Quote from: Eric Diaz on April 08, 2022, 04:38:50 PM
LeGuin is another favorite and, nowadays, I definitely feel CAS* should be in the appendix N (bot are on Moldvay's appendix BTW!)

I love the Earthsea books but have no idea how I'd use that world in an RPG.  It seems much better suited to literature than games.

Quote from: Pat on April 08, 2022, 04:50:12 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on April 08, 2022, 04:44:33 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on April 07, 2022, 10:29:56 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 07, 2022, 10:14:17 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on April 07, 2022, 09:29:53 AM

Quote from: Mishihari on April 07, 2022, 05:15:40 AM
-   Glen Cook - The Black Company books – I could probably just stop here, but I won't

I have to say that I thought the first Black Company book sucked. The way it was written just wasn't at all enjoyable. However, I read it as the first part of a compiled "Chronicles" book, and the second and third stories get better.

The writing of the Black Company books improve as the series continues.

Pat and I agree on something...?

I'm battening down the hatches for the apocalypse now ...

On topic, while I agree that Cook has gotten better over time, the original Black Company is still my favorite.  Part of that I'm sure is that it was my first exposure to the author's writing, so it was fresh, but I also like the episodic nature of the book, much like Lieber's work.  There were a few things that  bugged me, but on about my tenth read-through I realized that clever things were being done with the unreliable narrator technique and it all made sense.

Raven in particular.

Yes Raven, but Croaker is the one that bothered me for a long time.  He shifts loyalties from Soulcatcher to Lady about halfway through the book with very little groundwork laid about why he would want to do so.  In retrospect it's obvious to me that Soulcatcher used a glamour on him and likely Lady as well.  We never read about it because he either doesn't realize it at the time or he doesn't want to put it down in the Annals.

Quote from: Mishihari on April 08, 2022, 04:35:16 PM
Any recommendations of Anderson's fantasy books?  I've read Operation Chaos and Three Hearts and Three Lions, but that's about it.  I thought he was primarily an SF author - I've read every Poleseotechnic League and Dominic Flandry book I could find.

Well, depends on taste.  I like the dark age fantasy stuff the best, which is strange because I don't usually enjoy fiction that dark (no pun intended).  Maybe because its very dark, but not gratuitously dark?   "The Kingdom of Ys" books don't pull any punches.  I'd compare it most closely to the Bernard Cromwell books mentioned by others above, with the exception that Cromwell writes similar ideas as fantasy historical fiction, whereas Anderson is telling you a saga. "Mother of Kings" is along the same lines. Same kind of story as Cromwell, completely different style.

Note that you can get the Ys books in one volume, which makes a lot of sense because it is all one complete story, not a really a series.  The gods are pissed, you can see it coming, some of the characters can see it coming, but they are going to keep marching right into it, because their nature won't allow them any other course.

He is primarily a sci/fi writer, but stories like "The Dancer from Atlantis" has that same mystical slant.  Or maybe it is that so many of his stories have a strong element of "fate" in them, that even the sci/fi feels different.

I think some of the funniest things Anderson wrote were parodies or commentaries.  His "Barbarian" is a send up of Conan writing which I quite enjoyed, despite appreciating the Conan stories too.  (In fairness, I think it was aimed more at L Sprague de Camp, who probably had it coming, not just for his Conan work.)   See also Uncleftish Beholding, a physics essay written in "pure English". 

Quote from: Mishihari on April 08, 2022, 04:32:15 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 07, 2022, 05:40:57 AM
I'm primarily into hard science fiction, so my games are heavily influenced by CJ Cherryh, Arthur C. Clarke, George Alec Effinger,  Robert A. Heinlein, Larry Niven, H. Beam Piper, Jerry Pournelle, Aleister Reynolds, John Scalzi (only his Old Man's War stuff), and Allen Steele.

For science fantasy games there are a plethora of Star Wars authors but especially Timothy Zahn, Michael Stackpole, Alan D. Foster, Karen Traviss, Alexander Freed, and Kevin Anderson.

I think it's really interesting that literature can inspire how we want our games to play even if it's in a totally different genre.    From your list, I'm, also a fan of Niven, Pournelle, Zahn, Foster, and some Cherryh (I either love or hate her books, and it's about 50/50)  I should check out some of the others.  I've been looking for some new authors to read and having a great deal of difficulty with Sturgeon's law.

A short list you may want to sample.

Alastair Reynolds - The Prefect
Allen Steele - Chronospace
H. Beam Piper - Little Fuzzy (free on Project Gutenburg)

Quote from: Mishihari on April 08, 2022, 05:01:33 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on April 08, 2022, 04:45:47 PM
Had never heard of CJ Cherryh before. Where to start?

My favorite is The Paladin, a pseudohistoircal book, followed closely by the Cyteen books.  I like the Chanur books primarily for their depiction of alien races, which I consider to be the best I've seen.  The Morgaine and Faded Sun books are popular, but i could never get into them.  Some others, like the Foreigner series and Merchanter's luck I just found tedious.

Thanks!

Quote from: Mishihari on April 08, 2022, 05:05:08 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on April 08, 2022, 04:38:50 PM
LeGuin is another favorite and, nowadays, I definitely feel CAS* should be in the appendix N (bot are on Moldvay's appendix BTW!)

I love the Earthsea books but have no idea how I'd use that world in an RPG.  It seems much better suited to literature than games.

Fair enough. Although I like the idea of true names etc.

Quote from: Mishihari on April 08, 2022, 04:35:16 PM
Any recommendations of Anderson's fantasy books?  I've read Operation Chaos and Three Hearts and Three Lions, but that's about it.  I thought he was primarily an SF author - I've read every Poleseotechnic League and Dominic Flandry book I could find.

The Broken Sword is great and dark.
The High Crusade is great and light (though not 100% fantasy, it's close enough)

Quote from: Eric Diaz on April 08, 2022, 06:08:26 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on April 08, 2022, 05:01:33 PM
I love the Earthsea books but have no idea how I'd use that world in an RPG.  It seems much better suited to literature than games.

Fair enough. Although I like the idea of true names etc.

That, and the Archipelago setting.

Quote from: Zalman on April 08, 2022, 07:27:52 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on April 08, 2022, 06:08:26 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on April 08, 2022, 05:01:33 PM
I love the Earthsea books but have no idea how I'd use that world in an RPG.  It seems much better suited to literature than games.

Fair enough. Although I like the idea of true names etc.

That, and the Archipelago setting.

Dragon Quest has a Naming college of magic inspired directly from Earthsea.  Within DQ, it is done fairly well for what it is, but is still somewhat of a special case.  It wouldn't fit in every DQ game, because the presence of the college has a strong effect on the whole magic system.  There are rules for using different levels of true names.  Specific true names are hard to get, because once you get one magic flips from iffy proposition to the target is likely toast.  Also, namers are the ultimately counterspell/dispel experts in a system where magic is otherwise very difficult to remove.  Someone curses you, for example, the only way to get rid of it is to convince the original caster to remove it, find a more powerful caster with the same spell to do so, find an immensely powerful being (e.g. dragon or extra planar) to do it, or get help from a namer.  So you get fairy tell outcomes where the princess is put to sleep for years.

My personal Appendix N, in no particular order, would probably look something like this:

- Dune
- The Lord of the Rings
- Various Bernard Cornwell books
- Leigh Brackett's Skaith Trilogy
- Robert E Howard's work in general
- John Carter of Mars (first three books)
- Wulfhere
- The Broken Sword
- The Book of the New Sun
- Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique Cycle

Quote from: Arkansan on April 09, 2022, 08:10:40 AM
- Wulfhere

I had heard of the Mercian king, but not the book. Based on the rest of your list it's worth checking out, and DMR Books looks like a publisher to watch.

Quote from: Zalman on April 09, 2022, 10:34:36 AM

Quote from: Arkansan on April 09, 2022, 08:10:40 AM
- Wulfhere

I had heard of the Mercian king, but not the book. Based on the rest of your list it's worth checking out, and DMR Books looks like a publisher to watch.

It's nothing revolutionary but it's a very solid historical adventure set in a time period that just begs for that sort of treatment. A lot of fun really. DMR books has all kinds of stuff if you dig pulp, great little publisher. I'll recommend their "Eye of Sounnu" short story collection as well, lots of good stuff in there.

Quote from: Mishihari on April 08, 2022, 04:51:52 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on April 07, 2022, 11:52:26 AM
   The Sanctuary anthologies
    REH Conan
    The hobbit
    The chapter from The Fellowship of the Ring "The Bridge of Khazad Dum"
    Eisenhorn series
    Ravenor   series

The last two are not pure medieval fantasy in the classic sense, but the "party" consisting of specific specialists, the feudal background, the literal adventures they go on massing loot and knowledge (and not sure if it was intentional or not, but the literal growth in actual power of both title characters, as if they "leveled up"). 

Sanctuary is a great inspiration for very low fantasy. I thought it was funny that Asprin's stories (IMO of course) were a lot better than those of the more established authors that he invited to contribute to his anthologies.

   I am not sure I can say it is low fantasy, at least not the setting.   I think many stories are presented as such, but they are along with stories where some pretty powerful, and obviously supernatural characters are conflicted with relationships with people who are much more vulnerable.  I think many of the stories are low fantasy, but the setting it self seems to certainly have open displays of high powered magic (there are mentions of battlefields where mages are letting loose all sorts of crazy fireworks) as well as a few situations where wizards are angry or about to face off.  I think it does a great job of showing us the point of view of some very mundane people who live in a world where they know the supernatural is real, but it is hard to know what exists or does not exist. 

   The amount of magic, in many ways is probably close to what Gygax would present as a campaign for his characters.   The thing is, Sanctuary is told from the perspective of Inn keeper #2, or Blacksmith Carboard cutout #2,  Masked crimelord, random guardsman's perspective, etc.      I think about the only character presented as more or less a PC is maybe Hanse Shadowspawn, because he sure as hell levels up like a PC.

   I agree Asprin's stories are certainly the gems in the group.  Very good at developing characters, and it is obvious lots of times when his characters are used in other people's stories.

  I've been on a steady diet of History books for the last three decades... but when i read non-fiction more
voraciously than now the list was something like... 

-Michael Moorcock, the Elric and Hawkmoon books in particular.

-Roger Zelazny's Amber books (read 'em all many, many times)

-J.R.R. Tolkien, pretty much everything from The Hobbit to Leaf by Niggle...

-the Old Time Life Books Enchanted World Series (mined dozens of gaming ideas from these books)

-Jim Fitzpatrick's "The Book of Conquests" as well... i designed a whole campaign around it in 1986.

-Robert Asprin's Thieves' World books...

-Fritz Lieber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories...

-HP Lovecraft would be another obvious inclusion.  (and Call of Cthulhu was always one of our favorites)

-David Eddings' books as well, which i actually rather liked back in the day.

-Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur"  (and even before that i'd been known to check out the transcript of the
"Camelot" musical from the library to get my Arthurian legends fix back when i first started playing in 4th grade)

-A HOST of old children's books i grew up with (such as the Collier's Junior Classics series) had entire
volumes of Faerie tales and Myths (mostly Norse and Greco-Roman, though some had tales from other Mythos)
Kevin Crossly Holland's "The Norse Myths" was one of my particular favorites.

   Those would be among the ones that inspired some of the games i actually acquired post-D&D which
i'd started playing before i'd read much fantasy, apart from the Hobbit and various Mythology books (which i
loved reading as a kid) and the books that i liked best and stuck with me all the way to the present day.

   I read the Dragonriders of Pern, Pratchett's Diskworld books and the Conan books too late to have made the
cut (i was already on Warhammer by then, which was the last game i got into before a long hiatus from RPGs)

   And therefore, i see no need to admit to ever reading Piers Anthony, Terry Brooks, or all the times i tried
(and failed) to make it through the "Thomas Covenant" books.

Oops.

Mentioned in prior Appendix N posts, but Lawrence Watt-Evans's Ethshar novels are pretty solid as well.

I've got a few Appendix N's, depending on which game it is.