D&D General No One Reads Conan Now -- So What Are They Reading?

[Bedrockgames]

Is this even a thing? In the US maybe? I spend my time encouraging kids to use adverbs. There are marks for it in the KS2 SATs.

I believe it comes from Elements of Style by Strunk and Wright. A lot of the writing advice floating around seems to come from there

 

[Bedrockgames]

Query: is M R James known in the US?

Yes, but I don't think he is as well known by most people (also I am sure the internet is making him more known)

 

[Autumnal]

Query: is M R James known in the US?

yes, though not nearly as much as he should be.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

yes, though not nearly as much as he should be.

And often unaware:

Dana Andrews said prunes / gave him the runes / and passing them used lots of skills...

 

[Bomberooski]

Which ones? I quite liked some of the early ones, particularly Mike Stackpole's Warrior trilogy (En Garde, Riposte, and Coupé), which predate his later very successful Star Wars: Rogue Squadron series which he's more famous for. I also have fond memories of Heir to the Dragon and Wolves on the Border, by Bob Charrette. These are all set in the lead up to and the Fourth Succession War, preceding the Clan invasion. The first few Clan war books (Lethal Heritage, Blood Legacy, and Lost Destiny), by Stackpole, are pretty decent, IMO, and continue well from Wolves on the Border. Later books by other authors I did not find as well-written and my interest dropped off quickly during the next two or three.

Warrior trilogy! Can't wait to dive into them

 

[SkidAce]

Anybody read early David Gemmel?

David Gemmell - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

For me reading Lovecraft (putting aside the racism) is like pulling teeth... his stories feel like they could do with half the word count and suffer from overly long description. I find more contemporary authors who utilize his Mythos and its ideas to, in general, be a much better intro for cosmic horror.

The works of Ruthanna Emrys, Victor LaValle, Kij Johnson, even Brian Lumley take HPL's ideas and run with them either without the bigotry, or directly addressing it.

Nah, Cosmic Horror already existed, and arises naturally out of real world Quantum Physics and Cosmology anyway (if you think not mattering is a bad thing and not a good thing!). Lovecraft's writing style is much more distinctive than his ideas.

Query: is M R James known in the US?

I love M.R. James! Perfect for creeping dread and whelming superstition.

HPL was not the only one doing cosmic horror, or the first. William Hope Hodgson and Abraham Merritt spring to mind. Cosmic horror was all over the pulps (see also Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith). But I think the crux of it is that HPL had a really good hype man in the form of August Derleth and his Arkham House imprint.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Anybody read early David Gemmel?

David Gemmell - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I read Legend a long time ago. Don’t really remember it much. Something about a washed up action hero with a last chance to die heroically.

 

[SkidAce]

I read Legend a long time ago. Don’t really remember it much. Something about a washed up action hero with a last chance to die heroically.

Hmmm, I feel a lot of the gems of power series were the better ones.

The early books remind me of the pulps and Moorcock, etc.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I’ve just had a go at reading Fourth Wing, and it’s not as bad as I expected.

It’s worse. Much worse.

I was wondering why first person present tense narratives have suddenly become fashionable, then it hit me: it’s because these teens narrate their lives into mobile phones, rather than writing a journal when they get home. It says it was “translated from Navarrian”. It would have been nice if it was translated into English rather than TeenSpeak.

On the other hand, it’s definitely fantasy: it has two(!) maps of made-up places at the beginning to prove it.