Writing How did you get into fantasy?

[Rhys Mayiessen]

I like fantasy a lot and I know that some of you do as well too so I was wondering how did you get to like fantasy? I remember in grade seven I didn't read any books except for Fear Street or something like that. Then my brother got the Harry Potter books for Christmas. At first glace I thought they looked really stupid but when I read them I knew that I wanted to read more fantasy books.
So that's how I got to like fantasy how did you?:D

[Red]

[b]Moved to Literature :)

I like Terry Pratchett's series of DiscWorld novels.. I suppose they could be counted as fantasy :D

I love the first two DiscWorld books the most, as interaction between characters that actually do make an impact is excellent. Humourous parts are brilliantly placed in all of the DiscWorld books, which I really enjoy.[/b]

[Rhys Mayiessen]

I like the Discworld novels as well and I would say that that would be classed as fantasy since it has wizards and chests that have a hundred legs!:D
What exactly are the first two Discworld novels I never knew what order they were in.

[Spikey]

Well, my friend took me to Harry Potter Scorcerer of stone, and I was hooked. So then I started reading the Harry Potter series. Amazingly interesting.

[Sui Generis]

Well I'd have to say I give all the credit to my....*sighs* real dad.

Yes I hate the man beyound belief but he gave me one thing. Fantasy. He was obsessed with it and taught me everything he knew.

I can't count the times he dressed me up as an elf. Also we did acts for the Renissons (I know major SP) Festival every year. (Its a mid-evil festival) All our performances were sword fighting.

[Deedlit]

[color=009966]First I read the Redwall books. They were good, so I started reading more of it. Then I read the Harry Potter books and that really boost my love for fantasy. Then I got into role-playing about a year or two ago, watched and read the Lord of the Rings books/movie, saw Record of Lodoss War (anime + fantasy = even [i]greater[/i] obsession) and that is what completed the circle. ^^ Then about a month ago, I first read the books from DragonLance, and gaw! It's my favorite book series now!! Now I'm obsessed with fantasy, obsessed with Elves, obsessed with role-playing, and it looks as if my love for it isn't going to diminish any time soon. ^^[/color]

[vegeta rocker]

As a child I had a rather troubled and violent life. I saw books as an escape from the hell. They just may have saved my life more than once. Sometimes i just wish i had been born back then. I would travel and live off the land. Have a horse and i could have even been a knight one day. Maybe when I die Camelot will be my heaven.

[Rhys Mayiessen]

Oooohh as you could probably see Deedlit I love elves too!

Anyways I wish I had a dad that likes fantasy as much as your dad does Lalaith Ril! It would be cool to have sword fight and be dressed up as an elf!:D

[Sara]

[size=1]I read [i]The Hobbit[/i] in second [or third?] grade. It went downhill from there.

I read the entire [i]Lord of the Rings[/i] trilogy by the middle of fourth...Most of the [i]Dragonriders of Pern[/i] books were fifth grade, along with [i]The Rowan[/i], etc. [Anne McCaffrey, and leaning more towards Science Fiction.] Somewhere in there were a few other series. [i]Chronicles of Narnia[/i] was a big one, of course. I read that straight through in fouth grade. [By C.S. Lewis.] Fifth or sixth grade saw me hooked on the [i]Xanth[/i] books, by Piers Anthony. [Fantastic, hugely amusing books, by the way.]

Another 'milestone' book was [i]Sabriel[/i], by Garth Nix. Wow. Fantastic book.

I was a Tamora Pierce nut starting from sixth grade: [i]Song of the Lioness[/i], [i]The Immortals[/i], and [i]Circle of Magic[/i] quartets. There are two more, now: [i]Protector of the Small[/i] and [i]The Circle Opens[/i], which I read as they come out.

I think it might have been sixth or seventh grade when I discovered [i]The Golden Compass[/i] by Philip Pullman. I read [i]The Subtle Knife[/i] as soon as I found it, and waited in over a year of agony for the final book to come out. [[i]The Amber Spyglass[/i].] It was worth it.

Anyway..yeah. I don't remember what year Harry Potter swept across the nation. Two or three years ago? Eighth or ninth grade, then.

My..I [i]am[/i] a book nut, aren't I?[/size]

[The Harlequin]

[font=gothic][color=crimson]Sorry Sara, I've beaten you yet. I was reading before I went to school, and I too started with the Hobbit. I'd had it read to me when I was three, and I read it myself in the first term of school. The first three books of Narnia the next few terms. I hadn't really picked up my reading pace yet... Currently 500 pages in an hour on average. Anyway, Lords of the Rings two years later.

David Eddings came around same year, Anne Rice in year 5 (a little early for that kind of thing). Also in year 5 was the first few Tamora Pierce books, some Melanie Rawn stuff (also a little early for that kind of thing...), Sara Douglas, a lot of Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms books and Janny Wurts (In my opinion the greatest fantasy author around). Year six a took a shot at Stephen Donaldson, but couldn't get into it. Then Terry Goodkind turned up. And Raymond Feist. Started pretty late on him, in my opinion. Robert Jordan in year 7. Katherine Kerr, and Julian May(though I never got into her much) came up in year 8, when I got access to a new Library. Now just whatever I can get. A lot more Forgotten Realms, as well as rereading a lot of old stuff. I've read Magician (Feist) twelve times now. Still a classic book. I've probably missed some, but still...


However, I have not, and will not, touch Harry Potter should my life depend on it, no matter what anyone says on the matter.

I really want to meet someone who reads as much as I have/do. Just for comparison purposes.[/font][/color]

[Sandy]

Harlequin: Raymond E. Feist at the age of FIVE?! Gah, I'm reading the fourth part of Serpentwar Saga now, and I think it's too mature for me, and I'm EIGHTEEN! Well, some are freaks, others geeks! :rolleyes: (It's a sagism ;) )

I remember starting LOTR in the third grade (at the age of nine/ten), but it was too much for me then. Now I've read it twice (I know, some of you have read it cazillion times, but I think two times is a good achievement for me.)

My true interest in fantasy started in seventh grade, actually in Finnish class, which is weird because the books one has to read in those classes are BOOORING! The book was the first part of the Belgariad by David Eddings. (Oh, the nostalgy!) Nowadays I don't give much appreciation to the named author, but his style fit well to a thirteen-year old schoolboy.

Vegeta Rocker, you mentioned about fantasybooks being a way for you to escape the real world - well, they were the same with me, too! I have a mentally ill alcoholic as a mother, so... Luckily I don't have anything to do with her nowadays, and I'm purely pleased about that.

Well, that's my story with the fantasybooks. I have the second part of Weis's Darksword-series in my bagpack right now, and it's the 161st fantasy book I've read, so I think I can really call myself a fantasyluver. ;)

[kmjk]

well, i started in Sci-fic. Now i'm somewhere in-between. Of course, it also depends on how you define "fantasy".

[Rhys Mayiessen]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by sage [/i]
[B]Well, that's my story with the fantasybooks. I have the second part of Weis's Darksword-series in my bagpack right now, and it's the 161st fantasy book I've read, so I think I can really call myself a fantasyluver. ;) [/B][/QUOTE]

Oohhhhhhh!!!!The Darksword Trilogy! That's the best series ever! Uhhh...yeah well I wish that I had started reading fantasy as early as some of you did but I wasn't interested in reading books when I was in the earlier grades. I mostly read Fear Street and stuff like that but now I'm glad that I have finally found fantasy!;)

[Tigervx]

Yes, the [FONT=courier new]Hobbit[/FONT] , the book of all time. The one that started it all! Well, thats pretty much it hehe, now i can't get enough of the stuff:alcohol:

[The Harlequin]

[font=gothic][color=crimson]Year 5. Not age 5. Which meant I was 9 at the time. I could have read it at age 5, but I didn't have it at the time.

Personally, I think the best series Weis and Hickman did was their Death's Gate Cycle. It was a lot more amusing to say the least.[/font][/color]

[Rhys Mayiessen]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by The Harlequin [/i]
[B][font=gothic][color=crimson]Personally, I think the best series Weis and Hickman did was their Death's Gate Cycle. It was a lot more amusing to say the least.[/font][/color] [/B][/QUOTE]

Ooooooh the Death's Gate Cycle I forgot all about those. Oh well then I will say that I like all of Weis and Hickman's books cause I do they're all sooooooo good!:D

[The Harlequin]

[font=gothic][color=crimson]About the only problem with them is that they get repetitive after a while. Their storylines seem to mirror each other. And the whole Zifnab/Bond/whoever he was thing went too far, funny though it was.[/font][/color]

[Guest cloricus]

Lol you didn't have time at age five...
What were you doing, trying to take over the world. LOL :P

You do know that it is okay to not be as good at some thing as other people Flynn or weren?t you told that?

---
I used to flick books open and randomly read 100 pages and then get bored and leave.
I read allot of stories that people do and post on the net, but I will rarely read a real-world novel. I'm not really in to fantasy unless it's futuristic, but even then it has to be damn good. Though I read some every so often...

[The Harlequin]

[font=gothic][color=crimson]Why would I want to take over the world? Far too much paperwork. As for your advice Cloricus, I recommend you think long and hard about just who it should be applied to. And I don't want to know why you think you know what I was doing at age five...

Anyway, onto something relevant. I personally dislike most futuristic fantasy immensely. Mainly because it has an even lower element of realism. When you read say, medieval style fantasy, there are always common elements, monsters, species, etc. I realise that a lot of people claim this makes futuristic fantasy better, because it's more from the author's imagination, but the downside is, you can't relate to something you run into immediately. Unless you're dealing with an exceptionally good writer. The reason I like books is storyline progression(not neccessarily the individual aspects) and characters, so something I can't relate to just doesn't interest me. Of course, personality may play a part in that. But hey, who cares.[/font][/color]

[Sandy]

Yes, I agree with you, Harlequin, about the medi-eval thing - science-fantasy is good in it's own way, but doesn't beat the "classical" monsters, might and magic! ;)

By the way, I don't think that they are that "classical" in fantasy anymore: now it's all about a boy who is brought up in a small farm/village, then gets to know he's the frigging heir of the world or in best cases the saviour of the prophecies, and off he goes with a wise wizard, a stubborn (red-haired) princess, a way too honourable knight and other as stereotypical characters as those. This kind of actin you can read from: Eddings's Belgariad, Jordan's Wheel of Time, Williams's Memory, Sorrow&Thorn, Hobb's Seer Trilogy and numerous others. I don't know how popular those books are in your countries, but in Finland they are all at the top of the fantasy.

My kind of fantasy is more what Tolkien, Weis&Hickman, Salvatore and many less known ones represent, plus the not-so-classical fantasy, such as Pratchett and Gaiman give us.

[The Harlequin]

[font=gothic][color=crimson]Yeah, it's all formulated these days. Even Melanie Rawn did exactly the same thing, and she's normally pretty original. I'd also add in Goodkind's Sword Of Truth, Sara Douglas's Axis, and whatever the trilogy after it is, maybe even some of Feist's novels and maybe one or two more. Still, the common theme is basically taken from rpging. Design the perfect party, then tranfer it into books. At least, I'm choosing to believe that so I don't have to accept that authors are running out of ideas.[/font][/color]

[The Unholy Newt]

Well, like Lalaith's dad, mine is absolutely obsessed with fantasy. We have a bookshelf that is roughly 3.5 metres high and 2 or 3 metres long and I think just about every single book in there is fantasy, which is over a couple of hundred books easy. Well I started when Dad handed me [i]The Hobbit[/i] and told me to read it. Well I decided that I would start right at the beginning with [i]The Silmarillion[/i] the actual first book in Tolkien's series. That is right started with [i]The Silmarillion[/i] and for a 2nd grader, that is pretty huge. Then I read the rest of the series and started on others. Here is a list of most of the fantasy books i've read:

[i]The Silmarillion,[/i] J.R.R Tolkien
[i]The Hobbit,[/i] J.R.R Tolkien
[i]The Fellowship of the Ring,[/i] J.R.R Tolkien
[i]The Two Towers,[/i] J.R.R Tolkien
[i]The Return of the King,[/i] J.R.R Tolkien
[i]Pawn of Prophecy,[/i] David Eddings
[i]Queen of Sorcery,[/i] David Eddings
[i]Magician's Gambit,[/i] David Eddings
[i]Castle of Wizardry,[/i] David Eddings
[i]Enchanters' End Game,[/i] David Eddings
[i]Guardians of the West,[/i] David Eddings
[i]King of the Murgos,[/i] David Eddings
[i]Demon Lord of Karanda,[/i] David Eddings
[i]Sorceress of Darshiva,[/i] David Eddings
[i]Seeress of Kell,[/i] David Eddings
[i]Belgarath the Sorcerer,[/i] David Eddings
[i]Polgara the Sorceress,[/i] David Eddings
[i]The Redemption of Althalus,[/i] David Eddings
[i]The Diamond Throne,[/i] David Eddings
[i]The Ruby Knight,[/i] David Eddings
[i]The Sapphire Rose,[/i] David Eddings
[i]Domes of Fire,[/i] David Eddings
[i]The Shining Ones,[/i] David Eddings
[i]The Hidden City,[/i] David Eddings
[i]Legend,[/i] David Gemmel
[i]The King Beyond the Gate,[/i] David Gemmel
[i]Waylander,[/i] David Gemmel
[i]Wolf in Shadow,[/i] David Gemmel
[i]Last Sword of Power,[/i] David Gemmel
[i]The Last Guardian,[/i] David Gemmel
[i]Quest for Lost Heroes,[/i] David Gemmel
[i]Sword in the Storm,[/i] David Gemmel
[i]Midnight Falcon,[/i] David Gemmel
[i]Ravenheart,[/i] David Gemmel
[i]The Legend of Deathwalker,[/i] David Gemmel
[i]Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone,[/i] J.K Rowling
[i]Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,[/i] J.K Rowling
[i]Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,[/i] J.K Rowling
[i]Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,[/i] J.K Rowling

I think that is about it. Shuttup about the last four Harlequin, I was bored alright. I wonder who can beat that many. I'd place a bet on Harlequin beating me, he would have read about three times as many.

~TUN

[Guest butterfly]

well i haven't read as many as that, no way near. but i think my first fantasy was about a giant blue cat in outer space. i think i stole it from my primary school library. nobody read it and it was sitting on the back of the bookshelf, so i stuffed it into my bookbag and off i went. that and my dad having one of the largest book collections i have ever seen. i was pretty set with having reading material.

[The Harlequin]

[font=gothic][color=crimson]Well, just off the top of my head...

The Silmarillion, J.R.R Tolkien
The Hobbit, J.R.R Tolkien
The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R Tolkien
The Two Towers, J.R.R Tolkien
The Return of the King, J.R.R Tolkien
Pawn of Prophecy, David Eddings
Queen of Sorcery, David Eddings
Magician's Gambit, David Eddings
Castle of Wizardry, David Eddings
Enchanters' End Game, David Eddings
Guardians of the West, David Eddings
King of the Murgos, David Eddings
Demon Lord of Karanda, David Eddings
Sorceress of Darshiva, David Eddings
Seeress of Kell, David Eddings
Belgarath the Sorcerer, David Eddings
Polgara the Sorceress, David Eddings
The Redemption of Althalus, David Eddings
The Diamond Throne, David Eddings
The Ruby Knight, David Eddings
The Sapphire Rose, David Eddings
Domes of Fire, David Eddings
The Shining Ones, David Eddings
The Hidden City, David Eddings
The Losers - David Eddings
Magician - Raymond Feist
Silverthorn - Raymond Feist
Darkness At Sethanon - Raymond Feist
Faerie Tale - Raymond Feist
Prince Of The Blood - Raymond Feist
The King's Buccaneer - Raymond Feist
Shadow Of A Dark Queen - Raymond Feist
Rise Of A Merchant Prince - Raymond Feist
Shards Of A Broken Crown - Raymond Feist
Kronder: The Betrayal - Raymond Feist
Kronder: The Assassins - Raymond Feist
Kronder: Tear Of The Gods - Raymond Feist
Daughter Of The Empire - Raymond Feist/Janny Wurts
Servant Of The Empire - Raymond Feist/Janny Wurts
Mistress Of The Empire - Raymond Feist/Janny Wurts
Honoured Enemy - Raymond Feist
Murder In LaMut - Raymond Feist
Talon Of The Silver Hawk - Raymond Feist
Curse Of The Mistwraith - Janny Wurts
The Ships Of Merior - Janny Wurts
The Warhost At Vastmark - Janny Wurts
Fugitive Prince - Janny Wurts
Grand Conspiracy - Janny Wurts
Peril's Gate - Janny Wurts
Wizard's First Rule - Terry Goodkind
Stone Of Tears - Terry Goodkind
Blood Of The Fold - Terry Goodkind
Temple Of The Winds - Terry Goodkind
Soul Of The Fire - Terry Goodkind
Faith Of The Fallen - Terry Goodkind
Battleaxe - Sara Douglas
Enchanter - Sara Douglas
Starman - Sara Douglas
Sinner - Sara Douglas
Pilgrim - Sara Douglas
Crusader - Sara Douglas
Homeland - R.A. Salvatore
Exile - R.A. Salvatore
Sojourn - R.A. Salvatore
The Crystal Shard - R.A. Salvatore
Streams Of Silver - R.A. Salvatore
The Halfling's Gem - R.A. Salvatore
The Legacy - R.A. Salvatore
Starless Night - R.A. Salvatore
Seige Of Darkness - R.A. Salvatore
Passage To Dawn - R.A. Salvatore
Spine Of The World - R.A. Salvatore
(One other, not Sea Of Swords, can't remember the name right now, R.A. Salvatore)
Daughter of The Drow - Elaine Cunningham
Tangled Webs - Elaine Cunningham.

Anyway, that's just off the top of my head. I'll do a real list up sometime.[/font][/color]

[Yoshi]

:excited: Fantasy:excited:
Darksword Trilogy,Death gate Cycle, Dragonlance (Fizban/Zifnab/Paladine is hilarious but its all about the kender), RiftWar, SerpentWar (and all the other midkemia novels) , Randland, Dune (which may be Scifi also, but lets not get into that), Record of Lodoss War, LOTR, The Hobbit, The Dark is Rising Series, To Green Angel Tower (Tad Williams (since I can't remember all the other books in the series right now), Valdemar (Mercedes Lackey chummers), Redwaaaaalllll (Eulalia, Blood and Vinegar, chaps), Sword of Truth, Shannara, Forgotten Realms (go Drizzt), Vampire Hunter D, Harry Potter, A Wizard of Earthsea (which is a million times better than potter (just like every other book in the Earthsea series), Pern, Narnia, The blue sword, Running With the Demon (and the rest of the series), The Song of Roland, Magic Kingdom for Sale sold, oh man fantasy ( i can't even name everything I've read/watched)... I think I got started with fairy tales and it just went on from there into D&D and anime rpgs and cartoons :D