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I'm 19, Vance, Moorcock and Brooks are the only ones I haven't read.
On China Meiville, his fantasy is not traditional fantasy, but it is wonderful and imaginative. If you haven't read him then you should give him a try. Perdido Street Station is the best book to start.
I'm 40 so I didn't vote. I've read all those authors although I rarely read fantasy now (or much non-fiction). I just don't enjoy it very much. I much prefer reading history, religion and politics... and then designing my own campaigns and adventures for my fantasy kick!
Roughly 6 years before I started playing D&D, I was reading the Salvatore novels.
Jordan and Goodkind have also been fairly major.
I've read a bit of Lackey and Keyes.
The Hobbit was good, but the actual trilogy bored me to the point that I stopped halfway through the second book.
I read the Elric stuff from Moorcock when I was a young teenager.
These have been the big ones. All other have been rare. Realistically, Salvatore shaped my idea of fantasy and what D&D should be more than anyone else. One of the reasons that 4th edition grabbed me so much is that I could finally have a character do all those things that were done in the Driz'zt novels.
I'm 32, so I didn't vote. I'm not a huge reader of fantasy fiction but I've enjoyed Rowling and love Mieville.
__________________ Veronica: Where's your brother?
Dick: I think he took Ghost World up to his room. They're probably up there making love. Or playing Dungeons and Dragons. Or both, at the same time. They're both, like, 12th-level dorks. I'm just sayin'
Weis & Hickman (when I was 15)
Lovecraft
Lieber (only comic book adaptations)
Tolkien (just prior to the release of the movies)
GRRMartin (a couple of years ago)
Howard (a couple of years ago)
I've also read a bit of D&D novels (mostly Eberron) and back in the 90s I read a lot of Star Wars EU novels.
Doesn't really matter. She is a positive force in that she got millions of kids to read around the globe.
My wife keeps trying to get me to read Harry Potter. She has been doing this for years. I have no interesti n reading the children's section at this point so I am pretty sure I won't sit down with them.
I saw the movies and they were great, and enough for me.
Still she gets mad anytime I start a new book because I don't give little harry a try.
Thank you JK Rowling for what you did for education, but your not my type of fantasy.
I'm 27, so I didn't vote, but from the list, I've read Vance, Leiber, Howard, Tolkien, Moorcock, Mieville and Pratchett. Tolkien got me into the whole fantasy thing, and reading Vance, Leiber and Moorcock has noticeably enhanced my enjoyment of D&D by finally shedding light on the origin of some of D&D's idiosyncrasies.
I respect Tolkien's contribution to the genre, but do not like reading his prose.
I like Pratchet, but not enough to read all of the discworld novels.
China Mieville is among my favorite authors of all time, and I have read most of his published work.
The rest I have not read.
Not on your list, but also among my favorite Fantasy authors:
Stephen R. Donaldson (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant) Neil Gaiman (Stardust, American Gods, Good Omens (with Pratchet)) Peter David (Sir Apropos of Nothing).
Interestingly enough, I hear alot of the younger fantasy readers, talk about their distaste for Michael Moorcock and his 'type' of writing.
Michael Moorcock incidentally is one of the most NON traditional fantasy authors of the the old guard. He is very much, as he writes in his 'Epic Pooh' encouraging non traditionalist fantasy.
The non traditionalist fantasy is not necessarily my thing, but I have always loved Moorcock and his non traditionalist stories.
Every campaign I run has an eternal champion somewhere...
I'm ineligible as I just had my 26th birthday on Wedenesday, but here's my list for anyone interested:
Have read (and enjoyed):
Robert Howard
J. R. R. Tolkien
Terry Pratchett
Haven't read:
Jack Vance
Fritz Leiber
Michael Moorcock (just bought an Elric omnibus today though!)
China Mieville
Have read (but didn't enjoy):
J. K. Rowlings (Not my cup of tea, but no major gripes)
Terry Brooks (ditto)
Robert Jordan (The first WoT book is still the only book I have ever thrown out the window in disgust. I'm not trying to provoke anyone, obviously there are a lot of fans of the series out there, so I'm willing to concede it's possible I'm missing something.)
A Fantasy author I recommend to anyone looking for something new:
George R. R. Martin (Can't recommend his Ice and Fire books highly enough)
Worthy of mention:
Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series (Amazing world and some memorable moments and characters, only let down by cheesy dialogue and combat descriptions)
Shemeska, you are also a bad, bad individual. No cookies for you.
As to why this list is limited to 25 and under, I thought I was clear in my OP. The question on the table is what, if any, works would serve as a good entry point into the hobby of D&D. In other words, can we have something comparable to Appendix N in the 1e DMG in the 4e DMG?
I argued that for newer players, trying to rely on older writers isn't a good idea, since they just aren't all that well read. That's the point of this poll. Anyone who is 25 or younger hasn't been playing a huge amount of time - 15 years at best really. And probably far fewer. So, I'm thinking that if 5 of the real biggies of older fiction aren't standing up to 5 pretty biggies of later fiction, then maybe we should have a game that borrows more heavily from what new gamers are actually reading.
For example, while AD&D borrowed heavily from Vance, Lieber and Howard, younger gamers have never read anything by them. All three are sucking a very hind to Jordan and Rowlings. Tolkien is still the king though, so, we should not ignore him.
While there haven't been a huge number of respondants, I think I've shown my point fairly well. Continuing to rely on dead authors is not going to serve D&D in the long run. What's the point of referencing Fafrd or Lahnkmar if it only confuses new gamers?
__________________ Currently running: Sufficiently Advanced over Maptool. Soon to change. If you'd like to join in a short 3-8 session campaign for various systems, drop by our forums.
I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
I should start a new thread: list things that have influenced your concept of fantasy and fantasy RPGs. And specifically list things that other people might not expect, or maybe haven't read. And maybe say why and how.
Continuing to rely on dead authors is not going to serve D&D in the long run. What's the point of referencing Fafrd or Lahnkmar if it only confuses new gamers?
D&D did not start out "relying on" any authors. Tolkien's hobbits, orcs and balrogs got in, and the prominence of dwarves and elves certainly helped appeal to fans of an author who was and still is (!) very popular. However, it was not familiarity with heroic fantasy but a temperament disposed to enjoy (rather than belittle) it that was essential.
From what I have seen, it has in fact been common for people to get "turned on" to genre fiction and classical mythology (and even non-fiction such as history) through the medium of the game. Passing references or homages to Conan, Cugel, Elric or the Gray Mouser indicated sources of inspiration for the game.
There's no need to read Vance to use Ioun Stones or the spell of Imprisonment; to have Cugel, Mouser and Shadowjack as models to play the composite Thief; or to know that Gnolls (transformed into distinctively D&D monsters in the first Monster Manual) originally were meant to suggest Lord Dunsany's mysterious Gnoles. All of those features of the game, and more, were readily absorbed into the imaginations of new players unacquainted with the sources.
If there is any connection with later works, reference is likely to be recursive: a demonstration of the influence of D&D itself on the next generation of fantasy fiction.
D&D is a "genre" unto itself. It has its own tropes, and proposes things that never were -- even in past masterpieces of the fantastic.
What has made it so successful is that it taps the very fundamental well of material to which authors of fantasy return generation after generation. Particular novels may come and go in popularity, but the perennial themes and archetypes will keep reappearing.
__________________ Currently running: Sufficiently Advanced over Maptool. Soon to change. If you'd like to join in a short 3-8 session campaign for various systems, drop by our forums.
I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
I'm 25, and I voted for Tolkien, Jordan (only read the first three books before I lost all interest in the Wheel of Time, though), and Brooks (my brother read more of his stuff than me).
The lack of Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, Mercedes Lackey, Lloyd Alexander, and especially C. S. Lewis means that many of the authors I spent a lot of my youth reading are not on this list. Even Piers Anthony was more significant to my exposure to fantasy than anyone on that list short of Tolkien. In fact, these days Shakespeare might be a more important influence on my view of fantasy than anything on that list short of Tolkien (Prospero is pretty much the definition of the classic fantasy wizard, after all). If we are moving past fantasy (which seems reasonable considering that the Discworld guy gets mentioned), then mentioning Isaac Asimov is simply a necessity.
Of course, my fondness for myth and folktales predates my interest in fantasy literature, and my interest in fantasy has been fueled just as much by videogames and anime as books. I never understood why the "fantasy canon" in these threads is always limited to just books...
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