What Authors Have Most Inspired Your Campaign?

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

cdsaint, I have a player on my table who is also a huge Lackey fan.

Lackey would be a much better author is she wasn't such a misandrist. I gave up reading her stuff several years ago -- I just couldn't take it anymore.

 

[ivocaliban]

James Branch Cabell (Figures of Earth, Jurgen, etc.)
H. Rider Haggard (She, King Solomon's Mines, Allan Quatermain)
Joseph Campbell (The Power Of Myth, The Masks of God, The Hero With A Thousand Faces)

I just mentioned those not on the list and those I didn't see represented elsewhere in the thread.

 

[Agback]

Jack Vance. Mary Renault. And Georgette Heyer, in a funny sort of way.

 

[sellars]

And to actually respond to the thread:

1. Roger Zelazny
QUOTE]


Oh yeah! I forgot that one Amber had a huge effect on my gaming back in highschool days!

 

[DmQ]

Troy Denning

He wrote the 'Dark Sun' Prism Pentad. (Out of Print)

 

[Buttercup]

Lackey would be a much better author is she wasn't such a misandrist. I gave up reading her stuff several years ago -- I just couldn't take it anymore.

Ain't that the truth. I haven't read anything by her for 6 or 7 years, myself, and for the same reason. She does appeal to a certain demographic though.

 

[Kichwas]

I haven't read most of the people in the list.

My list works out more or less like this:

myself - I write fiction, even if only a small amount of it is online...
Barbarra Hambley - who's work got me reading fantasy again
Tanya Huff
Louise Cooper - Her Indigo series mostly
Maggie Furey
Mercedes Lackey - in a minor sense keying me on a point about mercenaries
Scott Cunningham - a Wicca author who's helped me refine ideas for fantasy magic.
And a couple of my history and political science professors, more so than the textbooks they had me read.

 

[mmadsen]

The first few names on the list (Tolkien, Moorcock, Howard) struck me as major, major influences, but I was hoping to see a few others on the list:

C.S. Lewis
Lloyd Alexander
Jack Vance
Clark Ashton Smith
Edgar Rice Burroughs
H. Rider Haggard

(Granted, ERB and HRH aren't exactly fantasy, but neither are HPL and Stoker.)

As much as I enjoy Lord Dunsany and E.R. Eddison, I don't expect to see them listed as major gamer-influences.

 

[Belegbeth]

Jack Vance DOOD. You gotta be kidding not to have his name on the list.

Exactly. Vance's "Lyonesse" novels are simply the BEST fantasy novels out there (after LotR).

I am amazed that they are not more widely known. They are both hilarious and exciting. Plus they have some of the best characters I can remember.

 

[Benben]

Ain't that the truth. I haven't read anything by her for 6 or 7 years, myself, and for the same reason. She does appeal to a certain demographic though.

The misandry is terrible, but it's the constant use of rape that got to me. She nearly uses it as a rite of passage.

That being said, I really like the magic system of Valdemar and the talking griffons.