Today was a fantastic day for those pushing back against the SocJus Death Cult and all of their fellow travelers. For those of us who got into this due to #Gamergate and the Saga of the Sad & Rabid Puppies, the rediscovery of the books listed in Appendix N of the 1st edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide was no less than revolutionary. In the tabletop gaming world, this lead to the Old-School Renaissance and the increasing certainty that the hobby will survive no matter the industry's fate- a restored sensibility now spreading to videogames in the wake of #Gamergate.
In the SF/F world, the impact is now coming in the form of the Pulp Revolution and the Superversive Movement. Just as new companies and other alternatives to the pozzed TRPGs arose and now make room for gaming without Social Justice, this restoration of a deliberately Memory-Holed body of speculative fiction that formerly was the canon everyone--reader, writer, publisher--held in common and built upon. The reaction by those party to this cultural degradation, and their benefactors, shows just how right Jeffro Johnson was to restore it with his new release: Appendix N: The Literary History of Dungeons & Dragons.
At long last, Jeffro appeared yesterday on Geek Gab with Daddy Warpig, Dorrinal, and Dragon Award winning Science Fiction author Brian Niemeier to discuss Appendix N, Appendix N, and its impact upon gaming and SF/F geekdom. You will not waste your time with this podcast, so I implore you to clear away the time, make yourself comfortable, and give this podcast your full and undivided attention.
Now, if you're wanting to get in on this revival of the classics upon which our modern culture rests, then you ought to make time and read these old greats. Yes, check your local library to see if they have hardcopies you can borrow. Hit up the used bookstores for dirt cheap paperbacks in good condition, especially on clearance. Do that; you'll find the gems there. However, if you're cool with ebooks and you don't mind Amazon's Kindle then allow me to point out something you may enjoy: free books.
Throw out a search at Amazon for the author you're looking for, such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, then when you get to the page specify Kindle Store books and then set the search results to go from Low to High in price. You will find free ebooks popping up, such as this free Kindle version of A Princess of Mars. You can sift for hours like this, going through and adding all the free books you want to your Amazon account- not just stuff found in Appendix N. From there you can download and read in a Kindle app, or convert to another format (using a program such as Calibre) and read it however else you like.
Come on and join the party! Trust me on this: once you give these classic tales of heroism, romance, and big adventure a try you'll soon be wanting more- and then yearning for it in your movies and games. Then you'll start making your own because you just won't get enough, and that's how you'll become a successor to these old masters and peers to revivalists like Brian Neimeier
A lot of old greats ar Gutenberg.org and libravox.org.
ReplyDeleteAmazon's freebees include a LOT of H. Beam Piper as well.