|
Post by geoffrey on Mar 1, 2011 14:27:03 GMT -6
If you were to recommend a single work of fiction for someone to read so he'd "get a feel for what D&D is like", what would it be?
Please note the following:
1. By a "single work" I mean a book of 300ish or fewer pages. The entire Lord of the Rings wouldn't count (though the Fellowship of the Ring would). The single-volume collection of all of Lovecraft's stories wouldn't count (though a collection of several of his stories would). Etc.
2. I'm not asking which is your favorite. I'm asking which one you think would best get across the feel of D&D.
3. Assume the person reading the book will play (or not play) D&D based on his evaluation of the book. Thus, you need not pick a Gord novel, or a Forgotten Realms novel, etc.
My recommendation will be in my next post.
|
|
|
Post by geoffrey on Mar 1, 2011 14:34:12 GMT -6
Here is my pick for the most D&Dish work of fiction:
Swords against Death by Fritz Leiber (251 pages)
This volume's ten tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser include some of the best:
"The Circle Curse" (1970) "The Jewels in the Forest" (1939) "Thieves' House" (1943) "The Bleak Shore" (1940) "The Howling Tower" (1941) "The Sunken Land" (1942) "The Seven Black Priests" (1953) "Claws from the Night" (1951) "The Price of Pain-Ease" (1970) "Bazaar of the Bizarre" (1963)
None of the above stories is more than 42 pages long.
|
|
|
Post by Finarvyn on Mar 1, 2011 14:40:42 GMT -6
That's a really tough question.
I'm not at home, so I don't have my library handy, but I would guess that either a Conan book (one of the actual REH ones, not the Carter-DeCamp version), a Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser book (probably the one you mentioned, since it has all of the earliest stories), or Tolkien's The Hobbit.
* The Conan stories give the feel of the warrior battling evil wizards. * F&tGM give the feel of the quest and the city adventure. * The Hobbit gives a feel for elves, dwarves, hobbits, dragons, wizards, and so on.
Hard to pick just one.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2011 15:09:13 GMT -6
While I can't disagree with anything involving Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, my pick is something a bit more recent (well, it was published in 1989). Elizabeth Moon's The Deed of Paksenarrion. The omnibus edition collects three novels into one massive tome. It follows a female paladin from her beginnings as a sheepfarmer's daughter through her training in a mercenary force to her freelancing as a blade for hire to her eventual selection by the gods as a paladin, outside of the system of paladin development. Quite an excellent read. You'll also recognize one of her quests to clear bandits from an old fort near an evil temple as being clearly inspired by T1. And she nails it. To further get you hooked, here is the first book, completely free to read at Baen Books.I've been pimping this book a lot recently.
|
|
|
Post by geoffrey on Mar 1, 2011 15:36:46 GMT -6
The omnibus edition collects three novels into one massive tome. Which of the three novels would you pick as the most D&Dish?
|
|
|
Post by harami2000 on Mar 1, 2011 15:58:54 GMT -6
3. Assume the person reading the book will play (or not play) D&D based on his evaluation of the book. Thus, you need not pick a Gord novel, or a Forgotten Realms novel, etc. ;D Well, since the usual suspects are already out in force (and like I could disagree with your choice, Geoffrey), I'll put in my 02c for SnarfQuest. ... or else slice out a few chapters from an appropriate longer volume and ask the reader to consider what happened (before and) next, since that's the game we're in.
|
|
|
Post by Professor P on Mar 1, 2011 15:59:21 GMT -6
Here is my pick for the most D&Dish work of fiction: Swords against Death by Fritz Leiber (251 pages) This volume's ten tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser include some of the best: "The Circle Curse" (1970) "The Jewels in the Forest" (1939) "Thieves' House" (1943) "The Bleak Shore" (1940) "The Howling Tower" (1941) "The Sunken Land" (1942) "The Seven Black Priests" (1953) "Claws from the Night" (1951) "The Price of Pain-Ease" (1970) "Bazaar of the Bizarre" (1963) None of the above stories is more than 42 pages long. While I have not read the last 3 stories, to me The Jewels in the Forest is basically a fully written module/adventure. It is simply an awesome read.
|
|
|
Post by Falconer on Mar 1, 2011 16:10:07 GMT -6
Slightly different list from Fin’s. I like SWORDS AGAINST DEATH and agree it’s the definitive Fafhrd/Mouser, which most closely resembles the form of D&D adventures. However, I haven’t ever really been able to get into Leiber’s writing style, and I would much rather take home the abundant flavor found in the following works:
1. THE HOBBIT - if I had to pick only one, it would be an agonizing choice, but ultimately, I could never choose any other book than this one. Wizards, dwarves, elves, hobbits, heroes, werebears, a dragon, treasure, Mirkwood, giant spiders, giant eagles, goblins, wargs, mountains, caves, tunnels, underground pools, magic rings, magic swords...
2. TALES OF THE DYING EARTH - a big omnibus, but if only the pre-1974 sections are read (The Dying Earth, The Eyes of the Overworld, and Morreion), that keeps it to around 300 pages. I most closely associate the Gygaxian flavor with this. Everything is weird, baroque, and loquacious, from the potions and magic items and spells to the creatures and inhabitants of every unique land and habitation.
3. THE COMING OF CONAN THE CIMMERIAN - also bigger than 300 pages technically, but not by much, if you discount the appendices and miscellanea. The essential Conan; I don’t think much more needs be said.
I didn’t list it since it is only tangentially related to D&D (whereas I think the above three are crucially related), but among all the great works of the imagination I would recommend UNDER THE MOONS OF MARS (omnibus of the first three Barsoom books) to anyone for any reason, before even most of the above list.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2011 23:13:11 GMT -6
"A Princess of Mars" by Burroughs. It's all there, humans, demi-humans (the red & green martians), humanoids (the white "apes"), monsters (apts, thoats, etc.). There is swashbuckling, dungeons ...
It's all there!
|
|
|
Post by xerxez on Apr 1, 2011 11:56:10 GMT -6
Just saw this thread.
I must say, I don't think any one work is completely ambient of D&D as it is an amalgamation of so many different modern authors, fairy tales, and world mythology.
If forced to pick, though, I would agree with Geoffrey that the particular tome by Fritz Lieber he mentions is the most evocative of D&D as it has normally been played.
Piers Anthony's "Xanth" works come to mind as well.
Problem with Lieber's works is, as I remember, no demi-humans or humanoids. If one added Elves, Dwarves and Halflings and the goblinoid races to Newhon you would have the essential D&D setting.
Middle earth is defiintely an alloy of the D&D compound but the books would not convey any sense of the game at all in my opinion.
|
|
|
Post by talysman on Apr 1, 2011 12:24:15 GMT -6
Re-visiting this thread makes me wonder: wouldn't Zelazny's Dilvish the d**ned anthology make a good introduction? It kind of reads like a two-player group playing D&D with the "you can play monsters, too" rule in place: one guy's a fighter, the other is a demonic horse/magic-user. Occasionally, another player sits in for one session to play a cleric (in "Ring the Bells of Shoredan") or some other character. The world is mostly human, but Dilvish actually has a tiny bit of elven blood. Spells are pretty restrained and easy to read into the Vancian system -- except maybe the Awful Sayings of Hell, but those are all so dangerous, we only see one used in the entire anthology; consider them a parallel magic system with special rules. Magic is powerful but rare: there's only one magic weapon and one set of magic armor, and the weapon is probably +1.
And best yet, they're very episodic. Dilvish has a goal (kill Jelerak,) but most of the stories are about unrelated adventures he has along the way (killing a vampire, getting caught in the middle of a magic-user duel.) It's a reasonable alternative to Lieber.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2011 9:16:15 GMT -6
Re-visiting this thread makes me wonder: wouldn't Zelazny's Dilvish the d**ned anthology make a good introduction? My all-time favorite character! Pity that Zelazny only wrote two books about Dilvish. 1. Dilvish, The d**ned (the aforementioned anthology) 2. The Changing Land (a full-length novel) It's worth noting that Zelazny wrote several of the Dilvish short stories for the T&T magazine Sorcerer's Apprentice. Not "pulp" in any way, but at least gamer fiction. (Sorta)
|
|
|
Post by foxroe on Apr 2, 2011 19:42:54 GMT -6
"A Princess of Mars" by Burroughs. It's all there, humans, demi-humans (the red & green martians), humanoids (the white "apes"), monsters (apts, thoats, etc.). There is swashbuckling, dungeons ... It's all there! +1... though F&GM and Tolkien are very D&D. That's right... I said Tolkien.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2012 20:00:06 GMT -6
Just a short story: Red Nails. (Conan by Howard.) I read it about eight years ago and it summed up D&D for me, in a good way. If I had to say a longer volume, I'd definitely say The Hobbit. PS: Scary moment--I'm new to the forum and the top of this post page actually says "Topic: the ONE fiction volume to explain D&D? (Read 352 times)" and I thought "Geez, these guys take their source material pretty seriously...."
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2012 20:26:14 GMT -6
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2012 22:41:07 GMT -6
"The Dying Earth" by Jack Vance.
Memorize and fire and forget type magic, scoundrels and mountebanks galore, and an entire world full of weird magic and creatures that will F*** YOUR S*** UP FOR NO GOOD REASON! Like, at least half the magic items you find are cursed.
|
|
|
Post by warrioroffrobozz on Feb 28, 2012 14:57:26 GMT -6
I'd recommend The Hobbit. It has all the standard races and treasure, although there's not alot of combat. Conan doesn't work, since Magic Is Almost Always Evil, unless you're running Carcosa.
|
|
|
Post by kesher on Feb 28, 2012 16:20:14 GMT -6
Is there a way to combine The Hobbit and The Dying Earth without causing a rift in spacetime?
|
|
|
Post by cadriel on Feb 28, 2012 16:37:37 GMT -6
I'll go out of the main stream and pick Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. It has a D&D paladin, a swanmay, a D&D dwarf, a D&D troll, and the dragon functions pretty much like you expect the D&D versions to function. It has Lawful and Chaotic alignment, holy swords, the whole kit and kaboodle. Sure it's more supplements D&D than 3LB D&D, but strictly speaking 3LB has scant literary antecedents aside from Tolkien.
Permitted to craft a single volume, I'd probably pick...."The Jewels of Gwahlur" by Howard, "Turjan of Miir" from the first Dying Earth volume, "The Jewels in the Forest" by Leiber, the middle part of The Hobbit (the caves, the forest, etc), and as much of Three Hearts and Three Lions as I could fit in the rest.
|
|
|
Post by derv on Jun 12, 2012 15:33:18 GMT -6
I'm going with The Hobbit. Only because I was heavily influenced by the 1977 animated movie which shaped the way I viewed the game the first time I played. It sealed it, when I thumbed through the AD&D PHB and saw David Trampier's Magic Mouth illustration.
|
|
|
Post by ritt on Nov 16, 2013 15:34:51 GMT -6
I'll go out of the main stream and pick Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. It has a D&D paladin, a swanmay, a D&D dwarf, a D&D troll, and the dragon functions pretty much like you expect the D&D versions to function. It has Lawful and Chaotic alignment, holy swords, the whole kit and kaboodle. Sure it's more supplements D&D than 3LB D&D, but strictly speaking 3LB has scant literary antecedents aside from Tolkien. I picked up this criminally underrated novel about six months ago at my Midwestern small-town summer festival's library sale along with about 40 other vintage 60's & 70's fantasy and sword & planet paperbacks. I just read it and was amazed. In addition to being a good, ahead-of-it's-time fantasy in it's own right I was astonished at just how much D&D borrowed from it (Although as you point out most of these borrowings came with the supplements, not 3LB).
|
|
|
Post by talysman on Nov 16, 2013 16:26:18 GMT -6
I still haven't read Three Hearts and Three Lions ... Have never even seen a copy in person. But I don't feel cheated, because I've read Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos, which I think in a pinch could serve as a one-volume intro to D&D. It has:
...Law/Chaos ...spells that can be studied (in college!) ...witches and magicians ...werewolves ...mention of unicorns and vampires ...geas spells! ...an efreet ...elementals (the fire elemental is called a salamander) ...clerics, good AND evil ...magic brooms, flying carpets and crystal balls ...demons and extraplanar travel
There's adventure, but no dungeon crawling, per se. And it's unusual as a choice because it's set in a parallel 20th century Earth, with magic substituting for technology.
|
|
|
Post by strangebrew on Nov 16, 2013 17:22:56 GMT -6
The Zothique stories of C.A. Smith. Good stories of course, but some actually involve adventurers delving into lost ruins to their doom. "Weaver in the Vaults" and "Tomb Spawn" come to mind.
The Hobbit is also a good choice. D&D exists in a realm between these two examples in my mind.
I'm reading the first Kothar novel after hearing some hype on the internet and it does has a solid D&D tone.
|
|
Merias
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 104
|
Post by Merias on Nov 16, 2013 19:33:15 GMT -6
There is always Holmes' short novel "The Maze of Peril". On the back it even mentions that the characters and situations in the novel were inspired by his D&D games.
|
|
|
Post by archersix on Nov 17, 2013 22:50:51 GMT -6
I'm a fan of a lot of the books already listed, especially the ERB Mars books! However, the one story that screams D&D to me every time I read it is Howard's "Tower of the Elephant".
Evil sorcerer, otherworldly source of said sorcerer's power, dungeon crawl(tower crawl?), monsters, &etc
|
|
|
Post by scottenkainen on Nov 18, 2013 16:05:56 GMT -6
Virtually anything by Lawrence Watt-Evans.
~Scott "-enkainen" Casper
|
|
|
Post by Otto Harkaman on May 9, 2015 13:54:54 GMT -6
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 9, 2015 15:21:39 GMT -6
"Swords Against Death" would likely have been my first mention, as well. My personal choice would be the original "Thieves' World" anthology, from 1979, though. Asprin, Poul Anderson, Offutt, and Zimmer-Bradley is an all-star cast of writers, and especially early TW is really D&D fiction without the license. Also, perhaps, Fred Saberhagen's "Empire of the East". Reads like a novel set in Blackmoor, in retrospect.
|
|
|
Post by angelicdoctor on May 9, 2015 16:56:49 GMT -6
I vote for Quag Keep by Andre Norton. Take modern war gamers and give them avatars in a fantasy world who even suspect that they have real life counterparts by the evidence of dice bracelets each must wear and you have a book written intentionally to sell the game.
|
|
|
Post by buttmonkey on May 10, 2015 14:37:05 GMT -6
The omnibus edition collects three novels into one massive tome. Which of the three novels would you pick as the most D&Dish? I'll reach back 4 years and answer for vlark. The second novel in the trilogy is the most D&D-ish.
|
|