Growing Up On Fantasy Literature

From my web surfing, I've noticed that sites covering science fiction and fantasy tend to sway heavily towards the science fiction side of the shelf. For myself I'm more inclined towards fantasy when it comes to reading.

This is a reverse of my tastes in television and movies which (The Lord of the Rings excepted) tend more towards science fiction. However, that's a discussion for another time.

Very often when the writers for these science fiction sites reference their childhood reading and it occurred to me that while I did read a number of science fiction classics as a child (including Asimov's Foundation trilogy), I have stronger memories of the fantasy books I read.

According to my parents, the first book I ever read on my own (as opposed to irritating my parents or older sibling into reading it for me) was Farmer Giles of Ham. For those not familiar with this story, it is one of J.R.R. Tolkien's fairy tales (not related to the Middle-Earth stories). Probably an odd choice for a young boy to read to himself.

Before I was a teenager, I had read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner, and some of the Dark is Rising books by Susan Cooper along with many other books both genre and non-genre.

As a teenager, with something resembling a budget and the freedom to go shopping on my own, my reading rapidly expanded and I was soon reading included David Eddings Belgariad, the Riftwar saga by Raymond Feist; The Dragonlance Chronicles and The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

Now the quality of these books is pretty mixed (and there are many others so unmemorable that I couldn't even figure out how to look up their correct titles on Google) and a number of them have proved very disappointing when I came to re-read them as an adult. But the habit was formed early and it seems to have stuck.

I still find that when I'm looking for a way to get away from the stress of the real world that nothing beats sinking into a fantasy novel. Many of the criticisms of fantasy, like it's frequently simplistic take on good and evil are what make it so suitable as an escape from reality.

It's amazing how ingrained this habit becomes over the years. I've noticed that I'll eagerly jump into a very average looking fantasy novel, a risk that I'm reluctant to take with any other genre.

I freely admit that many of the fantasy novels published these days are not great literature, and I've been known to mock them for it. That said, I can still get considerable pleasure from reading them (unless they're really awful). Have I imprinted myself with my childhood reading? I think that's quite possible, though ultimately completely harmless.