fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #6738 ]

[ SECRET POST #6738 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6738 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Doctor Who]

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Notes:

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I realized there were several books I read growing up that definitely made me a horror fan. Obviously Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark (original art) is one. There was also What Happened To Cass McBride?, a book about a girl who gets kidnapped and buried alive by a classmate. Shade's Children by Garth Nix was disturbing and gruesome.

But I think the biggest influence on me was Robert Cormier. His most well known book is The Chocolate War. His most influential books for me were After The First Death and The Rag and Bone Shop. Cormier's books made me realize there doesn't have to be a happy ending. Sometimes the story ends and everything is terrible. And I loved that.

I remember my dad reading the Hobbit and Heinlein juveniles to me. And then me reading them to him as I learned to read.

The Star Wars EU. Some of the very few English books I could get as a kid in the Philippines. Only grew my love of Star Wars.

I was actually into fantasy growing up but I'm not a fan now. I loved the Mercedes Lackey books with the talking horses and gryphons.

I have read exactly one Star Wars novel. I don't remember anything about it but that Darth Maul was on the cover. I think it was a book about him and I think I had a crush on him? Honestly not sure.

I grew up in the 90s, so mostly pre-prequels. I saw the OT for the first time when I was 7 and fell in love. We went overseas when I was 9. And it was hard to find English books (pre-internet stores). I loved reading. So I devoured everything I could, even crappy books like the Sweet Valley stuff. But the Star Wars EU was by far my favorite.

I actually didn't read Mercedes Lackey until I was an adult, but I do love her books.

Oh man, definitely in the same boat with Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark-- there were also some other short horror anthologies for younger readers, and for me also the works of Edgar Allan Poe, and Dean Koontz' Oddkins.

Dean Koontz was my next step when I got into my early teens. My favorites were Watchers (I still think about that poor monster), Phantoms, and The Door to December. I should really reread those some time. I wasn't much into Poe but I did have a collection of all his stories that I'd read occasionally.

In contrast, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is where I tapped out on horror. Just a bit creepy, in written form rather than on the screen.

I read a lot of magic books as a kid - a lot of the Ruth Chew books that had witches, magic, time travel.... And also Zilpha Keatly-Snyder (Black and Blue Magic & The Changeling were favorites). Anything with horses, heh. Also The Jungle Books, Just So Stories, and this huge book we had of dozens of collected fairy tales.

So that led me to seeking out and enjoying fantasy stuff - CJ Cherryh, Anne McCaffrey, Tanith Lee, modern retellings of fairy tales by, for instance, Emma Bull.... Also made me love the 80's trope of fairy coming into the 'real' world (Gossamer Axe, War for the Oaks, the Borderland series)....

I still really like fantasy stuff, but it's hard to find books that are enjoyable reading; I tend to re-read older things instead.

Did you ever read Briar Rose by Jane Yolen? It was a retelling of Snow White kind of set during the Holocaust.

Yes, I did. Jane Yolen is another author I really enjoyed. I need to see what the library has, I haven't read some of these books in a WHILE....

I had to read Z for Zachariah in school in the 1980s and it sent me hurtling towards a love of post apocalyptic fiction.

My love of mysteries came from Trixie Beldon, The Three Investigators, and Nancy Drew.

One that influenced my love of history and the Aztec culture (and possibly horror) was, oddly, a choose your own adventure book - The Mystery of the Maya. I got fascinated by human sacrifice lol

I also read Flowers in the Attic at a really young age, I would have been around nine I guess, and wow that was an eye opener lol but I think it gave me an appreciation for weird, twisted, stories where people are kinda fucked up and not very nice.

For horror there were some non-fiction ghost stories in a book that were very creepy. I can't remember the name of the book, I've been looking for it for years, I'm pretty sure it wasn't scary stories to tell in the dark though. But the ones I remember, there was one with a ghostly woman who walked through the grounds of some famous landmark and it had something to do with deja vu, one about a fighter pilot who was a ghost. But it gave me a love of ghost stories, and even now ghost stories are probably one of my fav types of horror.

I read Flowers in the Attic as a kid too. Seemed like nobody's parents knew what that was about.

I'm pretty sure most of my sense of humor comes from being autistic, but having Sideways Stories from Way Side School be a formative book for me certainly didn't help. There are dead rats living in the basement!

Omg!! Those books were amazing. Some other quirky books I loved were The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks and the Howliday Inn books.

I honestly didn't read much as a kid. I enjoyed Judy Blume books and still like that kind of hyper-realistic fiction. I was into R.L. Stein when those were popular and still love trashy suspense.

I think the first "classics" that floored me were the macabre short stories we read in 7th grade. The Lottery, Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Most Dangerous Game, The Yellow Wallpaper, etc. I still love suspenseful, grotesque stories, especially with unreliable narrators. Chuck Palahniuk is my favorite modern novelist of that genre. His book Diary is the only book I've ever had to put in the freezer because it unsettled me so badly lol.

I loved Judy Blume as a kid but it didn't really translate to adult me.

I'm not sure it was childhood books as much as early teen books but maybe there is a correlation?
In childhood:
The Bobbsey Twins
Trixie Belden
Alice In Wonderland
The Wizard of Oz
Black Beauty

In teens:
John Saul
Stephen King
V.C. Andrews

As an adult:
Patricia Cornwell
Sheri S. Tepper

My favourite genre is sci-fi but it can have other elements in it. I do enjoy thrillers and mysteries, too.

I loved all the Black Beauty books. I had a "horse book" phase growing up. Honestly, I'd probably read them as an adult but they are all romance or aimed at kids.

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[ SECRET POST #6738 ]

What childhood books shaped what you love to read today?

Re: What childhood books shaped what you love to read today?

Re: What childhood books shaped what you love to read today?

Re: What childhood books shaped what you love to read today?

Re: What childhood books shaped what you love to read today?

Re: What childhood books shaped what you love to read today?

Re: What childhood books shaped what you love to read today?

Re: What childhood books shaped what you love to read today?

Re: What childhood books shaped what you love to read today?

Re: What childhood books shaped what you love to read today?

Re: What childhood books shaped what you love to read today?

Re: What childhood books shaped what you love to read today?

Re: What childhood books shaped what you love to read today?

Re: What childhood books shaped what you love to read today?

Re: What childhood books shaped what you love to read today?

Re: What childhood books shaped what you love to read today?

Re: What childhood books shaped what you love to read today?

Re: What childhood books shaped what you love to read today?