Sci Friday: Stepping Stones (Or, How a Sci Fi/Fantasy Fan is Born)

~post by Tommy

So people often ask me how I got started reading science fiction and fantasy and like any good son, I blame my father. My parents read to me as a child and I learned to read by myself at a fairly young age. My favorites as a kid were always the adventure stories and I think my parents wore out a copy of Lloyd Alexander’s The Book of Three reading to me when I was a boy. They also guided me through C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia and the four books of Tolkein’s Middle Earth, but it wasn’t until I was about eleven and my father gave me a copy of The Dragons of Autumn Twilight that I began to explore sci fi and fantasy on my own. So without further ado, here are the four books that made me into the sci fi/fantasy fan that I am today.

Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

Fantasy was my first love as a literary genre and the book that sparked that was the first book in the Dragonlance Chronicles series. The book opens as old friends return home after five years abroad in a dangerous world searching for signs of the true gods. Unfortunately, the peaceful village that they left is anything but when they return. A chance encounter with a pair of barbarians outside the walls of Solace village leads the friends on the first steps of an adventure that will place them between the armies of evil and the safety of the world. What spoke to me most about DoAT was the characters. Every single one of the Companions of the Lance is a living, breathing person with a history, faults, and strange little quirks. You can feel the disappointment of Sturm, raised on stories of chivalry and honor,  in the Knights of Solamnia and their inability to help anyone but themselves. The cheeky antics and bright personality of Tasselhoff Burfoot never fail to make you laugh no matter how dark the story gets. But the character that drew me in most of all was the young wizard Raistlin Majere. Cursed by his own order for daring to seek power, Raistlin is the most mysterious of the companions and his motives for remaining with them and aiding them are usually unclear, sometimes even to himself. What is revealed about Raistlin as you continue to read, however, is that no matter how immersed in shadow he is, at his core he is always a hero. This book is a fun adventure tale with amazingly complex and well written characters, a great introduction to the world of fantasy literature.

On Basilisk Station by David Weber

I’m a history geek and for some reason I’ve always been fascinated by 19th century naval warfare. When I was fourteen I stumbled across On Basilisk Station and discovered a far future-set military navy series that was basically 19th century  naval combat in space. I devoured the first book in the series in less than a day and it will always remain one of my favorites. In the first few pages we’re introduced to Honor Harrington, a Commander in the Royal Manticorn Navy, totally not space England. As the book goes along we quickly get introduced also to the villains of the piece The Republic of Haven, which is also totally not space France. What always stuck with me about this book, though, was the combat chapters. Sure the technology had been upgraded, laser clusters instead of sharpshooters and multi-ton missiles instead of cannonballs, but the combat felt that it would have been right at home on the wild seas of old Earth. The other fascinating thing about  the combat is that no one was safe from harm; characters that you had spent all book learning and growing with died just as easily as the nameless technician right beside them. It would be like if Star Trek had been willing to kill Spock fifteen episodes into the series to prove the point that in interstellar combat, no one is safe. High seas adventure on the open space lanes and brutal, well written combat scenes make Honor Harrington one of my top recommendations for someone just getting into the genre.

Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings

After I finished the first three books of the Dragonlance series, I needed more fantasy adventure to feed my ever-growing appetite. That’s when I stumbled across this wonderful book in a stack of my father’s old paperbacks. Right away we’re introduced to the young orphan farm boy who will go on to become the hero of our tale. (Cut me some slack I was thirteen and didn’t realize how cliche it was yet.) But it’s seventy pages later when we meet one of the best, and my very favorite, characters in all of fantasy literature: Prince Kheldar of Drasnia. This irreverent little spy, juggler, acrobat, merchant, thief, and, oddly enough, prince provides Pawn of Prophecy with a sort of running humorous commentary track that starts in the first book and never really ends. Kheldar is always ready with a joke and makes light about almost any situation, even ones he shouldn’t. What makes Kheldar truly amazing, though, is the skills with which he backs up his mouth. When mighty sorcerers or towering warriors are stymied by difficult problems, the irascible Prince Kheldar comes in and thinks his way around almost any quandry. Though he’s not the main character of the tale, Kheldar consistently steals the show and will have you laughing the entire way through the book. Aside from Kheldar, though, the book also stands on the intricate world that Eddings crafted and the philosophical look he takes at the nature of, not necessarily good and evil, but dark and light. A wonderfully spun adventure tale with a zany cast of characters that will leave you lighthearted no matter how heavy the book gets. This is a great introduction to fantasy for anyone.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Say what you will about his private life, but Orson Scott Card has definitely had some wonderful stories to share with the world. I was in the library one day after school doing some research for my 8th grade English paper on Tom Sawyer, and I asked the librarian for a fun book. She gave me two or three choices but the one that caught my eye had a kid on the cover with crazy armor and a laser rifle. When I dug into the book I discovered a world at war with an insect race and a military that recruited children. Like most kids who read Ender’s Game, I was entranced by the entire notion of Battle School and I would spend hours imagining what I would do as an army commander or a toon leader pit against Ender in a battle exercise. What hits deepest about this book, though, is the message and how Card draws you in before he springs it on you. He draws your interest writing about Battle School and the awesome, fun battle exercises that everyone participates in with laser rifles and crazy anti-gravity physics. When he has you hooked on the adventure story, he starts to dig deeper into the hell of war through a child’s point of view. The reader learns along with Ender that war isn’t a game no matter how much you try to make it one and belligerent actions often have dire consequences, intended or not. Ender’s Game is two parts space adventure and one part dire condemnation of war, and was one of the reasons my head still gets stuck out beyond the clouds to this day. Everyone should read this book.

Well, there you have it. The books that irrevocably set my feet down the path to becoming a sci fi and fantasy lit fan. If you’ve never read sci fi or fantasy and you’re looking to start, any of these would be a wonderful place to jump in. If you have read these, share them with somebody else and maybe you’ll open them up to whole new worlds of adventure.

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Sci Friday is a weekly post focusing on all things Sci Fi. Booksellers Tommy and Marie are you intrepid leaders on this journey through awesome new books; the best and worst of what’s come before; Sci Fi film adaptations and more. Check back next Friday for more!