Ameritrash, Literature, and You!

Shellhead wrote:

I thought that the Hawkmoon books had great potential but fell flat. The Gran Bretanians had great style as villains, kind of a cross between Nazis and furries, only crazier. But the actual stories are lacking, in part because Hawkmoon himself is a dull character, defined more by his abilities than his personality.

This is true of a fair amount of Moorcock's work; his heroes (and antiheroes) are often not particularly deeply characterized, mainly because they're the POV for what are basically milieu stories. Corum is also like this, although Corum has a little more personality than Hawkmoon. In both cases, the hero's companions and villains are often more complex then than heroes themselves. I suspect that Elric is the most popular series because of his depth, which more people will appreciate.

As far as books games are based on:

A Game of Thrones: Read all the way up to Feast for Crows. Pretty good, but man does he like to kill of characters! There was nobody left at the end of the one where I left off so I didn't see a point in reading Feast for Crows. Also, what's up with all the violence on children and explicit weird sex? Haven't played the games.

Dracula: I just read this for the first time in October. It was pretty good and surprisingly creepy. I think I'll appreciate Fury of Dracula more the next time I play it.

Dune: Just the first one. I heard the rest are mind bogglingly dull. Haven't played the game.

Lord of the Rings: And the Hobbit, and the Silmarillion, and the new Children of Hurin book ... yeah I'm a Tolkien nerd. Oh and I haven't played the game either. Well I have LOTR: Confrontation. Does that count?

Lovecraft: I've read my fair share of Lovecraft. I did it. I liked the novella about the guy traveling through all the different dream dimensions. Oh, I've got Arkham Horror though. Great game.

Other authors:
Stephen King's Dark Tower series is excellent. I liked the ending personally. The series is a great mix of Wester, sci-fi, fantasy and horror.

Michael Moorcock: I tried reading the Elric stuff a few months ago and I couldn't really get into it. Maybe the first book was just a little to slow to start off for me.

Robert E. Howard: I've read some Conan stuff and I really enjoyed it. I should really look into Soloman Kane.

Ender's Game. Anyone who's into any kind of wargame should totally read Ender's Game. The rest of Orson Scott Card's stuff isn't all that hot. A lot of his stuff is just Mormonism pasted over with sci-fi themes. I'm not a fan and I'm a Mormon. But Ender's Game, that's the ticket.

Roger Zelazny: The Amber series is awesome. A lot of his other stuff is good too.

Oh this list could go on and on.

Mad Dog wrote:

Are there any AT games based on Elric or The Road? Because I hadn't intended this to be a "recommend the same books you recommended fifty times on this site already" thread.

You didn't make it entirely clear that you only wanted books that games were based on.

As already said, there is at least one game based on the Elric books. My other suggestions don't have related games, although I'd reiterate that since The Player of Games satisfies your condition the other way round (being a book based on a game) it probably merits inclusion.

There's a discworld boardgame. No idea if it's any good, but I still enjoy the novels. At their best they offer plenty of humour as well as ideas to chew over. At worst they're just pointlessly obscure.

Can't think of any others. It's interesting that games based on book rights seem to enjoy rather more success than those based on film rights, most of which turn out to be crap.

I'm re-reading A Feast for Crows right now, and noticed that Martin is a fan of [EDIT] Lovecraft.

Compare this opening line from Lovecraft's short story, The Colour Out of Space:

"West of Arkham, the hills rise wild."

With this line, from the opening of a Brienne chapter in A Feast for Crows:

"East of Maidenpool, the hills rise wild."

Of course, I noticed this line because one of my all-time favorite games is The Hills Rise Wild.

you mean he was a fan of Lovecraft.

Wheel of Time is absolute trash all the way through. He uses the exact same words to describe things even in the same book and obviously does not have the ability to actually write that many pages. And don't get me started on the characters - I've never heard of anybody being so oblivious to their own faults. And it's not just one or two of them who do this. Add in too many side plots and side characters and it's no wonder he never managed to finish. However I have to admit that I'm currently re-reading some of the books for the third time or so. It's pulp and the world and some of the stuff the characters go through is actually quite cool. And one of the main characters get to date three hot chicks all at once.

Another good fantasy read is Robin Hobbs Farseer series - especially the first trilogy. And I could easily see a board game with The Six Duchies trying to survive the onslaught of the red ship raiders.

metalface13 wrote:

you mean he was a fan of Lovecraft.

Oops, yeah. I would edit my post, except that I don't see a way to do that.

Shellhead wrote:

metalface13 wrote:

you mean he was a fan of Lovecraft.

Oops, yeah. I would edit my post, except that I don't see a way to do that.

There should be a little pencil icon in the bottom right corner of your post next to the QUOTE button. Click the pencil to edit.

Thanks for the tip, I just fixed it.

Shellhead wrote:

Thanks for the tip, I just fixed it.

Too late. Everyone's already seen what an idiot you are.

Ha ha.

MattDP wrote:

Shellhead wrote:

Thanks for the tip, I just fixed it.

Too late. Everyone's already seen what an idiot you are.

Ha ha.

Ehh, I already have a girlfriend who is happy to notify me when I'm being an idiot. It's kind of like having one of those trigger-happy smoke detectors that makes a loud, annoying buzz.