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dustydigger
Posted 2015-03-16 12:38 PM (#9899 - in reply to #9895)
Subject: Re: The Definitive 1950s Reading Challenge
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I'm 67. I think I told how I had been reading Yeats poetry,and on the day I got my adult ticket,age 13,Bradbury's Golden Apples of the Sun caught my eye,and I got that out,plus Burroughs Princess of Mars,and after that devoured the rather small SF collection. Sf was not very available to a young girl in a small English town at that time,but I had always loved fantasy. The Narnia books,E Nesbit,the King Arthur stories ( I still remember the awesome feeling when a hand comes out of the water to take back Excalibur) I also loved fairy stories and mythology. Not for me books about ponies,or school life or soppy romance novels! .
In our teens everything we read is new and fresh and exciting. No matter how well written a book is today,it hasnt got that frisson we got then,alas.I saw little of proper SF before I was 13,but do remember loving Out of the Silent Planet when I was about 12. What did make an impression as a kid was Dan Dare,Pilot of the Future,the cover story weekly in a garish boys' comic,The Eagle.. I loved the evil alien villain,the Mekon,ruler of Venus. whom Dan had to fight every week. The artwork was exciting,and a certain young budding writer called Arthur C Clarke checked out the science side. Checking out Google Images today I realised I had forgotten how Dan Dare was portrayed exactly like a WWII fighter pilot,including the normal officer's cap! I must assume this was my first real contact with SF,and I recall Dan with great affection. It has also come back to me that there was a radio version. I can still remember the portentous voice announcing ''Dan Dare! Pilot of the Future!''
Wow! Just checked up,and that serial ended when I was about 8. Never realised how far back my love of SF went.

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