First Fantasy Novel/Series You Read?

[FireLance]

My childhood memories are dreadfully fuzzy, but I do remember reading the following:

1. The Dark is Rising series
2. The Chronicles of Prydain
3. The Sword of Shanarra and two of its sequels (Elfstones, Wishsong)
4. The Chronicles of Narnia
5. A Wizard of Earthsea and two of its sequels (Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore)

I have probably read many others, but these are the ones that stand out in my memory.

How has this influenced my gaming? As a DM, I tend to run storylines that pit the PCs against some ancient evil. As a player, I tend to play PCs that are heroic and willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of others.

 

[Lady Mer]

Hmmm....

I've been reading fantasy as long as I can remember. The first was either the Chronicles of Narnia, or Half Magic, by Edward Eager. Pretty sure it was Half Magic, come to think of it.

 

[Felonious Ntent]

By my self would be the Hobbit.
I was in grade 4 brought it home from the libraryand read it over that weekend.

I do believe however that I may have,with a teacher reading it to our class, een exposed to fantasy at an earlier age via The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

 

[Maerdwyn]

Narnia and Prydain were first, but I don't remember which came before which. That same year I read Robin McKinley's The Blue Sword. The Hobbit was the next year.

 

[Fast Learner]

Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. Not sure how it's affected my gaming, other than enjoying providing a sense of mystery and wonder in my games.

 

[haiiro]

I'm pretty sure it was The Hobbit for me, in first or second grade (so I was about 7). I liked it, and I was proud I had read it young, but moving on to LotR I couldn't get through it (didn't until a couple of years ago, in fact -- better late than never!).

I remember distinctly my first SF book: Robert Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky. Not a great book, but more than good enough to spark a lifelong interest.

 

[JoeBlank]

I'm pretty sure I read Narnia before the Hobbit. For the longest time I had a thing for antropomorphic mice. I reread Voyage of the Dawn Treader far more than the rest of the series.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

The first fantasy book I read was The Hobbit, when I was in second grade, so I was 7. That was the year the animated LotR movie came out, and my uncle took me and my cousin to see it, and we both got hooked on fantasy. The next year, I started the Lord of the Rings (age 8), but didn't finish it until I was 9. Funny story about that, I was reading the Fellowship of the Ring in school, and my teacher took the book away from me, telling me that I was too young to be reading a book that big. She told me I could have it back at the end of the year. The next day, my mother (who is a teacher herself) came into school with me in the morning and told the teacher that she had some nerve taking a book away from a student who was reading, expecially since I was obviously reading above grade level. The teacher gave the book to her, and Mom handed it right back to me and told me if the teacher gave me a hard time again, she was going to set up a meeting with the principal to discuss the teacher's qualifications. Definitly the worst teacher I ever had. After LotR, the next fantasy books I read were the Chronicles of Narnia, then A Wrinkle in Time, then Elfstones of Shanara. After that, I have no idea, I read anything I could get my hands on.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I believe the first I read were the Narnia books. After that I got into the Hobbit and LotR, but that's about the extent of my Fantasy reading that's worth mentioning...

...except for the day I discovered Pratchett's Discworld books

 

[CrusaderX]

I read and enjoyed The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe in my Reading class back in early gradeschool. But the first series of books I read and bought on my own were the original Dragonlance Chronicles. I was really into D&D at the time, and the great Dragonlance art by Larry Elmore really drew me in.