D&D General A shorter Appendix N

[Cadence]

Finished 3H&3L. And now on to...

Moorcock, Michael: STORMBRINGER; STEALER OF SOULS;

Moorcock, Michael: STORMBRINGER; STEALER OF SOULS;

Is there a particular version of these I should be sure to get? (The 1965 and DAW editions seem to have chunks removed, does that matter?).

Should I start with these two? (Publication order, like I think Narnia should be read), or is this one better read by internal chronology?

Thanks for any insight!

 

[Doug McCrae]

Is there a particular version of these I should be sure to get? (The 1965 and DAW editions seem to have chunks removed, does that matter?).

Should I start with these two? (Publication order, like I think Narnia should be read), or is this one better read by internal chronology?

If you're reading them as Appendix N works then I'd read only The Stealer of Souls and then Stormbringer. These two novels contain almost all the earliest Elric stories, written from 1961 to 1964. I think they're a bigger influence on D&D than the Hawkmoon stories, which are the only other Moorcock works cited by Gygax.

Unfortunately I can't help with your question about versions.

I can recommend this interview with Michael Moorcock on the Appendix N podcast which I enjoyed a lot. It's mostly about Moorcock's early career in the 50s->70s and there's a fair bit about Elric.

My personal favourite Moorcock novels are The Eternal Champion, Phoenix in Obsidian, the first three Corum books (Knight/Queen/King of Swords), and The Warlord of the Air. But none of them are technically Appendix N works.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think the edits to the earlier Elric stories where made by Moorcock himself, if that helps at all.

 

[Cadence]

Unfortunately I can't help with your question about versions.

I got them in the 2008 Del-Rey "The Stealer of Souls: Chronicles of the Last emperor of Melnibone: Volume 1". I think it has the original magazine versions, and as Moorcock notes in a 1963 essay, they needed work. I'm tempted to try a different version at some point to compare.

 

[Mercurius]

Any reading of Appendix N should include Blackwood and Dunsany, two masters of early modern fantasy. Both are extremely atmospheric writers, and Dunsany--who was enormously influential (and Tolkien liked)--has almost a psychedelic, dream-like quality. I loved his ability to create evocative names of fantasy places.

I haven't looked at Appendix N in years, but I'm surprised that Clark Ashton Smith isn't on there.

 

[Cadence]

Any reading of Appendix N should include Blackwood and Dunsany, two masters of early modern fantasy. Both are extremely atmospheric writers, and Dunsany--who was enormously influential (and Tolkien liked)--has almost a psychedelic, dream-like quality. I loved his ability to create evocative names of fantasy places.

I haven't looked at Appendix N in years, but I'm surprised that Clark Ashton Smith isn't on there.

Blackwood isn't on the original one either... but it was on the Dragon #4 one (top post).

 

[Mercurius]

Blackwood isn't on the original one either... but it was on the Dragon #4 one (top post).

Yeah, I saw that. Wonder why they took him off. "The Willows" is great cosmic horror, if subtler than Lovecraft.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

I would add Jake Vance's Lyonesse trilogy, Zelancy's Lord of Light, and several selections from Lord Dunsany.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Lord Dunsany is amazing, plain and simple. There's a fairytale quality to his stories, like they've been around for hundreds of years, even if they haven't. As far as writing skill goes, he's definitely in the Top Five of Appendix N authors.

Algernon Blackwood's The Wendigo is frightening stuff. Sends a chill down my spine just thinking about it. Like Lovecraft, there's some really objectionable racism (like, he even gets into it with French Canadians), though.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Re: Moorcock.

For influence on AD&D, the six DAW volumes that appeared in 1977 are all relevant and (for the game's first players) "essential". They all collect earlier material, but present it as a continuous narrative. The most recently written (book 2, Sailor on the Seas of Fate, 1976?) might be the most coherent of all six volumes, though probably was written after AD&D was being drafted.

The earliest stories (from '62-'64) became the last two of these books, which (in Canada at least, and I presume the US) were published as Bane of the Black Sword (which included "The Stealer of Souls") and Stormbringer.

Re-reading them now, it's possible to see the order of composition (some of the stories in the earlier books are clearly filler and work to tie with other Moorcock creations; I didn't know that at the time, and was fine).

These earliest stories were also collected in a Fantasy Masterworks series just called Elric (early 2000s; there's good Conan collection there too, as well as Anderson, Leiber, and Vance).

All of these are out of print, though, and so need to be found second-hand; the current complete Moorcock has too much "b" material to make me want to buy it.