Snow Crash is one of my faves as well, although I did like Quicksilver… it reminded me of English period films, which I never choose, but always leave running when they’re on.

Lovecraft can be spooky, or it can be really boring (from a modern perspective). The first person perspective may play a huge part in that.

Kudos to Fritz Lieber! One of the authors that D&D led me to, Lieber’s first five books of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are simply great fantasy. The sixth, not so good.

And heaven forbid that I write about books without mentioning my favorite author, Terry Pratchett! Everyone who games should read Troll Bridge.

Finally, Elizabeth Moon’s Legacy of Gird didn’t live up to The Deed of Paksennarion. Read Deed; it’s excellent fantasy. Ignore Gird; it’s mediocre, although it does answer a few questions in Deed.

I think it came out late last week or is about to come out this week — right?

I’m looking forward to his new one, Anathem, too.

right now I’m reading
keith baker: the gates of night (an eberron novel; rpg fiction helps me in getting the feel and the tone of the world)
shadowrun 4th edition book
eberron: explorers handbook
iron kingdoms: 5 fingers
and tons of (european) comics and graphic novels.

On lovecraft: I have only read “the mountains of madness” but that one is one of the few books that had me really scared in my bed. Most horror (I read) does not do that. You feel fascinated and fear for the main characters life. But lovecraft made me feel afraid. maybe that is the appeal?

Currently, I’m slowly going through rereading the Myth Adventures by Robert Aspirin.

My wife and I recently read Elizabeth Peter’s Crocodile on the Bank (Ameila Peabody series). Its good to read a mystery once in a while to make you think about characters and flow of events for gaming.

@dylan.zimmerman – I especially liked the Into the Gap series by Stephen Donaldson, but I had to admit it was hard to swallow until I got to the end of his first book and read his notes on what was his overall design of the series. As a GM, it showed me how you can work a ‘thematic’ element into a game that not only casts the story in a particular light, but also can give each ‘character’ a chance to shine.

I’m yet to delve into Lovecraft though I’ve been meaning to since hearing it praised and referenced so much around RPG blogs etc..

Lastly, I approve of the “Tomes..” idea, keep it going

My wife was a huge Thursday Next fan and introduced me to the books. They are much more about books than time travel, just as forewarning.

And that’s a lot of interesting books to add to my list– thanks for pointing me at so many of them and reminding me of old favorites. (I agree with Rafe: Hyperion and its sequel are excellent.)

I can’t wait to get one for myself!

I second Rafe’s recommendation of “The Whisperer in Darkness” — it’s my favorite Lovecraft story as well. My other favorites are The Mountains of Madness (actually a novella), “The Colour Out of Space,” “The Shadow Out of Time” and “Pickman’s Model.”

There are so many editions and collections of Lovecraft’s stories that it’s tough to know exactly which one The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Tales is, Vampir. I highly recommend the Arkham House hardcover editions, although they can be pricey; four volumes gets you everything but his poetry, faithfully reproduced — a lot of the other versions are badly edited.

S.T. Joshi (the editor of the AH editions) has also done two collections of annotated stories, The Annotated HP Lovecraft and More Annotated HP Lovecraft, that are a lot of fun.

“The Call of Cthulhu,” while essential reading for running the RPG, is not one of his better stories.

“The Hounds of Ash and Other Tales of Fool Wolf” by Greg Keyes. Collects the Fool Wolf stories that appeared in Dragon magazine.

“Lankhmar Book 3: Swords in the Mist” by Fritz Leiber. Classic Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser

“Night Shift” by Stephen King. Specifically the two short stories about vampires and Salem’s Lot (which I’ll probably reread soon). I got inspired by a blogger writing about children as villains in RPGs and thought of one of the short stories which features a 5 year old vampire.

I’m one of those people who loves reading Lovecraft. For me, he’s really able to capture the angle of the innocent in the middle of something horrible and lets you watch the dawning realization where what can’t possibly be true actually is. I also very much enjoy that most of what’s horrible is unwritten. Many writers today don’t seem to know how to build suspense – they just go for the shock. I can get that on the evening news, thankyouverymuch. Just my $0.02

Cool, I’ll definitely look into it. As for “best sci-fi”, I have to give my vote for that to Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons.

– I’m reading The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Tales. I heard a lot of hype about Lovecraft’s writing all over the RPG community but for now, I just don’t see what caused this fascination –

Remember, Lovecraft was writing in the ’20s and ’30s. There were few horror writers of that time; much of his writing is in first-person (a break from the norm); no one at the time had written “gore horror”, only suspense horror (Poe); no one had really dabbled with otherworldly/sci-fi horror, only occasionally supernatural horror; and the way he wrote made it sound like the characters were chronicling real events happening in the world. That made it immersive for his readers. I love his stuff. I think “The Whisperer In Darkness” is his best short story.

I’m reading The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Tales. I heard a lot of hype about Lovecraft’s writing all over the RPG community but for now, I just don’t see what caused this fascination… maybe after I’m done I’ll get into it more…