James Heard
Explorer
el-remmen said:
Turtledove, Harry The Videssos Series: While I enjoy his alternate histories very much, in Turtledove's Videssos books he's at the top of his game and specialty, namely Byzantine history. The artful portrayal of magic worked into a world dominated by the clash of two empires, with a monolithic religious theme and the way parallels can be drawn but not particularly formed is the thing I strive for the most in my game setting.
Watt-Evans, Lawrence The Ethshar Novels: Yes, I know they're very bubblgum in their depth sometimes, but they've been instrumental to me in trying to divorce myself somewhat from the tendency to "make everything about plot." All of the Ethshar books are "follow the hook" novels, they set up some sort of hook and then follow the main characters to the fruition. In that they're an almost perfect example of how to work within an episodic framework (to me, at least) in a game.
Simmons, Dan The Hyperion Cantos: These novels are just inspirational to me, period. I'm really not a person who is easily moved, but they move me. As an addendum Carrion Comfort, another book by Simmons, is easily my book inspiration for horror when I run a game, since I'm not a fan of nameless, speechless horror which cannot be understood and favor more the sort of horror that "Gosh, I can sort of understand that and I feel filthier for empathizing with the villain."
Anderson, Poul The Flandry Novels: The futility of empire as a theme has wormed its way into my campaign setting mostly through the Flandry books, where often the main character is stuck doing something not particularly admirable in the most admirable way he can manage.
Cyberpunk fiction: Yeah, I know. It's not a book, but a genre and I generally tend to discard some of the "great minds" of the genre to concentrate on the angsty, bleak core of the trend. No matter how successful you are, you can never win, seems to be the theme in an awful lot of it once you've stripped down the glitzy tech-talk though. That's something that resonates powerfully in my setting when it's doing horror elements, and it doesn't hurt that one of my most successful games in the 90's was using R. Talsorians Cyberpunk game.
McMaster-Bujold, Lois The Barrayar Series: The Barrayar books probably have most infringed upon my campaign in some of the border territories and the dwarves, which stopped being so religious and more like rugged hills-fighting freedom fighters after reading the books.
I'm not even going to attempt to get into the movies that get themselves worked into my games. Inserting blatant visual cues from movies is an awesome way to instantly inform the players on the nature of an encounter, and suffice it say I've plagiarized my ass off with everything from old black and white movies starring Fred Astaire to the "moving mystery meat" scene from Better Off Dead.
