D&D General How many books/authors of the original AD&D Bibliography have you read? Do you feel you see D&D differently than people who have not read any?

[MNblockhead]

It's kind of interesting that the Narnia stories were not on the Appendix N list. They're also absent from the 5E "Appendix E" list.

They didn't want the players giving Aslan the murder-hobo treatment.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Heh, I missed that there was a musical!

As for Conan, though the writing remains aces, unfortunately there are plenty of racist and sexist elements that grate for modern readers in plenty of his stories. I'd say his Kull stories have aged better, with fewer problematic elements and its brooding, melancholy protagonist. But regardless, Howard's command of the English language evokes a muscular combination Poe and Jack London.

I love the King of Elfland's Daughter. There is even a musical.

I think there are four authors' books (Tolkien, Dunsany, Moorcock and Howard) that I have read that are on that list. I think I have read more of the authors, but not their fantasy since I am more of an SF person. It is hard to remember that far back.

I read my first Conan story recently and was very impressed. I thought it had aged reasonably well. The writing was pretty good and the themes hadn't aged as badly as some.

I have added the 5e recommended reading list to my Goodreads 'want to read' list. It is remarkable how many are still there. Only a few have dropped off.

They do appear in Moldvay's Inspirational Reading list, which has some very notable additions (it's way more diverse, and corrects the omission of Clark Ashton Smith, for example). Though, certainly, there's something to be said for the focus of Appendix N itself.

I can see why Gygax didn't include them (them being thought of as children's books probably would've made him turn his nose up, and it wouldn't surprise me if he had some religious objections, considering what we know of him). But they have plenty of D&Disms in them that Moldvay's inclusion makes sense - a healing potion, flesh-to-stone and stone-to-flesh magic, and the interdimensional portals in The Magician's Nephew (which I suspect might have been an influence on the color pools in the Manual of the Planes), just to name a few off the top of my head.

It's kind of interesting that the Narnia stories were not on the Appendix N list. They're also absent from the 5E "Appendix E" list.

 

[reelo]

Out of those I have only read Tolkien, more than just the Hobbit and LotR actually, and also Lovecraft (probably most of his stuff) and Howard's Conan, which I love very much.

I don't know to what extent they influence my "brand of D&D" though. I've read the original Dragonlance Trilogy in the 90s, as well as the first Drizzt trilogy, though I hardly remember their contents.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It's kind of interesting that the Narnia stories were not on the Appendix N list. They're also absent from the 5E "Appendix E" list.

I mean, there are kind of four issues which might have kept them off either:

1) They're extremely lazy world-building/setting-wise. And twee. None of the other books on N or E really have that issue.

2) They're a really straightforward religious analogy that makes a lot of people uncomfortable with their directness. Some would say they're incompetent or clumsy even.

3) They're definitely racist/anti-Muslim. That might not have cut it with N, but would with E. It's not like REH where it's some "of the time" sort of mostly vibe-racism, rather it's direct "Those dark-skinned Muslims (Calormenes) are scumbags and their religion is evil! Also it's totally okay to kill them!". It's much more direct/clumsy than the "hmmmm" factor of the Southlands who tangentially feature in LotR.

4) A fair bit of misogyny. Obviously present in a lot of Appendix N stuff (Vance has it in spades, for example) but definitely not going to help the case for Appendix E.

So I think excluding Lewis from either list was probably the right decision.

 

[Mind of tempest]

honestly, I have only the hobbit as a yes but I am gen z so things changed a lot since then.

 

[Blue]

I think there's a question of causation here.

The original AD&D Appendix N books all came out prior to the DMG being published in 1979. The people who have read the most of them are much more likely are of a generation that was a contempory of those, or at least they were still on the "best fantasy books" list. That implies an age.

Do I DM differently than someone in the 20s? Likely. Is that experience DMing, more time to explore other systems, less indoctrination in D&D as "The" one way to do RPGs, generational gaps, changing cultural touchstones and importance, exposure to more variations younger due to the internet, actual play availability, a play style based on a foundation of a rather different style of game...

... or the fact that I read more of a limited selection of classing fantasy books?

Yeah, I don't reading or not reading more of the book list will make an appreciable difference compared to the other variants about why we might run differently.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Even for a modern reader, Lieber's "Fafhrd and Grey Mouser" stories are quite fun.

Well, stop when they start getting less fun. Lieber kind of went crazy in his old age and the last stories (typically the last two collections) are pretty gross.

Up until then, though, they're amazing and it is shocking (to me, at least) how much they are D&D, fully formed, decades in advance.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Also, it is crazy how hard it is to find Lord Dunsany in print outside of extremely shabby print on demand stuff. Anything like a Dunsany reader is typically out of print and super-expensive now, which is a shame, given how much he influenced folks like Gaiman.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Lieber kind of went crazy in his old age and the last stories (typically the last two collections) are pretty gross.

Is that Swords and Ice Magic and The Knight and Knave of Swords? I don't think I've read those.

Up until then, though, they're amazing and it is shocking (to me, at least) how much they are D&D, fully formed, decades in advance.

Yeah it's kind of bizarre how much it almost perfectly prefigures D&D and the pulpier side of fantasy RPGs in general. A lot of the stuff from 1963-1970 seems like it'd have been modern in 1993 to 2000.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Yeah, there's a definite drop-off in quality. I think it coincides with the death of his wife and subsequent alcoholism. Both things that would've understandably affected his writing deeply.

Well, stop when they start getting less fun. Lieber kind of went crazy in his old age and the last stories (typically the last two collections) are pretty gross.

Up until then, though, they're amazing and it is shocking (to me, at least) how much they are D&D, fully formed, decades in advance.

It's a puzzlement, to be sure. His stuff being in public domain at least means free e-books are readily available.

Also, it is crazy how hard it is to find Lord Dunsany in print outside of extremely shabby print on demand stuff. Anything like a Dunsany reader is typically out of print and super-expensive now, which is a shame, given how much he influenced folks like Gaiman.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah, there's a definite drop-off in quality. I think it coincides with the death of his wife and subsequent alcoholism. Both things that would've understandably affected his writing deeply.

The subject matter is pretty problematic, too. I think the "guest" on the ship and the way they traveled would get blasted by audiences (and probably even publishers) today.

That said, the first four (?) collections are astonishingly good. Like "if you haven't read them, stop reading this thread and order them immediately" good.

 

[Yora]

Heh, I missed that there was a musical!

As for Conan, though the writing remains aces, unfortunately there are plenty of racist and sexist elements that grate for modern readers in plenty of his stories.

[citation needed]

People are free to not like it, but accusations like that demand evidence.

 

[Blue Orange]

[citation needed]

People are free to not like it, but accusations like that demand evidence.

The depiction of the black pseudo-African corsairs in a clearly subservient position in Queen of the Black Coast, the Native American stereotype Picts in Beyond the Black River (though there's a bit of an aesop about how Aquilonia really should leave them alone), the frequent use of Stygians as faceless mook enemies in Hour of the Dragon. The Vale of Lost Women has a tribe of brown-skinned lesbians who want to sacrifice the white Livia to a bat demon, but Conan's agreed to help her because they're both white and has earlier rescued her from the Balakah tribe... As for sexism, he spanks women to keep them in line a few times and frequently tosses them over his shoulder, though they all come willingly to him, being supermuscular and all. Howard was actually something of a feminist for his era (you have him arguing with Lovecraft at one point over this), and has strong female characters like Belit in Queen of the Black Coast and Valeria in Red Nails; they fight well, though not as well as Conan. But most of the time they just need to be rescued. (Howard was writing to make money and his preferences lay more to the Belit/Valeria types when he had a freer hand.)

There's a bit of a complication in that Howard thought barbarism was better than civilization, so the stereotypes kind of cut the opposite way sometimes. Nonetheless, 1930s guy really did think like a guy from the 1930s. (As opposed to his buddy Lovecraft, who thought like a guy from the 1830s...)

 

[MGibster]

But, an important note - I was playing RPGs and AD&D before I read anything on the list. So, it is more that my gaming influenced my reading habits, rather than the other way around.

Same here. I didn't even read the Lord of the Rings books until shortly before the Peter Jackson movies came out. It's unlikely I'll ever get around to reading most of the books listed in the OP and I don't really have any interest in them. I think it's weird that Roger Zelazny's Amber books are listed because nothing about them screams AD&D to me. But then none of the fantasy books I've read throughout my life have resembled D&D very closely. Not even the books based on D&D.

 

[Garthanos]

The only one I might check out someday is Moorcock.

I consider that one vital.... he is sort of the anti-conan.

 

[Lanefan]

But then none of the fantasy books I've read throughout my life have resembled D&D very closely. Not even the books based on D&D.

For me, a few have very much mapped to D&D in some ways.

Eddings' Belgariad maps well to some of the less-magical class archetypes. Jordan's Wheel of Time maps fairly closely to D&D in many ways, other than the "spells" are all psionic. More recently, Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards maps well to a guild of Thieves.

And Eames' Kings of the Wyld sends the whole thing up marvllously!

 

[MGibster]

For me, a few have very much mapped to D&D in some ways.

Eddings' Belgariad maps well to some of the less-magical class archetypes. Jordan's Wheel of Time maps fairly closely to D&D in many ways, other than the "spells" are all psionic. More recently, Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards maps well to a guild of Thieves.

And Eames' Kings of the Wyld sends the whole thing up marvllously!

I started reading The Wheel of Time books around 1990-1991 when the paperback version of Eye of the World came out. I even attempted to create a D&D campaign based on the setting which is what led to my revelation that D&D was not a generic fantasy game. I don't find that WoT maps to D&D at all really. I suppose there's the zero to hero, but that's something found in a lot of fiction including Star Wars and Apocalypse Now that I can't really point to it as something specific to D&D.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah, Joseph Campbell -- and the works he cited -- predate D&D by several decades.

 

[JEB]

Comparing 1979's Appendix N to 2014's Appendix E is making me wonder what 2024's analogue will look like. Will authors like Lovecraft still be on there? (Will there even be a recommended reading section?)

 

[Garthanos]

I started reading The Wheel of Time books around 1990-1991 when the paperback version of Eye of the World came out. I even attempted to create a D&D campaign based on the setting which is what led to my revelation that D&D was not a generic fantasy game. I don't find that WoT maps to D&D at all really. I suppose there's the zero to hero, but that's something found in a lot of fiction including Star Wars and Apocalypse Now that I can't really point to it as something specific to D&D.

Jordan was a DM for his kids and being TaVeren were intended to mean PCs... I purchase the d20 version of Wheel of Time Roleplaying. And they tried to make the magic feel right but it kind of didnt