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subego · Oct 20, 2018, 09:45 AM

As in, the fiction you (electively) read as a young adult.

Laminar · Oct 20, 2018, 11:20 AM

How young? I remember going through every Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and Tom Swift book they had at the school/local library in middle school. I read 1984 because of the Apple commercial. I tried making it through HG Wells' Time Machine in middle school but...didn't make it.

I remember reading a couple of Tom Clancy books, Net Force? I begged my parents to rent the movie for me because the book had a sex scene with a hooker and for some reason I thought the movie would be 100% true to the book.

Gary Paulsen stuff - The Car, Hatchet.

Julie of the Wolves. Maybe one of the sequels? Not sure.

Where the Red Fern grows.

My older sister and I took piano lessons at the same time. When it was her turn I'd pull something from the teacher's bookcase and read it. I remember reading Black Stallion (andi I KNOW you read that). Maybe some of the sequels?

My sister ordered the first Harry Potter book from a school book fair around when it first came out. My parents were NOT happy. I borrowed it and read it in an afternoon, but never got into the series. Haven't read any of the other books or even seen any of the movies.

At some point my dad gave me his collection of car magazines from 1994-1998 so I started reading those at night instead of books, along with my Popular Science, MacWorld, and MacAddict subscriptions.

turtle777 · Oct 20, 2018, 12:27 PM

One of the most memorable was “The Tripods”, a Science Fiction series by John Christopher.

Besides that, not well known in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan, longest running and most successful science fiction series in the world. Since the 1960s, over 300,000 pages have been written and published. More than 2 billion copies sold!

Been reading it since I was a child, still reading about 25 books a year.

-t

subego · Oct 20, 2018, 07:17 PM

Originally Posted by Laminar

Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys...

Andi mentioned these in the other thread.

I wanted to like them, because I realized if I did I’d have tons of content.

My dad seemed to resent them, which I think had an effect on me.

subego · Oct 20, 2018, 09:07 PM

Originally Posted by turtle777

Besides that, not well known in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan, longest running and most successful science fiction series in the world. Since the 1960s, over 300,000 pages have been written and published. More than 2 billion copies sold!

Been reading it since I was a child, still reading about 25 books a year.

-t

Giant projects like this fascinate me.

Some random questions...

How do you (and others) “triage” that much content.

How did something earth shattering in the real world, like reunification, impact theme, tone, etc.?

How does it not get crushed under the weight of its own canon?

subego · Oct 20, 2018, 09:23 PM

Originally Posted by Laminar

My older sister and I took piano lessons at the same time. When it was her turn I'd pull something from the teacher's bookcase and read it. I remember reading Black Stallion (andi I KNOW you read that). Maybe some of the sequels?

This was extremely popular when I was in 4th grade. The teacher read it to us, and we went on a field trip to see the movie. I think that teacher liked horses, so she encouraged the natural horse affection going on. There was halfway serious talk of organizing a field trip to the racetrack. I’m not making this shit up.

Considering how popular it was, I tried to like it. Started reading it a bunch of times, but never got very far.

After that teacher left, I wanna say cats quickly took over as the favored animal.

The Final Dakar · Oct 20, 2018, 09:26 PM

Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and then I went deep into Dragon Lance, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft...

reader50 · 11:38 PM

Heinlein YA series. Lots of Larry Niven. Assorted others from the SF/Fantasy aisle.

mindwaves · Oct 21, 2018, 10:04 AM

Sherlock Holmes books, Boxcar children books, anything from Ronald Dahl.

subego · Oct 21, 2018, 12:32 PM

Originally Posted by reader50

Lots of Larry Niven.

Woo-hoo! Flashlight lasers!

subego · Oct 21, 2018, 06:53 PM

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar

I went deep into Dragon Lance, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft...

Ironically, since I’m the resident D&D nerd, haven’t read a single one.

I had a “rebellious” phase where I wouldn’t give TSR or D&D the time of day, and it overlapped squarely with the era of the novels.

It’s funny... from before that time I’m intimately familiar with Weis and Hickman as game designers, and it’s clear from their designs they were frustrated novelists.

andi*pandi · Oct 21, 2018, 07:43 PM

Originally Posted by subego

This was extremely popular when I was in 4th grade. The teacher read it to us, and we went on a field trip to see the movie. I think that teacher liked horses, so she encouraged the natural horse affection going on. There was halfway serious talk of organizing a field trip to the racetrack. I’m not making this shit up.

I read, and still have, the black stallion, black stallion returns, son of black stallion... not to be confused with Black Beauty which is a totally different tale. Misty of Chincoteague, Sea Star of Chincoteague, a girl with polio who got a horse, a girl with badly died hair who hid a horse in her garage, many books with girls wanting horses, normal horses, magical horses, racehorses, flying horses.

I counted myself lucky I had a horse and did not have to get polio or dye my hair to get one.

After horse books, there was Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, etc. My gr grandmother passed down a box of other old 1930s proto-feminist heroines (detectives, airplane pilots, movie stars)

Then in middle school>high school there were the fantasy books: Mercedes Lackey (talking horses, magic) Anne McCaffrey Dragons of Pern, and mystery classics. I read every single Agatha Christie and Hercule Poirot. Subscribed to Ellery Queen Mystery Digest. A fair amount of mysteries that involved talking cats. Dr. Who novelizations to fill in the gaps that public TV didn't air. Started reading from my parents shelves so there were a fair bit of old westerns, horses + detectives (Dick Francis) and if my parents weren't looking the romance novels.

subego · Oct 21, 2018, 09:19 PM

The Doctor Who novelizations were a staple for me, whether I could watch the episode or not.

Pern was another one I wanted to get into, and by all rights should have, but it kept blowing up 100 feet off the launchpad. Not for any reason I can remember. Lord of the Rings was like that.

I don’t think anyone had a horse.

subego · Oct 22, 2018, 05:50 AM

Things I tried to get into but couldn’t.

Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew
Encyclopedia Brown
The Black Stallion
Thomas Covenant (what an awful character)
Dune*
Dragonriders
Elric
Asimov (Nightfall is fun)
Niven with Pournelle

Things I tried to get into but couldn’t but finally read.

Lord of the Rings
William Gibson
Lovecraft

*The exception is the Dune Encyclopedia, which introduced me both to non-linear fiction and reference material written “in-universe”. Two of my favorite things to this day.

Laminar · Oct 22, 2018, 07:32 AM

Originally Posted by andi*pandi

not to be confused with Black Beauty which is a totally different tale.

Hahaha, I thought I had read Black Beauty so I read through the synopsis and really didn't recognize it. So then I googled "black horse stuck on island book" and figured out it was Black Stallion.

I remember reading some Isaac Asimov short stories, probably because I thought I was supposed to like them.

I read through all of The Chronicles of Narnia a couple times.

Which is funny, because magic+witchcraft+Christian undertones (Narnia) = good, but magic+witchcraft+Christian undertones (Harry Potter) = of the devil.

subego · Oct 23, 2018, 02:13 PM

Like all things, this makes me think of D&D, which for being the work of Satan, is surprisingly Catholic.

Clerics perform saintly miracles. The OP class are pseudo-Templars. Devils, who you generally kill, come from a place called “Hell” which has 9 layers, etc.

subego · Oct 24, 2018, 04:55 AM

Originally Posted by Laminar

I remember reading some Isaac Asimov short stories, probably because I thought I was supposed to like them.

I read through all of The Chronicles of Narnia a couple times.

I had my dad acting as a counter to me thinking I was supposed to like Asimov. He strenuously lobbied for Niven as an alternative.

Narnia is another that I tried but couldn’t.

Also add the Prydain series, which Narnia made me think of for whatever reason.

As an aside, Panang beef curry is the closest thing I’ve found to having the qualities of Turkish Delight.

subego · Oct 24, 2018, 06:29 AM

Did anyone read Piers Anthony? I was a big fan until I read his (then new) autobiography. Textbook case of “if everyone else is always the asshole, then you’re the asshole”. It was a big enough turnoff I never read another of his books.

About a decade later I realized he had an age inappropriate preoccupation with teenage sex. Didn’t register as unusual when I was a teenager myself, but getting into my 30s it was like, “ew”.

subego · Oct 29, 2018, 01:30 PM

The deleted spam brought up the Incarnations of Immortality series by Anthony, which I had forgotten about.

Ironic, since it’s probably one of his better works. At least, it had the most clever bits. I also recall it having a relatively low perv quotient.

It was a fantasy/sci-fi mashup, though, and as a youth I kinda disliked crossing the streams.

subego · 03:48 PM

Also also, whoever commissioned this cover knew exactly how to pull in an 80s kid.

Doc HM · Nov 10, 2018, 03:03 PM

From about 9 or so I was stuck on the fantastic yellow covered hardbacks of the Gollancz Science Fiction range that I grabbed from the local library using my parents adult library card. Clifford D Simak, Poul Anderson, Philip K Dick, Heinlen, Zelazny, James Blish, J G Ballard, etc.

Then I sort of sidetracked as I got older so now I feel I have a huge re reading list to go through. I feel a lot of Asimov has probably dated poorly.

subego · Nov 10, 2018, 04:08 PM

Where Asimov had his influence on me is the TV show Probe. Only lasted 8 episodes. I was devastated when it got cancelled.

The lead (Parker Stevenson, so a Hardy Boys connection) was an expert in almost every discipline of science, and used that instead of a gun to solve crimes.

This character was one of my role-models.