When I was ten years old there was a book in my school library that caught my eye. I don’t remember the cover now, but the name will always stick out in my memory: Interstellar Pig by William Sleator.
The story involves a board game in which your goal is to hold on the the pig card by the end. By doing so, you can save your planet. However, it turns out to be more than just a board game and the characters themselves are caught up in it.
The book was fascinating to my young mind, with a fantastical story of aliens and an interstellar game played on a huge scale. The features of the game lent itself to interesting action sequences. The fact that it started as a board game, in the story, meant that the rules and motivations could be explained.
I may not be remembering certain elements correctly, but I still look back on that book with fondness.
Frank Ormond 
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I think my first sf was ‘Destination Universe!” by Van Vogt. I think I still have it 40 years later [1]. The first story starts with an exploration craft that is hundreds of years into its slow journey to a nearby star colliding with the regular fast speed commuter service. As a space saving exercise I did a massive clear out of my books a few years ago. My son looked through them and took ~90% of them. And he lives with me. [1] It might have been one of James Blish’s Star Trek adaptations.
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