But Seriously - Gateway Drugs

Star Wars totally counts as a gateway drug - a film, of course, but a gateway drug nonetheless.

I have heard plenty of anecdotal evidence about Harry Potter to be a believer.

Stats would be nice, of course.

As a parent of young uns, friend of parents with young uns, and a son to an English teacher who said her students picked it up and began reading other things, I can say that Harry Potter is a good example of a gateway.

My mother also shares the common posted opinion on this board of HP.

For me, it was Star Wars for Science Fiction and The Hobbit for fantasy. Point of fact, after The Hobbit, I went on to the Shannara series and then on from there. I can't tell you how many books I've read in genre - good and bad - since then.

The first real fantasy I read was Narnia. After that, I was a fantasy nut. Everyone has to start somewhere, after all. Basically any book can be a "gateway book" if it's the first someone has read in a particular genre. On the other hand, I've given up completely on some genres after reading one book. So it's a double-edged sword. It might make them want to read more, and it might not. Someone with good taste in other genres might judge fantasy harshly based on Eragon, where if they read a better, more mature book, they might get sucked in. It's all a crapshoot really.

As a parallel example, take a look at the anime Dragonball(or pokemon if you're more familiar with that. Same effect really). It was a huge gateway show for the anime genre/style of television. Kids liked it, and they moved on to like anime that most "real" fans consider to be high quality stuff. Other people found it hopelessly inane, and missed out on shows that are really quite good. I moved out of the DB novelty phase, and stopped watching anime for six years. If I hadn't happened on another anime show--which did lead to a continuing interest--while up late for no reason, I wouldn't be an anime fan, and I would have missed out on dozens of what I see as reasonably high quality shows. DB would have turned me off forever, after the novelty was gone.

The same thing could happen to the fantasy genre after a kid reads Eragon. On the other hand, plenty of people developed a continuing interest in anime after seeing DB, and I'm sure Eragon has had the same effect for many people in terms of fantasy. I might or might not have been one of them. It's pretty much random. You can't predict how it will turn out, or apply generalizations.

I agree that it goes both ways. I think that it's true that popular-but-maybe-not-particularly-well-written books can draw people in and get them reading other better things. And that's all good, obviously. And also those same books keep money coming into publishers so they can bring out the more risky and more original books which they are less likely to make massive profits from. However, it's also true that those books are going to convert more people to the fantasy-and-sf-are-drivel school of thinking. And often the people they convert to that school of thinking are smart readers who would probably give fantasy/sf a chance if they'd picked up a book with a bit more literary merit and been introduced to the genre by that instead.

I think Harry Potter is an example of a good gateway. The question for me is why it has to be particular-books-which-I-won't-name which also get to be the gateway. I mean, there are dozens of books equally if not more accessible that deserve to be the gateway a great deal more than... certain other books do.

My first fantasy was Margaret Mahy, C. S. Lewis and a series by Jill Murphy called The Worst Witch, about a girl at a boarding school for witches. Go figure.

My gateway sci-fi books were Wells and Verne, and then Cricthon's Andromedia Strain, and then I read the Star Wars novelization and its first sequel A Splinter of the Mind's Eye."

My gateway to fantasy was problably Edar Rice Burroughs...

My gateway drug was an old book of Arthurian tales. *sigh* Followed by Narnia and Tolkien.

I gave my son The Hobbit to read when he was eight - it remains his favourite book and fantasy is pretty much all he wants to read, with the occasional sci fi thrown in ( as long as there are lasers and they blow stuff up ofc!) He wasn't overly keen on Harry Potter.

Smiling Ted said:

Whenever there's a book (particularly an occult or F/SF book) that's lousy but popular, one thing we often hear is "at least it gets them reading."

But is that really true?
Has anyone ever done a study - or does anyone have anecdotal evidence - that a book, like, say, a Stars Wars novelization has actually encouraged someone to read other, better work?

(Notice how I never mentioned books that start with "E" or "T"!)

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As I child I read everything in the Children's section and eventually I read about Robin Hood and from there the rest of Fantasy followed with Andre Norton's The Time Traders being a revelation for me.

Yup, I concur with the whole "read crap and then get into the real stuff". I've read a lot of crap sf/f in my time. Now, I still read some crap, but more often, I pick the great stuff.

And sometimes you get back into the crap when you get sick of the intellectual effort of reading good things.

Like candy for the brain. It rots, but sometimes it just tastes good.

I think for someone who is not familiar with books in general, it would be an excelent gate way drug. (E&T) I had a friend who was not much of a reader read Errrr...oh the name is gone, and ask me what else was good. I put him on Martin, Asimov, and Jordan.

But what I don't get is when someone downgrades to the crap. My mom own all of terry goodkind's books, and has read them all along with Martin and a few others. She's working her way through twhy thats an annoying light, keeps flickering.


I think if it was a person who had read something for a long time, Like say a western buff who just hadn't really fallen into fantasy were to read it, It was be a turn off. (Too many comas there) As they would be like, "Eww, this sucks." and would never pick up another fantasy again. THE END.

I think you have to have a genetic predisposition toward the format.

For instance, having been forced to read Pride and Prejudice did not lead me into a long torrid affair with victorian-era romance novels.

But I read The Lion, the Witch, and Wardrobe, and within two years I'd read the entire Chronicles, Lord of the Rings, Dune, and was well along my path to sci-fi/fantasy addiction.

**Laughing**

So ashamed to admit mine . . . and it's not strictly SF/F so I'm not even sure I'm allowed in this thread, but my gateway to great literature was . . . VC Andrews.

Oh, God, I shudder now, but when I was like 11, I couldn't put that s*it down.

Apparently, she did write some sci-fi before Flowers in the Attic that was deemed unpublishable at the time. Rumor has it you can get it as an e-book somewhere . . . I'm still looking in the hopes that it will be crap-tastic!

dclary said:

For instance, having been forced to read Pride and Prejudice did not lead me into a long torrid affair with victorian-era romance novels.

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I've always thought that this was a major failing on many schools' parts: they force kids to read particular books, mostly THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, KES, TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD, and GREAT EXPECTATIONS.

Whilst there is nothing wrong with those books (they are all regarded as classics), imagine that one of them is the first book you've ever read. Bit heavy going, don't you think? Now imagine that you have to write an essay about it and analyse the characters and plot, and interpret subtle imaginary and what the author was saying... ugh.

I know quite a lot of people who have been put off reading completely because they are left with a perception that books are boring.

Gaah, i hate the breaking stuff down like that.

I loved To kill a mocking bird, but my teacher (oh that was an awful year) thought i hated it and had barely read it because of how bad my analisis was.

I didn't do too bad of a job breaking down 1984 though. *shudders* We're reading lord of the flies next, I really do hope it gets better as you get older like yall said it does. I read it in the sixth grade (for fun actually) and hated it. Couldn't stop though.

I think that things like Twilight can be a gateway. Harry Potter is a completely fine fantasy in itself, it doesn't need to be a gateway at all. Twilight can be a gateway to it.

Tolkien was a literary god. Yes, he was better than Lewis (It had to be said). If a kid has graduated to reading his words, they are officially addicted to fantasy. One of the few addictions we should support.

-Travis

Reading R.A. Salvatore got me into the Science Fiction section where I found lots of other goodies like LeGuin, Kate Elliot, and Ralph Scott Bakker.

So I think there might be hope in this 'Gateway Drug' thing after all.

The T thing you have not mentioned might not help so much, though, as it is classed in the YA section, where there's a lot of not-so-good mixed in with the brilliant.

I just remembered, that in my O level ( age 16 exam in the UK) in English Lit we were asked to analyse a favourite author. Douglas Adams got me a pass

Hehe... for a similar test in my high school, I used a little-known Heinlein novel, in the hopes that the proctor would not have read it, and therefore could not determine if my analysis was accurate or not.

It's difficult for me to pinpoint which books helped to begin my interest in reading, because I know I read a number of books of my own choosing (that is, books that -weren't- required reading in school) before the novels I can actually recall reading. I remember being rather fond of Greek mythology when I was young. I often got illustrated books of the gods and goddesses, which also came with stories.

I never read movie novelizations of Star Wars, but I did read books in the Expanded Universe. I absolutely give credit to Star Wars as my entry into sci-fi. My love of fantasy was ignited by His Dark Materials.

The trouble with my own anecdotes is that I believe I had a disposition towards reading for as long as I can remember, and thus never had any trouble reading, other than the fact that I could be terribly picky when I had a particular obsession (for a while, it was characters with psychic abilities, and I only wanted to read books with these sorts of characters).

My love of reading still couldn't improve my reception of Great Expectations. It was one of the most laborious, painful reads I've had.

My love of reading still couldn't improve my reception of Great Expectations. It was one of the most laborious, painful reads I've had.

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I loved Great Expectations actually, it even had me laughing out loud. Then again, I think the Victorians are kind of an acquired taste. I think Jane Eyre was my gateway drug on them, if you're interested.

There's nothing wrong with analysing stuff, I spent four years studying literature doing exactly that. But I think a lot of the time in schools the classics are taught too badly, too early or both. It doesn't do them justice.

I didn't say there was anything wrong with analysing, but analysing the way you get taught in highschool.

Its just so under explained when the lay the foundation, so you get a crumbly foundation. Then your next teachers confuse you by building on the foundation without expections of said foundation.

I remember the old books that got me into sci-fi... I shutter (edit: and shudder!) when I remember how bad they were.

With my sister, she read lord of the rings ten times I think before she moved onto other works. Easy in our parent's house because it was practically wall-to-wall books. When she was 15 though, a friend of hers of the same age was surprised that my sister read the entire Harry Potter series. Her parents never read and after she tried out HP, from what I hear it opened a whole new world to her.

Shutter, huh?