What got you hooked on the fantasy genre?

[Lalato]

My best friend, Warren, loved to read, and he slipped me a couple of books one day. I was about 9 or 10 at the time. I can't remember which one I read first The Hobbit or one of the Narnia books.

One other big influence was comic books. I've been into comic books since I learned to read English when I was 7 (originally spoke Spanish).

Beyond that... seeing Star Wars in the theater when I was 6 or 7 was another huge influence.

Eventually, Warren and I found D&D when we were 11 (the summer before 6th grade in 1981) in a hobby shop that sold models and trains. The rest is history.

--sam

 

[Michaelholland]

Believe it or not but it was the Basic Dungeons & Dragons Boxed Set (the old pink one - not the red one) that got me hooked on the fantasy genre. Then movies like Krull, The Hobbit, and Conan the Barbarian reinforced that. Sooner after I got into the fantasy literary side of the house and I can't count the numbers of fantasy books I have read since then.

 

[Skade]

Re: Re: Re: What got you hooked on the fantasy genre?

Liar

DOH!!! feelin' real dumb now, as I missed Kai Lord was who had never heard of Lone Wolf. Note to self: Always look at Poster's name...

 

[drakhe]

The maps! I love maps, especialy old ones with more than just roads and houses and woods. Adventure and fantasy movies were always great because often there was a map to follow. And when I came accross LOTR in a shop that sold dried herbs and wooden furniture (absolute true !!) I immediatly begged my mam to buy them because they had a beatiful map insert. (my mam did buy the three books, probably thinking I'd not be getting into trouble while reading ) Now I'll choose books to read based on more inteligent criteria but if there're maps included, they have 1 1/2 points head start .

 

[Zander]

My earliest memory of liking fantasy was watching a movie called Jack the Giant Killer on TV when I was a kid. I think the TV was black & white (even though the film is in colour) which gives you some idea of how long ago that was. It's a terrible film, but I loved it.

I read The Hobbit a few years later. I enjoyed it, but it didn't make me crave more. It wasn't until the Fighting Fantasy game books came out that I really got hooked. Now I'm a serious fantasy junkie.

 

[larfinia]

i'm with masters of universe. loved that! at around same time we had the hobbit read to us at school...hooked! probably about 8 or 9 then. started gamin at 15 dnd thanks to brother who'd been playin for about 5 years by then. never looked back. must've read every fantasy book goin since.

 

[Agback]

G'day

I started reading fantasy before I can clearly remember. 'Noddy' books and beast fables lead by imperceptible degrees to Arthurian retellings, such things as Oscar Wilde's "The Happy Prince and Other Stories", and children's fantasies of the time such as "The Owl Service" and "The Weirdstone of Brisingamen", and TH White's "The Once and Future King".

But I could have given up any time before about my tenth birthday, which is when I finished reading "Lord of the Rings" for the first time.

I can never sufficiently thank my parents for bringing my up in a house with no television, but will well-stocked bookshelves.

Regards


Agback

 

[haiiro]

I've loved the Middle Ages since I was a little kid, and early influences included The Hobbit in 2nd grade, Choose Your Own Adventure books around then as well, and the Arthurian legend in 3rd-4th grade.

Does the animated Robin Hood movie (the one where he's a fox) count?

 

[MEG Hal]

Reading fantasy novels and friends. I played since 1980 (aprox) and in High School I worked at a game store/dirty movie rental store--talk about heaven for a high school male .

It was in Chicago-land area and the chain of store is still around. Gamers Paradise is the chain. I also bought stuff at Games Plus as well, say hi to them for me!

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

Tricky to say. There were several things in my formative years that started it all off, and of course all happened at about the same time. A lot of it I credit to my 3rd grade teacher, as we read the Narnia series and The Hobbit in class. Also, around this time I had started getting into the Lone Wolf books, reading about mythology (mostly Classical), and the old fantasy movies like Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, etc.