[rkomar]

When I was young, I was a very outdoorsy kind of person, and dreamed of one day being either a forest ranger or in the military. But I had an aptitude for math and the physical sciences, and ended up deciding in my very last year of high school to go to university and study science instead. In retrospect, I have to think that "Tom Swift Jr. and the Race to the Moon" was secretly moving me in that direction for many years. It wasn't just one of my favourite books as a youngster, it made me passionate for physics, and changed my life when I got to that crossroads.

P.S. I'm not so sure it shaped me as much as illuminated what was important. But maybe there isn't much difference when you're young and impressionable.