Just an idea that I had browsing through these boards...
RL players are often regarded as the *intellectuals*, or better the bookwyrms of the AD&D community, as they are supposed get their inspirations not by reading fantasy mainstream novels, but are said to seek for better - acquainted literature (well, if the fantastic and horror literature of last three centuries can be regarded as such). But is this true?
What do you, players, DMs and developers store in your bookshelves?
Which are your favourite books?
*I hope you can forgive me my curiousity, but I personally never touched a horror novel besides the old classics and I really want to know if it's true most RL fans are so devoted to gothic style as it may seem at a first glance.*
To start, the most appreaciated books in my posession are:
* Musashi, by Eiji Yoshikawa, an adaption of Japan's most popular samurai myth
* Ivanhoe, by Walter Scott
* The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco, mocking on medieval murder mysteries
*...and dozens of others I cannot think of right now* ;)
Would be interesting how/if what you read had an influence on your work as DM or developer or on your player characters!
I am currently reading A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Buroughs as brain candy before going to sleep (a chapter a night) and Collapse: Why Civilizations Fail by Jared Diamond - a history/science book that is something of a companion to his last (and better known book) Guns Germs and Steel (which explains why the Western World "exploded and conquered the rest of the world starting in 1500).
Here is some of my favorite authors that have influence my thinking and/or gaming. Sorted by Catagory but otherwise in no particular order.
HISTORY (these picks are some of my must haves for world building):
The Discovers (Boorstein).
A Medeaval City (Geis).
The Pursuit of Power (McNeil - OOP) or The Rise and Fall of Great Powers (Kenedy).
Guns Germs & Steel (Diamond - found in science not history oddly enough).
White City (Larsen - storry of the Columbian Exposition of 1894 in Chicago and the concurent serial killings by H.H. Holmes)
Life Under the Black Flag (??? - great book on Pirates)
MYSTERY (Great for lifting Plots)
Murder on the Oriental Express (Agatha Christy also Ten Little Indians).
Gaudy Night (Dorthy Sayers).
Death is a Lonely Business (Ray Bradbury)
HORROR (self explanitory)
Dracula (Stoker - the best example of the Gothic horror storry).
Frankenstein (Shelley - its a little slow for me but still powerful).
The Strange Case of Dr Jeckle & Mr. Hyde (Stevenson).
Song of Kali (Dan Simmons, one of the better contemporary pieces).
The Mist (Stephen King - a very good novella from an author I often dislike).
Short Storries of H.P. Lovecraft. For RL particulary Pickman's Model, also anything that takes place in Innsmouth translates fairly well to Mordent.
Telltale Heart (Edgar A. Poe and other stories)
FANTASY (many of these have tenuous links to RL type thinking)
The Hobbit & The Lord of Rings (Tolkien).
The Lions of Al-Rassan (Guy Kay, conflicting religions, shifting alliances) also Tiganna (and several other works).
The Dark Comapny Series (Glen Cook, this does inspire some RL thought. High dark fantasy from the pawns point of view. Not a bad approximation for thinking how PCs ought to feel when caught between the machinations of Stradh and Azalin. Later books of the South could tie in to Sri Raj).
The One Kingdom & The Isle of Battle (Sean Russel)
The Wheel of Time Series (Robert Jordan)
The Sheepfarmers Daughter (Elizabeth Moon).
Beauty (Sheri Tepper)
Nine Princess in Amber (Roger Zelazny)
SCIENCE FICTION
The Demolished Man (Bester - fabulous storry how a "normal" man gets away with committing murder in a world of telepathic cops. Has clear parallells to beating spellcastinger justice-seekers).
The Forever War (Haldeman - alienation from society among other themes).
The Humanoids (Jack Williams - robots take over for humaniy's own good).
The Illustated Man & Golden Apples of the Sun (Ray Bradbury - often disturbing short storries, many of wich slide into horror).
Hyperion & Fall of Hyperion (Dan Simmons - again).
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Heinlen).
Dune (Herbert)
The Dispossessed (Le Guin).
Island of Dr. Moreau & The Invisible Man (H.G. Wells)
Sideshow & The Gate to Women's Country (Sherri Tepper)
GENERAL FICTION/LITERATURE
Ivanhoe (Scott).
The Agony and the Exctasy (Stone - fictionalization of the life of Michaelangelo).
Brave New World (Huxley - should be sci-fi. Distopia. IMO the book on this list most people are in the most need of reading).
Atlas Shrugged (Rand, collapse of the civilized world through mediocraty)
Animal Farm (H.G. Wells)
Wuthering Heights (Bronte - probably literature rather than horror but is a good ghost storry).
The Monkey Wrench Gang (Abbey).
Huckleberry Finn (Twain - see also Tom Sawyer, Detective for some RL/MotRD inspiration).
The Count of Monte Christo (Dumas).
Illiad & Odessy (Homer).
The Metamorphasis (Kafka).
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Kundera).
Flashman (George Frasier - for MotRD set a little earlier plus damn funny).
Sharpe's Rifles (Bernard Cornwell - the peninsular war against Napoleon).
OTHER
Meno & Protagorius (Plato on what is virtue & can it be taught. Short and very readable. Also the Republic which is longer and more difficult).
Politics of Great nations (Morgantheau).
Percpetions and Misperceptions in Politics (Jervis).
The Captive Mind (??? Life under the iron Curtain).
1001 Nights (the Arabian Nights).
Greek & Norse Mythology.
There must be more like the Quicksilver/Confusion/System of the world trilogy by Neal Stephenson but I can't come up with more at the momment. Then again my list isn't short as it stands already....
-Eric Gorman
1. The Prince, by Niccolo Machivelli
2. Moby Dick (and Bartleby the Scrivner) by Herman Melville
3. Nostromo, Heart of Darkness, and the Sea Wolf, by Joseph Conrad
4. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
5. Chronicles of an Age of Darkness (10 books) by Hugh Cook
(published 4 books in the U.S. as Wizard War series)
6. 1984, Orwell (and an excellent rewrite of the book for our generation
"2024", by Ted Rall) also Down and Out in Paris and London.
7. How the Irish Saved Western Civilization
8. Little Fuzzy series and the Paratime stories by H. Beam Piper
(Excellent Sci - Fi)
9. The Gulag Archipelago, by Solitnezen (spelled wrong)
10. David Copperfield, Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
11. Breakfast of Champions, Hocus Pocus, The Sirtens of Titan, Slaughter
House Five, Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut.
(My favorites of his books)
12. Catch - 22 and Something Happened, by Joseph Heller
(Don't bother with anything else by him)
13. I am Legend, by Matheson
(My favorite Vampire Novel, also check out the film The Last Man on
Earth for a good adaptation, and not the Omega Man)
14. The Man in the High Tower (author escapes me for the moment)
15. The Trial, by Kafka.
16. Tales of the Flat Earth, by Tanith Lee (Really different fantasy
War of the world by HG wells - Great for gothic earth!
As are the two league of extraordinary gentlemen graphic novels.
(Not the film however).
drachenfels, genevieve undead, beasts in velvet and silver nails by jack jeovil (aka Kim Newman).
Witchhunter -CL Werner.
Very dark and grim warhammer novels - drachenfels would make an excellent domain lord and the nasty surprises in his castle have been well used in many a darklords lair.
Anno dracula, the bloody red baron and tears in velvet -kim newman.
Anno Dracula could be set in Paridon rather than London.
Anything by HP lovecraft.
The castle of otranto - Horace walpole.
the lair of the white wyrm - Stevenson
What do I store on my bookshelves? these will be broad topic headings as I own a Library
Archaeology, Anthropology, History, music, religion, infact it would probably be easier to list what I am currently reading
History of the fourteenth Centuary, Going Postal (Pratchett), Sound and Acoustic design then theres d20 books of which I spend far too much money on
Terry Brooks''s shannarah series, What If? Steam technology Vol III've just finished "I am Legend" and "Two Swords", and I'm reading Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams" and Julio Cortazar's "Rayuela". (yes, I'm eclectic :P )
I really like Jorge Luis Borges, Michael Ende and Gibran Khalil Gibran. Their stories are great imagination sparkers.
As nobody has mentioned Holdstock's Mythago Wood, I do.
There are many books on my shelves. Many of them are in Art History, particularly in Italian Renaissance. I'm so pleased to see alot of non-fiction readers here!
The books on my shelves are constantly rotating. Some of the recent books that have crossed my bookends are:
The Eight
The Alienist
Ghost Riders
House of the Scorpion
The Bourne Supremacy
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 2
Kit's Wilderness
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Some of the books above are considered adolescent fiction. That's because I'm a school teacher by trade, and I'm always trying to keep up with the kids. By the way, I can't recommend Kit's Wilderness enough. Creepy, inspiring, and thoughtful. You can easily read it in a day, too.
Commonly referenced books in my house include:
Stephen King's Danse Macabre - This is my horror writer's bible. Whenever I run out of ideas, or the well is dry, I go back to this book.
Katherine Brigg's An Encyclopedia of Faeries - I picked this book up as research for Van Richten's Guide to the Shadow Fey. It was invaluable for that book, and now it serves as a great springboard place for horror ficiton.
The Lord of the Rings - This is another well I go to when my juice has run dry. I just pick up at a random section, begin reading, and fall in love with words again.
I'm a pretty big Neil Gaiman nut so there's always a selection of that prominently displayed along with some Douglas Adams, Grimms Fairy Tales, assorted cyberpunk (Gibson, Sterling, Stephenson), Arthur C. Clark, Bradbury, The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle (an underrated book in my opinion), David Eddings (my favourite bad author), Stephen King (my second fave bad author), Robert J. Sawyer and occasional classic. Being a recently graduated English Major I have assorted collections, anthologies, classics, etc coming out of all corners of my room. From Dickens to Mordechi Richler to Shakespeare.
Currently I'm reading A Tale of Two Cities for some undecernable reason. Following that I plan to read, in no particular order, The Coyote Kings of the Space Age Bachelor Pad by Minister Faust (local author slash radio host slash English teacher slash failed MP), Salamander by Thomas Wharton (another semi-local author only nationally acclaimed) and to round it out with a tad of non-fiction Naomi Klein’s No Logo.
I have a long list of future purchases that include America: The Book and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Sussana Clark.
Dracula (Bram Stoker)
Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)
The War of the Worlds (HG Wells)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wylde)
The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien)
The Silmarillion (JRR Tolkien)
Bitten, Stolen, Dime Store Magic & Industrial Magic (Kelley Armstrong)
The Warlord Chronicles (Bernard Cornwell)
Ring & Spiral (Koji Suzuki)
Drachenfels (I have the first print hardback signed by the author)
The Matewix (it deserved a mention)
Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (RL Stevenson)
Varney the Vampire
All the Sherlock Holmes stories (Sir Arthur Conan Doylle)
Lots of discworld.
Lots of Edgar Allan Poe.
For comics a few that spring to mind are:
Uzumaki
a.l.I.c.e
Akira
After School Adventure Valiant (the movie Volcano High was based on it)
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
From Hell
I would go on, but I won't.
Also, I have alot of books on magick, theology and history that I like, but won't mention these here either.
Some I find useful for Ravenloft, most not. When I'm in a Ravenloft-y mood, I try to catch up on the gothic classics. I have read and enjoyed Dracula, Frankenstein, Jekyl and Hyde, some Lovecraft, some Poe, and am currently "reading" the Picture of Dorian Grey (book on tape). I also enjoy Shakespeare quite a bit, and am trying to make my way through his complete works. (I've read or seen about half of his plays so far).Favorite books (Ravenloft related or not) include:
Hitchikers Guide series - Adams
Lord of the Rings - Tolkein
Dune series - Herbert
The Doomsday Book - Connie Willis
The Wheel of Time series - Jordan
The Wild Cards series - Martin, et al.
Ender's Game (and it's sequels) - Card
2001, Rama, Childhood's End - Clarke
Stranger in a Strange land, Moon is a harsh mistress, Number of the Beast, Starship Troopers - Heinlein
Misery, Thinner - Steven King
Vampire of the Mists - Christie Golden ;)
Harry Potter series - Rowling
Chronicles of Narnia - Lewis
Comics:
The Maxx
Mage: The Hero Discovered/Defined
several Batman and X-men titles
Books.... ahh books...those are the ones that DON'T come on dvd, right?
Oh, thats VHS you say.
Books i readeded
Stephen King: Everything's Eventual (Short story comp with a Gunslinger thrown in); The Stand; The Dark Tower
The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfeild
Old RL books (Tales, Tapestry of Dark Souls, Mordenheim etc)
Old VtM books (Red Death Trilogy)
Now are you sure video games arent just pretty books???
Oh and i like ravenloft, and i like goths, but i am not involved in the gothic lifestyle. I am a simple stoner. I do appreciate goth style, but thats as far as i go. I like reznor, but id listen to Durst over him. Durst. Poor crazy bastard.
Currently I'm reading A Tale of Two Cities for some undecernable reason.
Ha! By Dickens? I started reading it a couple of hours ago!
I am also highly devoted to comics. Anyone there who knows my favourite series Berserk, One Pound Gospel and of course Rurouni Kenshin?
Concerning Ravenloft, well I have a few horror books:
HP Lovecraft: 5 collections of shorts stories (8 each)
Frankenstein (Shelley)
Other books of interest:
Chrétien de Troyes: Lancelot, Yvain, Erec & Enide, Cligès, Percival
Lancelot in Prose
Roman de la Rose (XII century French novel)
Three Musketeers
Chanson de Roland
The Jerusalem Bible
Gilgamesh (3rd millenium BC mesopotamian book)
The rest is random history books bought for my studies. I mostly borrow books from the library.
To name a few…
Many of the Ravenloft novels of course (I’m still trying to track down a couple of them)
Almost every book by Stephen King and Clive Barker
A lot of Ann Rice
Tolken
A number of books from the Dragonlance series.
Hitchhikers guide series
Terry Brooks magic kingdom series
The Second Son by Charles Sailor (incredible book if you haven’t read it!!!)
Everything by Thomas Harris
A couple books by Crichton
Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawlking
The stepford wives
Ghost Story
Swan Song
Flowers in the Attic
The Harry Potter series
Wizard of Oz
Grimm’s Fairy Tails
H.G. Wells complete works
Dracula
Frankenstein
Fahrenheit 451
1984
Dilbert Future and Dilbert principle
And quite a few others… books of 19th century poetry and other antique books I’ve picked up here and there. And oh yes… the shelf for my kids with Dr Suess and all that good stuff…
"It", by S. King. Very RL-esque in my opinion.
"Those Who Hunt The Night" Don't remember the author, but a great tale of vamps/supernatural meets the real world.
The entire "Anita Blake Vampire Hunter" series by Laurel Hamilton
"The Fey" by Kristine Katherine Rusch
"Fall of the House of Usher", "Masque of the Red Death" by E.A. Poe
Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Algernon Blackwood: Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories
E.F. Benson: The Complete Ghost Stories of E.F. Benson
Bernard Cornwell: The Warlord Chronicles (Arthur) as well as anything else by him I can get my hands on
Arthur Conan Doyle: The Supernatural Tales of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Stories and Novels
Stewart Evans and Keith Skinner: The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Companion
Neil Gaiman: Neverwhere
Robert E. Howard: The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane
M.R. James: Casting the Runes and Other Ghost Stories
Robert Jordan: The Wheel of Time series
Arthur Machen: The Three Impostors and Other Stories, The White People and Other Stories
George R.R. Martin: A Song of Ice and Fire series
China Mieville: Perdido Street Station, The Scar
Tim Powers: The Anubis Gates
Iain Sinclair: Lud Heat and Suicide Bridge, White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings
Bram Stoker: Dracula, The Jewel of Seven Stars
Richard L. Tierney: The Scroll of Thoth (the Simon Magus short stories)
H.G. Wells: pretty much everything
John Wyndham: The Day of the Triffids
Outlaws of the Marsh
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Wasn't that a popular SNES video game, too? *Never thought that it had a book as base... Wasn't it about China?*
Has anyone ever tried to use the historical text *The voyage of Ibn Fadlan*, which was the base for the movie *The 13th Warrior* and *Beowulf* for RL?