Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy" discussion

http://www.tor.com/features/series/ad...

I caught whiff of this series on the D&D website today. Some guys over at Tor have been reading through "Inspirational and Educational Reading" in Appendix N of the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide.

I've heard of and seen this Appendix before, but I was surprised in rereading it to see how many books I've read recently or have in my queue are on it. I thought it would be of interest to you folks here, so I thought I would share it with you.

Yep, I've been following the series (and I recently checked and found that I'd read almost all of the authors Gygax mentioned). They've treated some of the authors rather harshly, but it's interesting reading nonetheless.

Yeah, I noticed that today. I should add the caveat that these guys don't really know what they're talking about, and seem to hate everything on the list. :P And where Gygax has not specified a book from an author they seem pretty haphazard in their selections.

Indeed some of their specific choices have been ... questionable. And I'm often torn between, "Hmmm ... Interesting point," and "You kids get off of my lawn!"

Ha, ha! I think I'm more in the latter category. They seem overly concerned with applying modern standards of morality in regards to gender and racial equality to books written 40+ years ago. If you're going into these books expecting that you're going to be disappointed. Considering early AD&D was the same way, I don't know why they'd expect its inspirational material to be any different.

I loved that reading list. It turned me on to many great books when I was a kid.

I've also been pretty disappointed with this series. There are a lot of good books in Appendix N, but the article staff sound like they're unfamiliar with much in the way of fantasy apart from, say, Robert Jordan. The Black Gate staff are much better suited for the job.

Wait . . . Howard is chastised for including some (pretty mild by modern standards) spanking and nudity in Red Nails, yet Leiber is praised despite his works containing an explicit and voyeuristic lesbian BDSM scene and an erotic (if that's the word) version of the stanguary. Bizarre.

Yeah, I thought the series would be a lot better than it is. The interview on the WotC site made it seem like they were better informed. I would love to see more knowledgeable parties go through the list.

The list is interesting but I've refrained from actually reading the reviews. Some of these were obvious influences on D&D, Vance for example, others less so. I've always considered D&D more LotR and epic fantasy based than S&S, it's interesting to see many prominent S&S writers of the time mentioned by GG.

The most recent author was Lin Carter -- they chose Warrior of World's End which series, I think, was specifically called out by name. Ironically, it's gotten some of the more positive reaction they've given.

Yeah, they seem to be the opposite of most sword & sorcery fans, but they are admittedly not sword & sorcery fans.

I was under the impression that D&D was LotR based until I got more into LotR and found it nothing like D&D. D&D has some of the trappings of LotR, but especially in the early days, the style is all sword & sorcery. A group of powerful mercenaries out to kill monsters for loot and glory isn't exactly epic fantasy. :P

Yeah, old-school D&D is definitely much more S&S than epic fantasy -- Gygax as much as admitted that he just added the Tolkien races to capitalize on the LotR craze back in the day.

(I do think the really clever thing Gygax did was lifting the concept of the adventuring party -- a group of people with different skills/roles -- from Tolkien and grafting it onto S&S. It's interesting to think how things might have developed if he hadn't also brought in Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and HobbitsHalflings.)

The adventuring party changed fantasy forever. I think fantasy, not just D&D, would have evolved quite a bit differently if Gygax hadn't included the LOTR races.

For more about the early days of Dungeons and Dragons:
Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Play It

Dan wrote: "The adventuring party changed fantasy forever. I think fantasy, not just D&D, would have evolved quite a bit differently if Gygax hadn't included the LOTR races.

For more about the early days of ..."

I need to read that book. And I think it was kind of a perfect storm of two things that changed fantasy -- the Tolkien races in D&D, and the big push Lester Del Rey gave to Sword of Shannara, the first true (or at least the first hugely successful) LotR clone.

Gygax tended to steal random elements and throw them all together. Rangers having to be good, for instance, stemmed from LOTR, but then, on the other hands, that trolls needed to be burned stemmed from Three Hearts And Three Lions. Fundamentally, he was looking not for coherence but bright shiny ideas.

I loved playing the 3rd edition AD&D many years ago...I have read some of the new manuals and I am not impressed with the rule changes....not impressed at all. I am very proud that of Gygax's autograph on my original player's handbook :-))