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<blockquote data-quote="T. Foster" data-source="post: 3861829" data-attributes="member: 16574">Not really. What was popular in fantasy in the 70s was fifth-rate Conan knock-offs (Brak the Barbarian), Tolkien knock-offs (Sword of Shanarra), John Norman's Gor novels, and Stephen R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. D&amp;D ignored all of those and went instead with an idiosyncratic mix of (mostly) old stuff that Gygax liked -- Jack Vance, Fritz Leiber, Robert Howard, A. Merritt, de Camp &amp; Pratt, etc. None of these were bestsellers, even in the fantasy genre, in the mid-late 70s; much of it was 30+ years old and several of the authors were long-dead. Tim Kask (original editor of The Dragon) has talked about how they went out of their way to include new and reprinted work from the &quot;masters&quot; of swords &amp; sorcery -- Leiber, de Camp &amp; Pratt, Gardner Fox, etc. -- in their early issues because they wanted as many fans of the game as possible to be exposed to this stuff. If they were merely chasing after what was already popular this wouldn't have been necessary. That these authors (except for REH*) are thought of as &quot;canonical&quot; nowadays is by and large a testament to the influence of D&amp;D. Even Michael Moorcock has been quoted (by Gary Gygax, admittedly...) as saying that D&amp;D was responsible for doubling his sales. That list of &quot;inspirational reading&quot; in the back of the AD&amp;D DMG is by no means a list of either then-contemporary bestsellers or a comprehensive catalog of the fantasy genre (or even the swords &amp; sorcery subgenre) -- it's a specifically targeted list of &quot;what Gygax likes&quot; which even then was as distinctive for what wasn't included as for what was.*lest someone take offense: I'm not saying that REH isn't considered canonical, I'm saying that he'd be considered canonical even without D&amp;D</blockquote>

[QUOTE="T. Foster, post: 3861829, member: 16574"] Not really. What was popular in fantasy in the 70s was fifth-rate Conan knock-offs (Brak the Barbarian), Tolkien knock-offs (Sword of Shanarra), John Norman's Gor novels, and Stephen R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. D&D ignored all of those and went instead with an idiosyncratic mix of (mostly) old stuff that Gygax liked -- Jack Vance, Fritz Leiber, Robert Howard, A. Merritt, de Camp & Pratt, etc. [i]None[/i] of these were bestsellers, even in the fantasy genre, in the mid-late 70s; much of it was 30+ years old and several of the authors were long-dead. Tim Kask (original editor of The Dragon) has talked about how they went out of their way to include new and reprinted work from the "masters" of swords & sorcery -- Leiber, de Camp & Pratt, Gardner Fox, etc. -- in their early issues because they wanted as many fans of the game as possible to be exposed to this stuff. If they were merely chasing after what was already popular this wouldn't have been necessary. That these authors (except for REH*) are thought of as "canonical" nowadays is by and large a testament to the [i]influence[/i] of D&D. Even Michael Moorcock has been quoted (by Gary Gygax, admittedly...) as saying that D&D was responsible for doubling his sales. That list of "inspirational reading" in the back of the AD&D DMG is by no means a list of either then-contemporary bestsellers or a comprehensive catalog of the fantasy genre (or even the swords & sorcery subgenre) -- it's a specifically targeted list of "what Gygax likes" which even then was as distinctive for what wasn't included as for what was. *lest someone take offense: I'm not saying that REH isn't considered canonical, I'm saying that he'd be considered canonical even without D&D [/QUOTE]

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