(no subject)

[pantryslut]

One thing about all the reminiscences about Bradbury floating around is that I've realized just how foundational his short stories were to me. I've spent some good time yesterday and today racking my brains for someone else I read before, oh, say, age 20* who still sticks with me in the same way, just in terms of "I can still recall those stories and how they made me felt," which should be a relatively low bar. I cannot for the life of me come up with someone save Le Guin and Earthsea and Butler's Wild Seed -- both novels. Poets, sure (but that's another story). After age 20? Piece of cake.

Oh, wait. I think I may have one. Don't laugh, now: Lucius Shepard.

Boy is there a critical essay in there somewhere.



* Keeping in mind I apparently started seriously writing fiction at age 10. Nonfiction at age 8, if you're curious, with an ambitious plan for the biography of Magic Johnson. I was going to interview him and everything; I remember my anxiety on how I was going to manage to ask him questions when he was so tall.

** And, yes, the fact that I'd read Lord of the Rings three times by then. Including appendices. Of course, I'd also read Fathers and Sons three times by then, too, if you want to look beyond genre. I am totally meandering by now but this is suddenly very intriguing to me, what I can remember vividly readingwise from before I was an adult.

Comments

[wild_irises]

There are a couple of Bradbury stories that stick with me from before age 20, but for me it was always all about Sturgeon. And William Tenn. And that first life-changing Asimov story. I was reading SF short stories long before I was reading SF novels, but I don't remember a Bradbury moment until I was in high school.

[pantryslut]

I didn't discover Sturgeon until Steven gave me his copy of Dangerous Visions to read in college. I know I read a lot of Asimov as a kid b/c that was my mother's favorite, but only bits of I, Robot remain -- mostly the story set on Mercury. Also, well, "Nightfall." Neither are as vivid as the Bradbury memories -- not even close.

[wild_irises]

I think my Asimov memory is only vivid because of it being the first adult story ever. But (because I grew up with my dad's Groff Conklin anthologies) there are plenty of stories I remember vividly from between the ages of 11 and 19.