In this segment I’m looking at how have people been influenced and then got into SF and which books have had an impact. As always my hive mind of twitter was useful. I asked

• what was the source of you getting into SF

• which decade was this?

• What books do you recall being provided?

Basic demographics first

212 Responses comprising 81 male 119 female and 12 non-binary

Across the decades - your first influence in fantasy was?

1950’s - 3

1960’s - 14

1970’s - 65

1980’s - 94

1990’s - 50

2000’s - 21

2010’s - 3

So a nice fairly broad mix and i’m glad I still have some interst for the youngest readers too (just about!!)

So who can we blame for getting us involved in fantasy?

Considering how many of us like to think of genre fans as your typical outsiders the results say differently nb I allowed mixed responses

104 - 49% - said parents/relatives were their main introducers

(about a third blamed the dad; a fifth blamed their mum and a third blamed BOTH)

68 - 32% said the library or the sainted librarian got them into the dark arts

54 - 25% actually blamed other media in the form of tv, comics and film

44 - 20% - said school teachers/classmates indoctrinated them

17 - Only 8% blamed bookshops (people rarely got started cold)

Did influencers change over time?

Caveat that the sample size isn’t consisntent acorss the decades but

1950’s - friends and library were prime suspects

1960’s - school, family and friends

1970’s - Half school, circa a third blamed the library, a little less blamed schoold and the bookshop makes an early appearence

1980’s Over half said family, under a quarter blamed school, nearly half mentione dthe library and only a few mentione dthe bookshop.

1990’s Half said the family, a fifth mentioned school, a fifth mentioned the library and again a small number mentioned the bookshops

after this my numbers drop off a lot. But ina prmary UK.US based audience we can see family, libraries and school up to the dawn of the third age of mankinf ahem the web that people we had close exposure to are our biggest influencers. Not entirely unsurprising but may explain what we then get exposed to as we shall see?

Media Influencers

1970’s People mentioned Star Trek, Doctor Who and Gerry Anderson

1980’s bar Gerry Anderson pretty much the same plus Saturday mronign cartoons! Oh and Star Wars

1990’s Star Trek (but TNG and DS9 got shout outs) also Star Wars and a small shout out for Doctor Who

2000’s anime, LOTR films and Harry Potter helped people get the bug

So which Books got recommended

147 of the responders actually mentioned books that got them into fantasy and SF. I cannot give you the entire list but it gets interesting

Only 1 Vote

This group includes a few surprises (but more for me I think because they are for me later books to be introduced to) notable ones include: -

• Stephen King

• HP Lovecraft

• Stephen Donaldson

• Melvyn Peake

• Terry Brooks

From 2-5 votes - gets quite interesting

• Arthur Conan Doyle

• Michael Moorcock

• John Wyndham

• Susan Cooper

• TV Tie Ins

• Twilight

• Harry Potter

• Brian Jacques

• Fighting Fantasy

From 6-9 votes

• Arthur C Clarke (6)

• David Eddings (6)

• Terry Pratchett (7)

• Robert Heinlein (6)

• Alan Garner (8)

• Douglas Adams (9)

• Anne McCaffrey (9)

Ten Votes or more?

• Ursula K Le Guin (10)

• Isaac Asimov (14)

• Narnia / CS Lewis (20)

• Tolkein/Lord of the Rings/Hobbit (54) NB some people recommended both!)

So should we be surprised?

I think its a depressingly white male list over 70 years but lets face it so is most of the SF mainstream until recently. Le Guin and McCaffrey are the leading lights. Some interesting observations the mainstream largely are authors who have a lot of other books in their series. Perhaps that explains why they keep coming up across the years and you can easily imagine libraries and schools having large selections. Its also interesting that my top contenders get passed down a lot. So perhaps people (and lets remember a lot of influencers are parents but also teachers/librarians) are keen to pass on the books they remember which makes the cycle repeat itself in the next decade.

The Tolkein Factor

Perhaps a really good example is seeing that Tolkein has a key advantage he has the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (essentially middle grade and teenage/adult). So people can read one/or the other in quick succession. He also is consistently being passed down

1960’s - 6

1970’s - 15

1980’s - 18

1990’s - 10

2000’s - 4

2010’s - 1

Tolkein dominates for thirty years worth of recommendations - that suggests being handed down the generations but importantly we are finally seeing a sharp decline. He is no longer the go to author for the younger readers and now we see YA genres creating books a lot more diverse and perhaps more relevant to today’s audience. Perhaps fantasy is ready for a bit more variety at last?