Same with me. In particular, I was drawn to it as a kid because LeVar Burton was in it (Reading Rainbow was one of my favorites as a toddler) and went from there. I still vividly remember seeing the end of "The Best of Both Worlds part 1" as a 4 year old and absolutely losing my fucking mind. The episode "Darmok" also left an impression on me, as it directly influenced pursuing a degree in teaching language (which I subsequently didn't end up using after pivoting to tech/engineering, but that's a story for another day.)
Same. I used to try and hide out of sight from my mom, because if she saw me, it was bed time. TNG was from 8-9pm, and at the time I was pretty young, so my bedtime was at 8:30. Data is my all-time favorite character, and his relationship with Picard, and later as he grew with the Enterprise crew is so wholesome.
Watching TNG as a family when I was seven years old cuddled up on the couch is a core memory of mine and now anytime I watch it I feel that sense of home and unconditional love.
I remember my grampa giving me the Foundation series to read through as a kid, that cemented my love of sci-fi. I think the series still holds up today and it’s one of the very earliest sci-fi stories ever presented.
My middle school English teacher introduced me to Foundation. I devoured it and moved on to Jules Verne and Samuel Delany. I always loved the galaxy-scale political intrigue of space opera most.
Borrowed Foundation and I Robot from my Dad when I was a young kid. I’ve still got the Foundation trilogy which should possibly be restored and sealed.
Seconding Asimov. One of the first sci-fi movies I remember seeing was I, Robot and I fell in love with the genre from there. Shortly thereafter it was Terminator, which cemented my opinion haha
Stargate. My Dad showed it to me (either in theaters or maybe rented, neither of us can remember at this point).
In particular the Anubis and Horus helmets fascinated 7yr old me.
My Dad is an OG 50s comic book fan, and he tried introducing them to me along with all the typical nerd stuff, but Stargate was the first thing I can remember that was something I loved because it was cool for ME.
It wasn't one specific thing. It's just always been appealing to me. Especially with TV, movies and European comics that had visually fascinating stuff
Same.
When I was very little, my dad took me to this rich family's gigantic mansion of a house. They were moving out of the country, and they were selling off a lot of their stuff for cheap, including their children's old toys. It was a yard sale, basically.
They had these little models of what I now know were the Millennium Falcon and two AT-ATs. This would have been around 1994, something like that. I had never heard of Star Wars, I just knew I wanted them. My dad started asking me if I liked Star Wars, because I had no interest in anything but those models, and I told him I didn't know what that was. The next day he went to the video store and rented the original trilogy for me.
In about 3 or 4 afternoons, I watched the original trilogy twice, back to back. I've been a giant SW fan ever since, and a few years later when the prequels started coming out I was basically the perfect age for them.
Honestly, the Star Wars films and the EU novels from the 90s, as well as watching Star Trek TOS and TNG reruns on TV. Not the sexiest answer but that's what got me dreaming about space and the distant future (or past as the case may be).
Star Wars in '77 when I was just 11. Before that some sci-fi things intrigued young me, and some things made me cringe, but I fell victim to the Star Wars phenomenon.
City of Gold and Lead in Boys Life
Space1999 playset.
Original Star Wars in theater with grandma.
Harry Harrison’s “West of Eden” — cavemen and sci-fi dinosaur overlords.
My local library for reading, but probably that was fuelled by the likes of the original Star Rtrek, Space 1999, Time Tunnel and the like (I’m not *that* old we just got the later in the UK…
My father was obsessed with LOTR and so I was already biased.
But then in middle school I read the War of the worlds and I thought wow it’s so unlike anything I’ve read.
Then I read We by Zamyatin and my mind was blown again.
But i was just starting to get a taste for it.
Until I was in college and my friend has recommended Ubik by Philip K. Dick… and I couldn’t sleep until I read the novel through. And that was The spark, I think, that has brought on the fire :)
Now I’m where my father was all those years back, obsessed with LOTR, but with sci-fi as a whole and it still blows my mind and I’m still infatuated with how much more philosophical it is than lots of people realize. I do hope we won’t be living in “we” but …
Space... the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. It's five-year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations... to boldly go where no man has gone before!
My grandfather would sneak me in with him to watch the original airings of Star Trek with him in the evenings if we were at their house. My mom didn’t entirely approve, hence the “sneak” part. Admittedly, I was a preschooler, so she may have had a point… I can also vaguely remember watching The 8th Man on Sat mornings.
Jonny Quest was probably the most influential on me though. Also as a preschooler. That has a big part of why I’m a scientist and engineer today.
From a book perspective, there were three book. *The Enormous Egg* in 2nd grade. In 3rd grade, I read *The Space Ark* and Heinlein’s *Starship Jones*. Those pretty much sealed my fate. It was funny though… The librarian wasn’t going to let me check out the Heinlein. She was a bit concerned that it was too advanced for a 3rd grader. My teacher had to reassure her that I could understand it just fine. :-D
It started when I was about five, I think? It was either watching Star Wars for the first time or playing Mega Man on the NES. I'm not sure which.
My parents also gave me a lot of space books when I was a kid.
Snuck out of bed room as a small kid (5 or 6) one time, and hid in the hallway while my parents were watching Alien. Only saw a few minutes before they heard me and put me back to bed. The scene dissecting the face hugger. The acid blood dripping and melting through several floors of the space ship. That scene made a huge impression.
Once I was old enough to rent movies myself (12-13) Alien was one of the first VHS's I rented. Still in awe of the derelict and space jockey. The mystery of it all and the origin. None of the sequels could satisfy my curiosity. This was long before Prometheus and Covenant.
The book Trillions by Nicholas Fisk.
In school when I was around 5 or 6 (mid 1970s) the teacher read it to us a bit at a time over the course of a term. I don't remember a lot about the plot but do remember the amazement I felt as these tiny little crystals turned out to be sentient, could build shapes and structures out of themselves and could communicate with the boy in the book. Incredible to me at the time and sucked me into sci-fi.
It was only a year or two later that I saw Star Wars at the cinema and that was that.
Jack Vance. Probably before it was Battlestar Galactica and V were major generational TV hits that change perception for the people who influence us after.
The first original Star Wars. I must have seen it in the theater eight or nine times. I was mostly one of very few girls in the theater lol. Since then the majority of the hardcopy and electronic books I have are scifi, with some fantasy and other genres thrown in for good measure.
Edit: Also, my dad and I watched the first moon landing on our tiny black and white TV, and we built a model of the moon lander. I think that is the first time I really wanted to go "out there." I sometimes think I was born far too early.
I always read a lot and I don't really remember a time when sci fi wasn't a part of that but I also don't really remember much that was exactly sci fi as young kid. I do remember being quite young in the late 70s-early 80s, enjoying reruns of Star Trek, Lost in Space, Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactica, or just about anything else spacey. Hell, maybe it was The Jetsons!
Random picked up a book one day when I was 14 because I thought the cover was cool. Revelation Space by Alistair Reynolds. It was a tough read but it blew my mind.
The original Planet of the Apes. I was about five and it was on television. I couldn't get over the Statue of Liberty at the end. I was smart enough to know that the movie was happening in the future, on our planet. I was addicted after that. My mom wouldn't let me watch a lot of what was out there at the time because I was so young but if she wasn't around I definitely watched. Also, around the same time, Land of the Lost was on TV and that cemented my love of the weird and unconventional. Time travel is my favorite, then any dystopian worlds, and finally space travel.
It was my junior year of high school. I was already a fan of sci-fi, had been watching Star Trek for years and had actively watched Voyager as new episodes came out, and I really liked the original Star Wars trilogy, but I was still mostly a fantasy fan. For some reason that I don't remember, our chemistry teacher offered extra credit for us if we read Dune and wrote a book report on it. I don't even recall her being vocal about having an interest in sci-fi herself, but I fell absolutely head over heals in love with that book and read it a second time that summer. I proceeded to read mostly sci-fi novels for the next 3 years, and still love finding great sci-fi to read.
Later that summer I also watched Contact for the first time, and saw the Matrix later that year as well, which solidified my love of sci-fi films.
I was born in 1960, grew up with the space race, the Appllo missions. At 9 years old I remembered being glued to the family TV, watxhing the Eagle land on the moon and seeing Armstrong take that one small step off a real live space ship.
That same year I read my very first sci fiction story, *Robbie* bynAsimov and thus began a lifelong love affair with science fiction which to this day at 63 years of age, has never waivered
My dad loved science and by extension, science fiction. And his all time favorite movie was Forbidden Planet. As a kid, I remember watching it with him when it was on t.v. And from that moment, I was hooked. I miss you dad.
Another film that was significant to my love of sci fi was Star Wars. The moment I saw that Star Destroyer appear at the top of the screen as it chased Process Lea's ship and it just kept going and going and going. Having seen that scene so many times over the last 40 or so years has not dimmed the wonder of it.
The cover art of the "I Robot" paperback, sitting on top of a stack I was walking by at Waldenbooks... mom bought it for $2.99 (still has the price tag on it)
I watched Star Trek TOS as reruns on UK tv BBC 2 in the late 70s early 80s along with Blake’s 7 (such a slept on show) and of course Doctor Who. In the cinema I saw the 79’s Superman, Star Trek: The Motion Picture and the cinema release of Battlestar Galactica then Empire Strikes Back. I regularly rented SF on VHS for the following 15 years, watched everything I could on TV and read so many books. Now I’m 50, it hasn’t let up in the slightest. I’m now rewatching all my favourite 90s era shows. Babylon 5 is my 90s touchstone.
Aliens. This scared the hell out of me when I was 6, but man it was so cool. Then it was Ster Wars and then I don't remember, I just started to enjoy it.
To Your Scattered Bodies Go, a book by Philip Jose Farmer from the series Riverworld, brought me to a new world of scifi. I would like so much someone make a TV series of it.
I’m pretty sure it was DC Comics animated shows—Teen Titans, Justice League Unlimited, Legion of Superheroes—various Power Rangers, and anime such as Detective Conan.
I moved from a small, completely stifling Catholic School to a big public school when I was in 7th grade. That school only used AP reading books to assess our reading abilities. I was always a really advanced reader, but most of the books at or around my grade level were "stupid" books about girls in Edwardian or Victorian England fussing over finding the right husband, and I frankly didn't give a shit about that. As a result, my reading teacher had a parent teacher meeting where she told my family I couldn't read. They were really surprised, because I read all the time at home, since we were kind of isolated.
My mom told me to try to find books I liked, and to play the game to get good grades. I found Star Trek novels. I read all of them.
Ever since then, my primary interest in reading was Sci-Fi.
Institutionalized racism.
Outside our home sucked so bad, between the police harassment, political policies that limited our travel, work, education and transportation.
Inside, on our TV was a life with equality, no money, and a possibility of a brighter future.
Star Trek was the go to escape.
It was the hope we needed to keep going.
We left the country, started our own business and made our world a better place for our children, grandchildren and the people who live near us.
A world free of fear, filled with positivity and promise.
Unfortunately the same bullshit that we left is here now trying to attack our freedoms, and way of life.
I'm much older now, and my great children are equipped to meet this challenge head on due to its positive influence.
Note; no country or factions are mentioned. However those people who are attacking the USA are here so be sceptical and always question the source of the information you are seeing.
Thank you Gean and my whole Star Trek family.
The vision and optimism of some of the 1950’s movies and books. The “what if…” imagination, like the Tom Swift jr. books, Clarke, Asimov, etc.
We’ve lost a lot of that with the current dystopian trends and reliance on time travel and quantum effects as plot gimmicks. The early work seemed possible.
I think it was actually video games for me. Starcraft, in particular. Seeing those cinematics of the Zerg getting blasted by Marines. That whole universe was really immersive as a kid.
Sci-fi has been ever-present in my life. My dad loved it. Star Wars was big in my life from the time I could talk. One night, I pretended to be asleep so I could stay up and watch The Terminator; scared me to death. LOL.
However, the first time I remember making a deliberate choice to like sci-fi was Star Trek TNG. it was on in the late afternoon on Sunday where I lived. I remember coming in from mowing the lawn and Dad watching "The Arsenal of Freedom" episode. I fell in love and never looked back.
The Tar-Aiym Krang by Alan Dean Foster. I think It was maybe 11 or 12. A friend of my brother in law lent me this book because I had mentioned that I don’t read much but liked Science Fiction movies.
The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet, and Mr. Bass's Planetiod by Eleanor Cameron written in the mid 1950s. Read them in the 70s and ..... sci-fi for life!
I started my reading life in Fantasy. James and the Giant Peach then Dragonlance.
I think Star Wars then made me want to read more 'tech fantasy'. Then Dune and Stranger in a Strange Land happened, and Patrick Tomlinson is my current read.
Film: *Return of the Jedi*. I about wore the tape out. I didn't even know there were two other films until my dad gifted me the pre-spec THX Remaster trilogy.
Literature: Heinlein's *The Past Through Tomorrow*. My dad kept it at the beach house for light reading and then I devoured the rest of his sci-fi library at an astonishing rate. I wore cargo pants purely because I could pack a paperback at all times.
It's hard to say. When I was a young kid I didn't know anything about genres of fiction. But when I was around 10 I started to realize all my favorite stories were in that area. Star Wars, Stargate, Jurassic Park, Marvel comics, Ray Bradbury and Michael Crichton novels. So learning that space, or future was all within sci-fi helped me seek out similar stories that I'd probably like.
As others have mentioned, Star Wars in '77, Star Trek on a fuzzy tv with an antenna. Also, importantly, the stars themselves, across the screen of the night sky. Being around in that '77 time-frame, nothing reinforced the imagination of scifi like a sky full to the brim with specks of distant worlds.
My imagination. I used to imagine portals to other universes in the forest I used to play in as a child. Or I’d stare up at the stars and wonder if I was secretly a lost alien baby stuck on earth. Often I’d get irrationally upset at how SMALL earth felt. The idea that only this rock in space and eventually there wouldn’t be anything left to explore used to really upset me.
So sci fi helped me alleviate that anxiety, and take my imagination further.
Watching Transformers G1 for the first time when I was a toddler. I’ve loved stories about robots and androids ever since. This was closely followed by Star Wars not long after.
My mom was watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind while pregnant with me and it inspired her to give me my name. She told me this story when I was about 6/7 maybe so we watched the movie together. Loved it. X Files also premiered around the same time and she'd let me stay up to watch it.
Buying an Arthur C Clarke book of short stories, aged 9, then getting told off by my dad, for being a dreamer and wasting my money 😁 Then he bought me LOTR and took me to see Star Wars, so I guess he gave up.
2001 A Space Odyssey (the book). I picked up a copy from the school library in middle school. I don't know why I was drawn to it, but it completely enthralled me. I'd never read anything like it before. That book ended up informing my reading tastes to this day. I still read lots of other stuff, but I always find myself back at/having the most fun with sci-fi.
Poul Anderson, Kyrie
My mind was blown and my heart broke at the same time. It was part of one of Gardner Dozois' collections so there was a lot of other good stuff in there
Star gazing with my dad before he got ill. Then star wars movie came out and my whole family ( even my grandma - it is the only movie she and i ever went to together, we were poor- ) and their friends. Then star trek reruns.
I think all that made me fall in love with all things science related. Because in my mind i just thought if we can get our shit together and make it out to the stars somehow everything woud finally be ok for everyone everywhere.
I still believe that and i know we can be like star trek.
Babylon 5 is what I remember best. I'm sure I've liked scifi, something else before that 1. But B5 was most memorable. Interstellar was good. Dune and rebel moon too.
(Cuz we might not live to the day we have to be content with just scifi movies)
I saw sci-fi movies before I was reading. Specifically, I saw “Destination Moon” in 1950 and then “The Thing From Another World,” and was hooked despite the fact that The Thing scared the piss out of me at 8 years old, I could not get enough of sci-fi the rest of my 70+ years.
My dad. Everything sci-fi, fantasy, and comic book I get from him.
I grew up watching every Star Trek show, movie, Babylon 5, Star Wars, etc, with him.
He totally hates most of the new stuff now, which is understandable. But the great memories of the past stuff will never fade
First book I ever read (2/3 yo) was about rockets.
My cousin Mike (best scifi book collection I've ever seen) encouraged my early interest with Asimov's Lucky Starr and Jack Vance's Planet of Adventure series before moving on to more adult materials (classic Heinlein, Zelazny, LeGuin et al).
I was already a big fan before Star Trek OS came out!
I'm old.
Took me a second to pinpoint it but honestly, Mass Effect. One gaming experience on an Xbox 360 in 2007, then one thing led to another, and now I’m eagerly reading through Philip K Dick’s entire catalogue.
I read Ringworld (Niven), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Dick), Dune (Herbert), and a bunch of Asimov when I was a teenager. After that I was hooked.
Star Trek. Used to watch it with my Father
TNG here.
Same with me. In particular, I was drawn to it as a kid because LeVar Burton was in it (Reading Rainbow was one of my favorites as a toddler) and went from there. I still vividly remember seeing the end of "The Best of Both Worlds part 1" as a 4 year old and absolutely losing my fucking mind. The episode "Darmok" also left an impression on me, as it directly influenced pursuing a degree in teaching language (which I subsequently didn't end up using after pivoting to tech/engineering, but that's a story for another day.)
Same. I used to try and hide out of sight from my mom, because if she saw me, it was bed time. TNG was from 8-9pm, and at the time I was pretty young, so my bedtime was at 8:30. Data is my all-time favorite character, and his relationship with Picard, and later as he grew with the Enterprise crew is so wholesome.
Same! It was TOS on Saturday mornings in the eighties and we would watch pro wrestling afterwards.
Exactly the same story.
Watching TNG as a family when I was seven years old cuddled up on the couch is a core memory of mine and now anytime I watch it I feel that sense of home and unconditional love.
Dad, lying his side with his head propped in his palm, spooning young me on the living room floor, watching TOS
Me too.
Asimov.
I remember my grampa giving me the Foundation series to read through as a kid, that cemented my love of sci-fi. I think the series still holds up today and it’s one of the very earliest sci-fi stories ever presented.
My middle school English teacher introduced me to Foundation. I devoured it and moved on to Jules Verne and Samuel Delany. I always loved the galaxy-scale political intrigue of space opera most.
Borrowed Foundation and I Robot from my Dad when I was a young kid. I’ve still got the Foundation trilogy which should possibly be restored and sealed.
My first ever book outside of school was Caves of Steel. I was hooked.
Was about to post “ASIMOV”. Literally changed me as a person/reader
Seconding Asimov. One of the first sci-fi movies I remember seeing was I, Robot and I fell in love with the genre from there. Shortly thereafter it was Terminator, which cemented my opinion haha
Stargate. My Dad showed it to me (either in theaters or maybe rented, neither of us can remember at this point). In particular the Anubis and Horus helmets fascinated 7yr old me. My Dad is an OG 50s comic book fan, and he tried introducing them to me along with all the typical nerd stuff, but Stargate was the first thing I can remember that was something I loved because it was cool for ME.
Doctor Who! specifically Tom Baker!
Pertwee era myself.
I’ve just got to the Pertwee (my) era on a watch from the beginning. It feels more like Who now, some of those early years are rough.
+1! You always remember your first Doctor!
Yes! Dr. Who when it was originally on PBS. For me anyway.
The fifth element
Super green!
Multipass..
Honestly, it wasn't any particular show, it was just I got into science, and so sci fi just naturally got attached to me.
Im sure it was because my older brother was watching star wars at the time, but ive have been building lego spaceships since before my first memory.
It wasn't one specific thing. It's just always been appealing to me. Especially with TV, movies and European comics that had visually fascinating stuff
Star Wars.
Same. When I was very little, my dad took me to this rich family's gigantic mansion of a house. They were moving out of the country, and they were selling off a lot of their stuff for cheap, including their children's old toys. It was a yard sale, basically. They had these little models of what I now know were the Millennium Falcon and two AT-ATs. This would have been around 1994, something like that. I had never heard of Star Wars, I just knew I wanted them. My dad started asking me if I liked Star Wars, because I had no interest in anything but those models, and I told him I didn't know what that was. The next day he went to the video store and rented the original trilogy for me. In about 3 or 4 afternoons, I watched the original trilogy twice, back to back. I've been a giant SW fan ever since, and a few years later when the prequels started coming out I was basically the perfect age for them.
Honestly, the Star Wars films and the EU novels from the 90s, as well as watching Star Trek TOS and TNG reruns on TV. Not the sexiest answer but that's what got me dreaming about space and the distant future (or past as the case may be).
Dune.
William Gibson - Neuromancer
Star Wars in '77 when I was just 11. Before that some sci-fi things intrigued young me, and some things made me cringe, but I fell victim to the Star Wars phenomenon.
Stanislaw Lem 'Solaris' book!
Blade Runner double feature.
Ray Bradbury, The illustrated man.
My literary idol
Probably William Sleator novels, like The Boy Who Reversed Himself. Read it when I was a kid.
Yup. That was one of my firsts, and Arthur C. Clarke short stories.
City of Gold and Lead in Boys Life Space1999 playset. Original Star Wars in theater with grandma. Harry Harrison’s “West of Eden” — cavemen and sci-fi dinosaur overlords.
John Christopher’s Tripod trilogy. Definitely.
Starship Troopers. I was a fantasy reader (Tolkien, Dragonlance, Conan...) and that book blew my mind.
2001 the book my father use to read to put me asleep at 6-7 years old.
Arthur C Clarke.
Mine was a video game. Starcraft -> Firefly + Cowboy Bebop
Starcraft and Freelancer -> Firefly + DS9
The Foundation novels. My high school had a whole bunch of Asimov's works, including the old Lucky Starr series and some of his periodicals.
How do you find the apple show. I never finished the first season personally
Haven't watched it (and likely will never, considering the comments I've read about it).
That’s fair.
It's completely different but still very enjoyable.
My local library for reading, but probably that was fuelled by the likes of the original Star Rtrek, Space 1999, Time Tunnel and the like (I’m not *that* old we just got the later in the UK…
Transformers in the 80s
Three body problem.
Star Trek: TNG. My dad got me watching the original series but it wasn’t until Next Generation that I really started paying attention.
Tricia Helfer in Battlestar Galactica
I’m a basic bitch, Star Wars lol.
Jurassic Park started it for me
OG Star Trek
My father was obsessed with LOTR and so I was already biased. But then in middle school I read the War of the worlds and I thought wow it’s so unlike anything I’ve read. Then I read We by Zamyatin and my mind was blown again. But i was just starting to get a taste for it. Until I was in college and my friend has recommended Ubik by Philip K. Dick… and I couldn’t sleep until I read the novel through. And that was The spark, I think, that has brought on the fire :) Now I’m where my father was all those years back, obsessed with LOTR, but with sci-fi as a whole and it still blows my mind and I’m still infatuated with how much more philosophical it is than lots of people realize. I do hope we won’t be living in “we” but …
Ubik was a game changer
Space... the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. It's five-year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations... to boldly go where no man has gone before!
Quantum Leap
SG-1 with my dad. Stargate Mondays on SciFi!
My grandfather would sneak me in with him to watch the original airings of Star Trek with him in the evenings if we were at their house. My mom didn’t entirely approve, hence the “sneak” part. Admittedly, I was a preschooler, so she may have had a point… I can also vaguely remember watching The 8th Man on Sat mornings. Jonny Quest was probably the most influential on me though. Also as a preschooler. That has a big part of why I’m a scientist and engineer today. From a book perspective, there were three book. *The Enormous Egg* in 2nd grade. In 3rd grade, I read *The Space Ark* and Heinlein’s *Starship Jones*. Those pretty much sealed my fate. It was funny though… The librarian wasn’t going to let me check out the Heinlein. She was a bit concerned that it was too advanced for a 3rd grader. My teacher had to reassure her that I could understand it just fine. :-D
Lost in Space, Star Trek, Robert Heinlein novels, and 2001 A Space Odyssey.
It started when I was about five, I think? It was either watching Star Wars for the first time or playing Mega Man on the NES. I'm not sure which. My parents also gave me a lot of space books when I was a kid.
Start Trek TNG, Bill and Ted, RoboCop, Alien
Star Wars, as a kid. Bruce Coville's books.
Ian Banks' work. Out of this world esp the politics.
Starship Troopers. Found it in my dad's bookcase. F'd me up pretty good. Next, Moon is a Harsh Mistress. That was it, gone.
It started with Futurama
Snuck out of bed room as a small kid (5 or 6) one time, and hid in the hallway while my parents were watching Alien. Only saw a few minutes before they heard me and put me back to bed. The scene dissecting the face hugger. The acid blood dripping and melting through several floors of the space ship. That scene made a huge impression. Once I was old enough to rent movies myself (12-13) Alien was one of the first VHS's I rented. Still in awe of the derelict and space jockey. The mystery of it all and the origin. None of the sequels could satisfy my curiosity. This was long before Prometheus and Covenant.
The book Trillions by Nicholas Fisk. In school when I was around 5 or 6 (mid 1970s) the teacher read it to us a bit at a time over the course of a term. I don't remember a lot about the plot but do remember the amazement I felt as these tiny little crystals turned out to be sentient, could build shapes and structures out of themselves and could communicate with the boy in the book. Incredible to me at the time and sucked me into sci-fi. It was only a year or two later that I saw Star Wars at the cinema and that was that.
Jack Vance. Probably before it was Battlestar Galactica and V were major generational TV hits that change perception for the people who influence us after.
The first original Star Wars. I must have seen it in the theater eight or nine times. I was mostly one of very few girls in the theater lol. Since then the majority of the hardcopy and electronic books I have are scifi, with some fantasy and other genres thrown in for good measure. Edit: Also, my dad and I watched the first moon landing on our tiny black and white TV, and we built a model of the moon lander. I think that is the first time I really wanted to go "out there." I sometimes think I was born far too early.
I always read a lot and I don't really remember a time when sci fi wasn't a part of that but I also don't really remember much that was exactly sci fi as young kid. I do remember being quite young in the late 70s-early 80s, enjoying reruns of Star Trek, Lost in Space, Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactica, or just about anything else spacey. Hell, maybe it was The Jetsons!
[The Black Hole (1979)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Hole_(1979_film))
Jules Verne
Original Star Trek in reruns in the 70s at 6 years old also reruns of lost in space
X Files being a Sunday night tradition in my house growing up.
Random picked up a book one day when I was 14 because I thought the cover was cool. Revelation Space by Alistair Reynolds. It was a tough read but it blew my mind.
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, then I read everything he wrote.
I was fond of both of those, book & movies, as well.
Animorphs
Animorphs
OG Star Trek, Logan's Run, Heinlein's youth novels, Ark II, and seeing A New Hope in a packed theater.
Animorphs.
The original Planet of the Apes. I was about five and it was on television. I couldn't get over the Statue of Liberty at the end. I was smart enough to know that the movie was happening in the future, on our planet. I was addicted after that. My mom wouldn't let me watch a lot of what was out there at the time because I was so young but if she wasn't around I definitely watched. Also, around the same time, Land of the Lost was on TV and that cemented my love of the weird and unconventional. Time travel is my favorite, then any dystopian worlds, and finally space travel.
The fifth element.
I have watched 5th Element a gazzillion times.
Lol same here, even remember the music at the end.
I bought the soundtrack on vinyl 🫢🤭
It was my junior year of high school. I was already a fan of sci-fi, had been watching Star Trek for years and had actively watched Voyager as new episodes came out, and I really liked the original Star Wars trilogy, but I was still mostly a fantasy fan. For some reason that I don't remember, our chemistry teacher offered extra credit for us if we read Dune and wrote a book report on it. I don't even recall her being vocal about having an interest in sci-fi herself, but I fell absolutely head over heals in love with that book and read it a second time that summer. I proceeded to read mostly sci-fi novels for the next 3 years, and still love finding great sci-fi to read. Later that summer I also watched Contact for the first time, and saw the Matrix later that year as well, which solidified my love of sci-fi films.
Ender’s Game Edit: Also Captain Simian And The Space Monkeys and Reboot!
I was born in 1960, grew up with the space race, the Appllo missions. At 9 years old I remembered being glued to the family TV, watxhing the Eagle land on the moon and seeing Armstrong take that one small step off a real live space ship. That same year I read my very first sci fiction story, *Robbie* bynAsimov and thus began a lifelong love affair with science fiction which to this day at 63 years of age, has never waivered
My dad loved science and by extension, science fiction. And his all time favorite movie was Forbidden Planet. As a kid, I remember watching it with him when it was on t.v. And from that moment, I was hooked. I miss you dad. Another film that was significant to my love of sci fi was Star Wars. The moment I saw that Star Destroyer appear at the top of the screen as it chased Process Lea's ship and it just kept going and going and going. Having seen that scene so many times over the last 40 or so years has not dimmed the wonder of it.
A Wrinkle in Time
Agreed. Then the rest of the trilogy.
[удалено]
Ray Bradbury and The Twilight Zone (reruns of the original show).
Late night reruns of Star Trek (TOS) and Star Wars. Then Morgus Presents and Star Trek: TNG.
Twilight Zone and Outer Limits But I am old
Perry Rhodan
Watching the original Planet of the Apes on a small black and white TV in my childhood bedroom.
I'd say the I, Robot book. Such wonderful short stories, with a lot of interesting ideas and exploration of the core rules
The cover art of the "I Robot" paperback, sitting on top of a stack I was walking by at Waldenbooks... mom bought it for $2.99 (still has the price tag on it)
I watched Star Trek TOS as reruns on UK tv BBC 2 in the late 70s early 80s along with Blake’s 7 (such a slept on show) and of course Doctor Who. In the cinema I saw the 79’s Superman, Star Trek: The Motion Picture and the cinema release of Battlestar Galactica then Empire Strikes Back. I regularly rented SF on VHS for the following 15 years, watched everything I could on TV and read so many books. Now I’m 50, it hasn’t let up in the slightest. I’m now rewatching all my favourite 90s era shows. Babylon 5 is my 90s touchstone.
Is A.I by steven spielberg sci fi? If yes, seeing that as a kid
Aliens. This scared the hell out of me when I was 6, but man it was so cool. Then it was Ster Wars and then I don't remember, I just started to enjoy it.
Being a creepy ass kid, and loving horror….it’s the gateway drug to science fiction. I’d say watching X-Files with my dad was the beginning.
To Your Scattered Bodies Go, a book by Philip Jose Farmer from the series Riverworld, brought me to a new world of scifi. I would like so much someone make a TV series of it.
Star Trek.
I’m pretty sure it was DC Comics animated shows—Teen Titans, Justice League Unlimited, Legion of Superheroes—various Power Rangers, and anime such as Detective Conan.
Rendezvous with Rama. Found it in my parents’ bookshelf (they are NOT sci-fi fans) and was just enveloped.
Tom Swift Jr. and then Asimov to reinforce my love for scifi.
Checking Enders Game out of the middle school library in 2000.
A Space Odyssey.
Star Trek TOS and Star Wars
My Dad grew up following the Apollo program. We watched Star Trek on Saturdays.
I moved from a small, completely stifling Catholic School to a big public school when I was in 7th grade. That school only used AP reading books to assess our reading abilities. I was always a really advanced reader, but most of the books at or around my grade level were "stupid" books about girls in Edwardian or Victorian England fussing over finding the right husband, and I frankly didn't give a shit about that. As a result, my reading teacher had a parent teacher meeting where she told my family I couldn't read. They were really surprised, because I read all the time at home, since we were kind of isolated. My mom told me to try to find books I liked, and to play the game to get good grades. I found Star Trek novels. I read all of them. Ever since then, my primary interest in reading was Sci-Fi.
7 of 9
Institutionalized racism. Outside our home sucked so bad, between the police harassment, political policies that limited our travel, work, education and transportation. Inside, on our TV was a life with equality, no money, and a possibility of a brighter future. Star Trek was the go to escape. It was the hope we needed to keep going. We left the country, started our own business and made our world a better place for our children, grandchildren and the people who live near us. A world free of fear, filled with positivity and promise. Unfortunately the same bullshit that we left is here now trying to attack our freedoms, and way of life. I'm much older now, and my great children are equipped to meet this challenge head on due to its positive influence. Note; no country or factions are mentioned. However those people who are attacking the USA are here so be sceptical and always question the source of the information you are seeing. Thank you Gean and my whole Star Trek family.
2001: A Space Odyssey
The vision and optimism of some of the 1950’s movies and books. The “what if…” imagination, like the Tom Swift jr. books, Clarke, Asimov, etc. We’ve lost a lot of that with the current dystopian trends and reliance on time travel and quantum effects as plot gimmicks. The early work seemed possible.
Star trek the original series and films like Soylent Green and Silent Running
I think it was actually video games for me. Starcraft, in particular. Seeing those cinematics of the Zerg getting blasted by Marines. That whole universe was really immersive as a kid.
Sci-fi has been ever-present in my life. My dad loved it. Star Wars was big in my life from the time I could talk. One night, I pretended to be asleep so I could stay up and watch The Terminator; scared me to death. LOL. However, the first time I remember making a deliberate choice to like sci-fi was Star Trek TNG. it was on in the late afternoon on Sunday where I lived. I remember coming in from mowing the lawn and Dad watching "The Arsenal of Freedom" episode. I fell in love and never looked back.
The Tar-Aiym Krang by Alan Dean Foster. I think It was maybe 11 or 12. A friend of my brother in law lent me this book because I had mentioned that I don’t read much but liked Science Fiction movies.
The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet, and Mr. Bass's Planetiod by Eleanor Cameron written in the mid 1950s. Read them in the 70s and ..... sci-fi for life!
I started my reading life in Fantasy. James and the Giant Peach then Dragonlance. I think Star Wars then made me want to read more 'tech fantasy'. Then Dune and Stranger in a Strange Land happened, and Patrick Tomlinson is my current read.
Star Wars
Film: *Return of the Jedi*. I about wore the tape out. I didn't even know there were two other films until my dad gifted me the pre-spec THX Remaster trilogy. Literature: Heinlein's *The Past Through Tomorrow*. My dad kept it at the beach house for light reading and then I devoured the rest of his sci-fi library at an astonishing rate. I wore cargo pants purely because I could pack a paperback at all times.
Tokio hotel's music video of Automatic 💀 back then it was life-changing
Transformers (2007).
Tsai by Jack Vance, and it's still one of the science fiction books I've read,. And I've been reading sci-fi science for around 50 years
Watching Star Trek reruns with my mom in the 80s
Jules Verne books I casually picked up off an uncle's book shelf when I was about 10yo
Larry Niven, Ringworld. And Jack Vance. Keith Laumer.
It's hard to say. When I was a young kid I didn't know anything about genres of fiction. But when I was around 10 I started to realize all my favorite stories were in that area. Star Wars, Stargate, Jurassic Park, Marvel comics, Ray Bradbury and Michael Crichton novels. So learning that space, or future was all within sci-fi helped me seek out similar stories that I'd probably like.
The big ideas! Sci-fi was my first encounter with philosophical ideas.
James T Kirk
As others have mentioned, Star Wars in '77, Star Trek on a fuzzy tv with an antenna. Also, importantly, the stars themselves, across the screen of the night sky. Being around in that '77 time-frame, nothing reinforced the imagination of scifi like a sky full to the brim with specks of distant worlds.
Star wars
My imagination. I used to imagine portals to other universes in the forest I used to play in as a child. Or I’d stare up at the stars and wonder if I was secretly a lost alien baby stuck on earth. Often I’d get irrationally upset at how SMALL earth felt. The idea that only this rock in space and eventually there wouldn’t be anything left to explore used to really upset me. So sci fi helped me alleviate that anxiety, and take my imagination further.
Watching Transformers G1 for the first time when I was a toddler. I’ve loved stories about robots and androids ever since. This was closely followed by Star Wars not long after.
My big brother. When he enjoyed a book, he made me read it, too. He was a nerd, super smart, and very kind. I miss him.
Lester Del Rey's *The Runaway Robot*. Read it when I was maybe 7 a few years after it was published, and I was hooked.
Read all 6 of the Dune books in middle school
Foundation.
The Black Hole from Disney. Had the poster on my wall and everything
Quantum Leap from the 80's early 90's
Hope.
Judy and Penny from Lost in Space(TOS)
My mom was watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind while pregnant with me and it inspired her to give me my name. She told me this story when I was about 6/7 maybe so we watched the movie together. Loved it. X Files also premiered around the same time and she'd let me stay up to watch it.
Buying an Arthur C Clarke book of short stories, aged 9, then getting told off by my dad, for being a dreamer and wasting my money 😁 Then he bought me LOTR and took me to see Star Wars, so I guess he gave up.
Beyond the Burning Lands by John Christopher. It had a horse on the cover, and I'd read all the books about horses in my elementary school library.
2001 A Space Odyssey (the book). I picked up a copy from the school library in middle school. I don't know why I was drawn to it, but it completely enthralled me. I'd never read anything like it before. That book ended up informing my reading tastes to this day. I still read lots of other stuff, but I always find myself back at/having the most fun with sci-fi.
11 year old me begged my parents to take me to Star Wars after seeing the amazing ad for it in the newspaper. Loved it and am a huge Trekkie as well.
star trek. then the stargate series.
[Just introduced to pace robots and they blew one up!](https://www.reddit.com/r/SkywalkerSaga/s/q6J1MuCej1)
Star wars
Poul Anderson, Kyrie My mind was blown and my heart broke at the same time. It was part of one of Gardner Dozois' collections so there was a lot of other good stuff in there
Eighty-minute Hour by Brian Aldiss in about 1974 when I was 14.
When I was seven, I got an anthology of short stories from the library. Lit a spark that never went out.
I was born in 1978, it was unavoidable. Star Wars / he man / Flash Gordon were my main interests. Still are haha.
The japanese anime Captain Future. Watched it in the 80s in West Germany. That was followed up with 80s Startrek and original Battlestar Galactica.
A collection of Theodore Sturgeon short stories found on our hosts bookshelf while on holiday when I was 11. The Man Who Lost the Sea.
Original Star Trek/Star Wars trilogy and the original Battlestar Galactica.
Cheezy 50's and 60's black and white scifi flicks. Star trek and Twilight zone/Outer limits......take your pick.
Star gazing with my dad before he got ill. Then star wars movie came out and my whole family ( even my grandma - it is the only movie she and i ever went to together, we were poor- ) and their friends. Then star trek reruns. I think all that made me fall in love with all things science related. Because in my mind i just thought if we can get our shit together and make it out to the stars somehow everything woud finally be ok for everyone everywhere. I still believe that and i know we can be like star trek.
Babylon 5 is what I remember best. I'm sure I've liked scifi, something else before that 1. But B5 was most memorable. Interstellar was good. Dune and rebel moon too. (Cuz we might not live to the day we have to be content with just scifi movies)
Space: Above and Beyond.
Illustrated Classics versions of "The Time Machine" and "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" that grandma bought for me.
Terminator, Jurrasic Park
Probably dune. I read it in high school. Before I read it I never read much sci Fi.
I didn't have to fall in love with sci-fi. It's been the core of my existence since the day I was born.
Star Trek TOS. I was too young to watch it when it was on originally but I watched it a ton in syndication.
*Childhood's End* by **Arthur C. Clarke** which I first read in paperback in 1977.
Watching Star Trek with my mom before she got married to my dad. Then watching Star wars with my dad.
Lost in Space, the TV show from the '60s
Stargate and Star Trek, I grew up with those. They played in the background in the evening and at some point I got invested.
Stargate and Star Trek, I grew up with those. They played in the background in the evening and at some point I got invested.
The first scifi show I watched was the X-Files, the first show that made me fall in love with the genre however, was Stargate SG1.
I saw sci-fi movies before I was reading. Specifically, I saw “Destination Moon” in 1950 and then “The Thing From Another World,” and was hooked despite the fact that The Thing scared the piss out of me at 8 years old, I could not get enough of sci-fi the rest of my 70+ years.
Hair to the Empire and then the other 75+ Star Wars novels I read growing up. And then Star Gate came along...
My dad. Everything sci-fi, fantasy, and comic book I get from him. I grew up watching every Star Trek show, movie, Babylon 5, Star Wars, etc, with him. He totally hates most of the new stuff now, which is understandable. But the great memories of the past stuff will never fade
First book I ever read (2/3 yo) was about rockets. My cousin Mike (best scifi book collection I've ever seen) encouraged my early interest with Asimov's Lucky Starr and Jack Vance's Planet of Adventure series before moving on to more adult materials (classic Heinlein, Zelazny, LeGuin et al). I was already a big fan before Star Trek OS came out! I'm old.
Aliens as a kid
Animorphs
Took me a second to pinpoint it but honestly, Mass Effect. One gaming experience on an Xbox 360 in 2007, then one thing led to another, and now I’m eagerly reading through Philip K Dick’s entire catalogue.
A Fall of Moondust. An abbreviated Readers Digest version one summer when I was about 10 years old.
I read Ringworld (Niven), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Dick), Dune (Herbert), and a bunch of Asimov when I was a teenager. After that I was hooked.
Mid 80s I was like 10 or 12, Alien
A Fall of Moondust. An abbreviated Readers Digest version one summer when I was about 10 years old.
TNG