Joseph’s Comments (group member since Oct 24, 2012)

Joseph’s comments from the Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy" group.

I still have my 1st edition GW rulebook, and even the box. It's missing the map of post-apocalyptic North America, though. And I still have some of the original dice somewhere in my big jar o' dice.

I liked it. I'm not super familiar with the lore -- I played some Warcraft 2 on my PlayStation (of all things) back about 20 years ago, and just a bit of Warcraft 3 in the recent past, but that's about it -- but I didn't have trouble keeping up with the story, although I know that I was missing tons & tons of insider references.

And yeah, it did feel a bit rushed at times, like they were desperate to get ALL THE WARCRAFT into the one movie. I think I heard that they'll be releasing an extended cut on DVD?

Greg wrote: "Interesting. Old Gamma World GM here. "

If I ever were to run a tabletop RPG, one of the top candidates would be 1st edition GW mixed liberally with 1st edition AD&D and given a decidedly Thundarr-esque vibe.

I have The Tower of Swallows (the latest English-language publication) on my Kindle and will get to it sooner rather than later.

I loved all three of the games, and need to go back to W3 to play Hearts of Stone and Blood & Wine.

I really need to sit down with that giant Digger graphic novel one of these days ...

Michael wrote: "You are so fortunate to have inherited those books. I grew up on that stuff. Podkayne of Mars, Green Hills of Earth, Starship Troopers, Puppet Masters, Glory Road (which could be construed as Sword..."

Well, not so much "inherited" as "absconded with" ... :)

The thing that surprised me most (and surprised Dad too, last time we talked about it) was that many of the books were actually slightly younger than me; growing up, I had just kind of assumed that they were copies from his teenage years or something, but many of the specific copies on his shelf had actually been published a few years after I was born.

I vividly remember sitting on the front porch -- I'm pretty sure it was the summer after 2nd grade -- and reading Red Planet all in one sitting.

I do regret not snagging all of Mom's Ed McBain paperbacks.

I still have all of Dad's old Heinlein paperbacks (and his copy of Dune), which I've read repeatedly over the years.

Am now reading Orphans of the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein which, no, isn't sword & sorcery, but you could probably make a six degrees of separation that went from Orphans to Metamorphosis Alpha to Gamma World to Dungeons And Dragons Basic Set Box Set to ...

Looks like it could have possibilities. I'd still like to see more Kröd Mändoon, although I expect that ship sailed a long time ago.

Finished Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, which held up much better than a lot of other SF written 30 years ago, and am now starting something that, if not sword & sorcery, will at least contain both swords and sorcery: Camber of Culdi by Katherine Kurtz (first book in the first Deryni prequel trilogy).

Jack wrote: "Today I started reading Bran Mak Morn: The Last King, the full collection of Robert E. Howard's published and unpublished stories about Bran Mak Morn. I've read some of these in other..."

An excellent collection!

Richard wrote: "There is also an RPG set in the world: Artesia: Adventures in the Known World"

Tempted to get that just for the world info.

So last year(?) I read The Barrow by Mark Smylie and quite enjoyed it (and am still waiting for the sequel; sigh). Come to find out, before writing The Barrow, Smylie had done a series of comics set in the same world, about the sister of the Barrow's main character, Artesia. She leads a company of soldiers and there's some warrin' and politickin' going on. I finally got around to picking up the three collections that have been issued:

Artesia Volume 1
Artesia Volume 2: Afield - The Second Book Of Dooms
Artesia Volume 3: Afire - The Third Book Of Dooms

Currently in the first volume and enjoying it. Be warned, though, that the first volume is out of print and was not cheap. Also, I'm not sure how it will end -- I think there was going to be a fourth collection, but I don't think he actually finished the comics that would have gone into the collection.

Greg wrote: "I read Neuromancer back in the '90s and enjoyed it but I recall thinking back then that it was already becoming dated, with one person smuggling a mere 3 MB of data and the author's 1980s fascination with shurikens."

That's one of the reasons I think Gibson actually holds up better than a lot of his contemporaries -- he was never a tech guy, so he didn't give a lot of specific details about the impossibly fast 1GHz processors and the incredible terabyte-sized corporate data files.

I just finished Neuromancer and started Count Zero. And now I kind of want William Gibson to write some sword & sorcery.

I think The Throne of Bones might qualify ...

My review.

Great! I don't mean to drive you away from it, and I'll be very curious to hear what you think.

Yeah, Sea of Death actually isn't a bad place to start, and it'll give you a sense of Gygax as a fiction writer.

City of Hawks was written as a prequel. Saga of Old City (the first TSR book) starts with Gord as a young orphan on the streets of Greyhawk City. City of Hawks actually goes back to his birth. Also, the stories in Night Arrant take place before the events of Sea of Death even though it was published afterwards.

"not all that good" -- I think Gygax was a fine worldbuilder and storyteller, but a lot of his actual prose was kind of clumsy & stilted -- like he was going for a slightly more formal or elevated style, but couldn't quite pull it off. Still, the bit when the characters are actually in the Sea of Death proper is quite memorable.

Bummer -- I didn't realize he was gone. It was very good, albeit not for the squeamish or faint-of-heart.

OK, finished The Throne of Bones by Brian McNaughton, which isn't strictly S&S, but which I think would be of interest to folks here -- it's very much in the tradition of Lovecraft's Dreamlands stories or possibly Clark Ashton Smith. Heavy on the ghouls.