As I pen more posts for this series, you'll notice that many of its entries are themselves about series of articles from the pages of Dragon. I could offer a lot of explanations for this, but the simplest, I suppose, is that, with series, you know what you're getting. In theory, if you like one entry in the series, you will probably enjoy those that follow. Series provide a foundation on which to build and a format to follow that makes them attractive to both writers and readers – that's the reason this blog has so many series of its own.
Issue #59 (March 1982) introduced me to a new series of Dragon articles. Entitled "Giants in the Earth," this was an irregular feature devoted to presenting famous characters from fantasy (and occasionally science fiction) literature in terms of Dungeons & Dragons game mechanics. This particular issue included write-ups for five different characters – Poul Anderson's Sir Roger de Tourneville (by Roger E. Moore), L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt's Harold Shea (by David Cook), Alexei Panshin's Anthony Villiers (by Andrew Dewar), Clifford Simak's Mark Cornwall and Sniveley (both by Roger E. Moore).
At the time I first saw this article, I think I was only familiar with Sir Roger de Tourneville, having already read The High Crusade. The others were completely unknown to me and, in the case of the Simak characters, I'm embarrassed to admit, still are. Nevertheless, I found the piece fascinating for several reasons. First, almost from the moment I started playing D&D, I began to think about how best to stat up characters from myth, legend, and books. Seeing how "professional" writers did so held my interest. Second, many of the entries – even the science fiction ones! – included suggestions on introducing these characters into an ongoing D&D campaign, an idea I'd never considered before. Finally, the entries served to introduce me to authors and books I might otherwise never have encountered, just as Appendix N and Moldvay's "Inspirational Source Material" section had done.
That last one is of particular importance to me, especially nowadays, as the inspirations for fantasy roleplaying shift away from books of all kinds and more toward movies and video games. With the benefit of hindsight, one of the things that's very obvious is how much more literary fantasy was in my youth. Arguably, that's because, until comparatively recently, fantasy hadn't much penetrated the mainstream and thus there were few other ready sources for the genre. If you were interested in wizards and dragons and magic swords, books were all you had, whereas today we have a greater number of options available to us. Perhaps – and maybe I'm just being an old man again – I detect a difference in kind between the literary fantasies I grew up reading (and that inspired the founders of the hobby) and the pop culture stuff we see today.
The irony of my being introduced to "Giants in the Earth" through this issue is that it's one of the last ones published in Dragon. Though I'd eventually see some of the earlier installments, the vast majority of them were long out of my reach, their having been published long before I started playing RPGs, let alone reading the magazine. Even so, the few that I did read served the useful purpose of broadening my knowledge of fantasy and science fiction, as well as acquainting me with characters and writers who would, in time, become lifelong companions.
You should really read some Simak. The guy's very much underappreciated these days (and even back in the 80s, frankly) but it's consistently professional, intriguing, and displays the fine art of not telling the reader everything. Very rare to read anything by him and not come away with some mysteries to ponder. He's also (as was common among the better authors of his era) succinct, with no sprawling 600+ page behemoths to wade through.
ReplyDeleteMany of his books feel very much like they could have been roleplaying campaigns too, albeit relatively non-violent ones. He didn't write much pure fantasy, but Enchanted Pilgrimage, Where the Evil Dwells, and Fellowship of the Talisman all qualify and are enjoyable quick reads. I'd also recommend Special Deliverance as a good example of Simak's quirky scifi. Actually had a GM crib from that last for a Lords of Creation game many years ago, which he didn't think we'd recognize despite the novel being relatively new at that point. You could probably get away with a giant blue mystery cube these days...
I suppose Simak's City could have been a really wild game of Microscope. That and Way Station are the only books of his I've read recently, both lovely reads. Whoever owns the rights to his stuff puts something on sale seemingly every month, so I've been accumulating ebook versions of dozens of his books... looking forward to going on a binge read at some point!
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