I 'm doing up a list of books that I enjoyed, I might go back and read, and maybe others might like..
anyway:
The Wounded Land by Stephen Donaldson. I had no idea that there were 10 in the series now, but the first couple had a massive impact on my Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying games
Gormenhast by Merven Peake. The names, emotion and characters are awesome. Sometimes horribly awesome but great none the less. Love the names. Wish I could do names like that off the top of my head.
Conan the Conqueror by Robert E Howard. There are a great number of stories here with fantastic roleplaying plots. And the fights are bone-crunching. Only one Game of Thrones fight comes close. Don't use the movies to judge this. The book Conan is more like a Colossus - Punisher hybrid than some Hollywood body builder. No offence to Arnie, he brought great humour to the role, where none existed and made a sell-able movie. He's just not a swarthy black haired steel-eyed killer. Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises is closer in character. Heck, it's like Jack Reacher being played by Tom Cruise...
I remember "The Weirdstone of Brisingamen" and "The Hobbit" having serious impact on me. They are described as children's books, but then so is Harry Potter. No wait, that's a negative..
Read the Lord of the Rings and the Silmarilion you heathens! It's good for you. Or something. Read the other 2 to your kids. It won't give them nightmares, promise.
Elric of Melnibone and pretty much everything Micheal Moorcock wrote with Elric in it, before he got all serious and arty and started writing with crayons made of narcissism and calling it art.
There is cool Elric out there, but I like the DnD ideas it inspired, Black Razor etc
This is mostly fantasy... for Science Fiction I'd recommend-
Hidden Empire series by Kevin J Anderson. It's actually reminds of Avatar in (themes) and Robert E Heinlein in writing process.
Accelerando or "Halting State" or pretty much anything written in a napkin by Charles Stross. It can be a bit, um , icky .. but he handles modern issues. Copyright, 3D printing, cloud storage, digital currency, all form key plot elements in his near-future romps.
I can't remember if I actually liked the Grey-lensman (E E SMITH) series. Should read one again to decide if they go on the list.
Also need to re-read Fafrd and the Grey Mouser. I think I was mining the books too heavily for DnD material and missed the story. I was GMing greyhawk -(using both Adnd and later Rolemaster) at the time and pretty much cloned Lankmar into Greyhawk.
I'll have something to do on leave...
:)
Ash out
