Jim Nelson's Blog, page 13

Gary Gygax’s Appendix N

A Hindu Rakshasa re-imagined in D&Ds Monster Manual

When I was a teen and enamored with Dungeons & Dragons, one treasure I discovered poring over the rules books was Appendix N of the Dungeon Masters Guide. D&D co-creator Gary Gygax lists nearly thirty pulp and genre writers as major influences on the development of the game. Upon such a base I built my interest in fantasy, Gygax wrote, being an avid reader of all science fiction and fantasy literature since 1950.

In the early 1970s, Gygax...

Pre-order STRANGER SON now

STRANGER SON, the newest book of the Bridge Daughter Cycle, is now available for pre-order on Amazon! The official release day is April 15th.

STRANGER SON picks up sixteen years after the events of Hagars Mother. Ruby Driscoll is now a Hagar living on the streets and in the halfway homes of Southern California. Her mother was sent to prison while her younger brother was put up for adoption.

Desperate to locate him and reunite her family, Ruby begins an arduous journey into the heart of her...

Books & movies to pick up while social distancing yourself

Albert Camus

Over the past week, the more I tell myself I will not live in fear or succumb to panic, the more I wonder if Im fooling myself. Such are the unusual times were in.

My rule-of-thumb has been to halve whatever heat the press applies to its current hot topicto recognize its in the medias interests to double a controversial topics magnitude to sell more advertising. For the current outbreak of coronavirus, however, dividing by two still yields a large number.

Watching the spread of...

Updike’s rules for reviewing books

In John Updike’s Picked-up Pieces, he expounds on his personal rules for reviewing books. I’m quoting them here to remind myself of this hard-won wisdom as well as to share with others:

John Updike Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.Give enough direct quotation—at least one extended passage—of the book’s prose so the review’s reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.Confirm your description of the...

On its way: STRANGER SON, Book Three of the Bridge Daughter Cycle

Usually I’m reticent to pre-announce, but I’ve been getting emails, so…

Today I sent the third book of the Bridge Daughter Cycle, Stranger Son, off to the copyeditor. I’m getting covers and other material assembled as I write this.

Stranger Son picks up sixteen years after the conclusion of Hagar’s Mother. I don’t want to spoil too much, but will say it takes place in a near-future California after a bout of political turmoil.

If you’ve not read Bridge Daughter or Hagar’s Mother yet, you can...

Oracular dice

Writing about Monsters and Manuals and rereading the abandoned Dungeons & Dragons blog Grognardia led me to think about a few more D&D-related topics, like dice and randomness.

All those funny-shaped D&D dice, subject of endless mirth and memes, serve a greater purpose than randomly moving a pawn around a playing board. D&D’s reliance on chance for story events—combat, encountering monsters, dealing with hirelings—represents an

embrace of events beyond your control as an integral part of the...

A different kind of naturalism

Original cover of
The Village of Hommlet

My previous posts on the blogs Monsters and Manuals and Grognardia led me to look back on Dungeons & Dragons, a game whose influence on me is pronounced, even if I haven’t played it since I was a teenager.

One topic blogger James Maliszewski explored in depth was “Gygaxian Naturalism,” his term for D&D’s co-creator Gary Gygax’s aesthetic sensibilities:

The intention behind Gygaxian Naturalism is to paint a picture of a “real” world, which is to say, a...

Of grognards and grimoires

Dungeons & Dragons
Basic Edition (1977)

Last time I wrote of my praise for Monsters and Manuals, a long-running blog on role-playing games. How I came across Monsters and Manuals is a story itself.

In 2012 I somehow found myself reading a now-defunct Dungeons & Dragons blog called Grognardia. Now, I haven’t played D&D since Ronald Reagan was president, although I was active in the game throughout the 1980s. Why I came across the blog is long-forgotten to me, but there I was reading about D&D...

Of Monsters and Manuals

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
Player’s Handbook

Blogging suffered a cruel downturn this past decade, all but displaced by social media feeds and their 280-characters-or-less bumper stickers. That’s why I hold today’s bloggers in such high regard, particularly hobbyists and amateurs not drawing a steady income off their hard work.

One blogger I’ve followed through the downturn is noisms over at Monsters and Manuals, a site dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons and other role-playing games. I’ve been...

Airplane book for a long flight: Bloodline of the Holy Grail

What faulty thinking compelled me to pick up this doorstop twenty years ago is lost to me today. With no reading material on hand, in a Munich airport bookstore and facing a direct flight home, I probably thought Laurence Gardner’s beefy Bloodline of the Holy Grail was making the best of a bad situation.

Airport bookstores and newsstands are, by and large, a waste of time for me. Most of them stock novels riding high on the New York Times bestseller list, self-help guides, business books for...