First Fantasy Novel/Series You Read?

It was a Dungeons & Dragons Adventure book, you know, the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series that they had out in the early 80's. It was "The Pillars of Pentegarn."

Would have been Narnia or The Hobbit, both being read to a class in primary school (the Hobbit would have been sitting with an older class). Read my father's collections of Asimov Robot/Foundation/Empire stories and H.G. Wells stories (This is two seperate volumes of stories), given the Hobbit and later Fellowship of the Ring as gifts after showing interest in these things - don't you think it a cruel thing to give a child just the fellowship? When I was about 9 I had to spend more than $30 of my own money to get the rest of the story.

Influence, well, desire to be a writer must have been essentially instant. In 3rd grade I was assigned to work with the girl who would be my best friend throughout primary school on a writing project, our first secondary world. Extreme environmentalist bent in that one, lots of fun creating endless biological permutations.

For gaming, as with stories, it is the world that is my first love. Always the framework, the structure, the background. It is the story of the world and its mechanics that must come first. Then place the characters within it and they may do what they will, and that creates the story. Perhaps more to do with personality (or a minor frustration with my early experiences - Narnia, LoTR, Brooks, Donaldson, Eddings, Feist, although I enjoyed reading them) but stark portrayals of good and evil without shades of grey get on my nerves, and have since I was ten. It just feels gratingly, painfully wrong when people paint the world that way.

The only D&D relaated books I have ever read was the first three of the Spelljammer series I received as a gift. It is from this that my love of illithids and beholders stems.

The first series I can remember (I'm sure there were others) was Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Pellucidar Series). I was about 10, and my local library had every book in the series. After reading them over and over, I found them in a used bookstore. I still have those ratty and dog-eared paperbacks (with the Frazetta covers!!!)

Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, quickly followed by all of his other books, when i was 8 or so. And if they're not modern fantasy, i don't know what is =)

Probably The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as the first novel and the Narnia books as the first series, but I did read The Hobbit at a similar age, and the Ursula Le Guin Earthsea triliogy not long after.

My first D&D characters in 1977 had names partly from reading Asimov's Foundation series - at 11 which is not too unusual around these parts.

Prince of Happiness said:

It was a Dungeons & Dragons Adventure book, you know, the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series that they had out in the early 80's. It was "The Pillars of Pentegarn."

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If we're counting these, then yeah, I guess technically this was the first fantasy series that I read, too. Though I can't remember if I started with Pillars of Pentegarn, Dungeon of Dread, Mountain of Mirrors, or Return to Brookmere. I enjoyed them all.

Prince of Happiness said:

It was a Dungeons & Dragons Adventure book, you know, the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series that they had out in the early 80's. It was "The Pillars of Pentegarn."

Click to expand...

Wow, I had forgotten about those!


I'd have to amend my entry then, because I definately read these first as well. The first 4 were great, then the series started to slide. (IMO)

Dungeon of Dread (1982)
Mountain of Mirrors (1982)
Pillars of Pentegarn (1982)
Return to Brookmere (1982)

Those definately influenced my early ideas of D&D. I modeled alot of characters after the elf in Brookmere. Still love the covers of those books.

The_lurkeR said:

Wow, I had forgotten about those!
Those definately influenced my early ideas of D&D. I modeled alot of characters after the elf in Brookmere. Still love the covers of those books.

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I incorporated a lot of these books into a little homebrew setting I put together as well! I definitely had the Mountain of Mirrors in there, as well as the Dwarven Guard from "Revolt of the Dwarves." Cool old school stuff!

The_lurkeR said:

Those definately influenced my early ideas of D&D. I modeled alot of characters after the elf in Brookmere. Still love the covers of those books.

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Ditto, ditto, and ditto. My name is Brian, so I used "Brion" alot for my D&D characters, thanks to Brookmere.

the first fantasy series I read?

I guess the Oz books would qualify, as I read the whole set in grade school,

but a bit after that I read the Belgariad, which is as "fantasy" as you get.