as fantasy, but before that, the only thing I'd read that really came close to fantasy was "The Dark Portal" part of the Deptford Mice series by Robin Jarvis
 
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