Appendix N Book Club

Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions was originally serialized in 1953 in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction--eight years later a revised and expanded version of the tale would see print in hardcover from Doubleday, followed by an Avon paperback in 1962. It has remained sporadically in print ever since, largely overshadowed by Anderson’s more famous science fiction works. Although Anderson was best known during the first half of his writing career as a science fiction author, Three Hearts and Three Lions and his following fantasy work The Broken Sword (1954) had a strong impact on knowledgeable fans and fellow writers, perhaps most clearly with Michael Moorcock’s adoption and reinterpretation of the cosmic struggle between Law and Chaos in the Elric of Melniboné stories, which began appearing in 1961. It’s interesting to speculate how much of himself Anderson put into Holger Carlsen, the hero of Three Hearts and Three Lions--they are both Danish-Americans, trained in science and engineering, and apparently wholly rational and pragmatic. Holger rises to adventure though, rediscovering and embracing his true identity as Ogier the Dane, paladin of Charlemagne and one the great heroes of medieval European literature. In a similar vein, perhaps Anderson’s romantic side led him to become a founding member of both the Society for Creative Anachronism and the Swordsmen and Sorceror's Guild of America. Throughout its publishing history Three Hearts and Three Lions never had an iconic cover, and the Appendix N-era 1978 Berkley Medallion paperback is no exception, featuring a serviceable cover by Wayne Barlowe, who would later become more well-known for his anatomically realistic depictions of fantastic creatures and truly alien life. That Three Hearts and Three Lions is one of the most significant influences on early Dungeons & Dragons is undeniable. For example, Gary Gygax specifically cites the book in the listing for the “True Troll” in the “Fantasy Supplement” to Chainmail (1971), although a full description of the Andersonian troll (and the nixie) would have to wait for the original Dungeons & Dragons (1974) box set. The original 1974 rules would also feature the most famous borrowing from Three Hearts and Three Lions, the Law vs. Chaos alignment system, although perhaps filtered through Michael Moorcock’s interpretation in the Elric books. Certain Lawful fighters could elect to achieve Holger Carlsen-esque paladin status with the publication of the first D&D supplement, Greyhawk (1975). Paladins would evolve into their quintessential D&D form as a fighter sub-class in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook (1978) The troll and the nixie would receive much more detailed write-ups in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual (1977), with the Swanmay finally making her first D&D appearance in the Monster Manual II (1983). A close reading of Three Hearts and Three Lions and the various early Dungeons & Dragons would undoubtedly reveal more direct influences on the game as we know it today.

In retrospect, the publication of Philip José Farmer’s The Maker of Universes (Ace Books, 1965) marks the beginning of the most productive and rewarding phase of Farmer’s writing career. It can hardly have seemed that way at the time, as Farmer was toiling away as a technical writer in Scottsdale, Arizona to support himself and his family. Even though Farmer had been a published writer as of 1946 and had even won his first Hugo Award in 1953 (as “Best New SF Author or Artist”), commercial success had eluded him so far. Robert Wolff, the initially aged, paunchy, and disillusioned protagonist of The Maker of Universes is obviously a stand-in for Farmer at that point in his life---fortunately Farmer and his wife Bette appear to have been very happy together in real life, as their marriage lasted over 67 years until his death in 2009. The Maker of Universes is one of Farmer’s most personal works, with callbacks to the whole range of his youthful enthusiasms, from Ancient Greek and Native American myths and legends, Edgar Rice Burroughs-style pulp, and Lord Dunsany’s sense of mystery and wonder among others. Interestingly, in Farmer’s introduction to the 1980 Phantasia Press special edition of The Maker of Universes he cites Gulliver’s Travels, Alice in Wonderland, and Through the Looking Glass as stronger influences on the book than the more obvious high adventure of Burroughs. Farmer would later write in his introduction to the THOAN, Les Faiseurs d’Univers RPG, that he had first received “impressions” of the World of Tiers while he was laid low with a fever at the age of 18 and believed them to be actual visions from an alternate universe. One has to wonder if Farmer is being utterly serious or so drily tongue-in-cheek as to make no difference…. The cover of the original Ace Books paperback features a wonderfully composed if not entirely accurate depiction of Podarge the Harpy by the versatile and prolific Jack Gaughan The Ace Books reprints from 1977 onward featured Boris Vallejo’s unmistakably beefcakey rendition of Robert Wolff along with an accurately wing-armed Podarge Given The Maker of Universes’ galloping pace and mad invention, it’s no wonder that Gary Gygax found it a particular inspiration for Dungeons & Dragons. Like many other Appendix N works, The Maker of Universes makes no particular distinction between science fiction and heroic fantasy, much to its benefit. The motley crew that eventually assembles around Robert Wolff and Kickaha the Trickster is recognizable as a proto-adventuring party and the World of Tiers itself is the classic dungeon writ (very) large, with each successive level an environment of greater threat and adventure.

Fletcher Pratt’s The Blue Star first saw print in the hardcover anthology Witches Three (Twayne Publishers, 1952), which also included Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife and James Blish’s “There Shall be No Darkness”. Pratt himself was the uncredited editor of the Witches Three, which ended up being the second and final volume in the short-lived “Twayne Triplets” series of themed hardcover fantastic fiction anthologies. Witches Three and The Blue Star in particular were positively reviewed at the time by The New York Times and The Washington Post among others. The Blue Star was not republished for the mass market however and soon slipped into obscurity, perhaps partly as a result of Pratt’s death in 1956. The Blue Star would likely remain forgotten to this day had Lin Carter not picked it to be the inaugural work in 1969 of the now seminal Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. The Ballantine Adult Fantasy series (BAFS) was launched largely to follow up on the massive success of J.R.R. Tolkien’s works for Ballantine Books. Carter was tasked with bringing “fantasy novels of adult calibre” to the mass market paperback format, from original works to reprinting many rare or unjustly obscure “fantastic romances of adventure and ideas”. Although Carter did call The Blue Star “thoughtfully conceived and brilliantly accomplished”, it’s still a bit of a mystery why he thought this rather dense and allusive book was a particularly good choice to launch the series. It is worth noting that one of Carter’s literary mentors and frequent collaborators was L. Sprague de Camp, who was also Fletcher Pratt’s most frequent fiction writing partner. The BAFS edition of The Blue Star features a striking and psychedelic wraparound cover by Ron Walotsky which has almost no bearing on the story contents. After the cancellation of the BAF series The Blue Star remained sufficiently popular to be reprinted twice more by Ballantine Books in 1975 and 1981, although now with a more mundane (if accurate to the text) cover by Darrell K. Sweet. It’s hard to map any direct textual influence from The Blue Star to Dungeons and Dragons, especially given the overall passivity of The Blue Star’s protagonists Lalette Asterhax and Rodvard Bergelin. The Blue Star’s magic system, societies, religions and mores are quite well-developed though and may have appealed to the worldbuilder in Gary Gygax. Gygax the history buff and wargamer may also have felt a special affinity for Fletcher Pratt, who was even more well known during his lifetime as a popular military and naval historian (and naval wargame creator!) than as a writer of fantastic fiction.

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ first Pellucidar book At the Earth’s Core was part of the supernova period at the beginning of his writing career, wherein he managed to write 25 novels between 1911-1915! The serialization of At the Earth’s Core in All-Story Weekly magazine in 1914 represents the extraordinary feat of launching three major literary franchises in a mere three years, following on the Mars/Barsoom series and the Tarzan series. Pellucidar's Hollow Earth setting with its weird timeless eternal day and its menagerie of threats from the chillingly alien Mahars, the brutish Sagoths, and various pre-historic megafauna remains one of the most sustained acts of invention in fantastic fiction to this day. Although At the Earth’s Core was popular enough to be published in hardcover starting in 1922 and re-serialized in 1929, it doesn’t seem to have been in print after 1940. Certainly, David Innes is a likeable protagonist, but he lacks the larger-than-life qualities of John Carter of Mars or Tarzan of the Apes. Other suspects for At the Earth’s Core’s lapse into relative obscurity would be the World War II paper shortage, followed by Burroughs’ death in 1950. At the Earth’s Core was first published in paperback by Ace Books in 1962, making it an early factor in the great Edgar Rice Burroughs revival of the 1960s. The lush and colorful cover by Roy Krenkel would certainly have helped it stand out on the racks: The Frank Frazetta cover that graced At the Earth’s Core later Ace Books printings from the early 1970s through the 1980s depicts the horrible anticipation of the Mahar temple sequence. The Pellucidar series is terrific worldbuilding but it did not leave as obvious an imprint on early Dungeons & Dragons as Burroughs’ Mars/Barsoom series, other than in its pulp ethos and sense of high adventure. The general pulp ethos was certainly present in Dave Cook and Tom Moldvay’s X1 - The Isle of Dread module which was included in 1981’s Dungeons & Dragons Expert Set. The Isle of Dread would pave the way for TSR’s Known World/Mystara setting and its undeniably pulpy/Burroughsian Hollow World sub-setting.

The Hobbit first came to Oxford University professor J.R.R. Tolkien when he was grading papers in the early 1930s. Coming upon a blank page in an exam book, he suddenly wrote “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” Tolkien worked on The Hobbit for the next several years before submitting it for publication in 1936 as a children’s book to George Allen & Unwin, then known mainly as an academic publishing house. The publisher Stanley Unwin paid his ten-year-old son Rayner a shilling to review the manuscript, which he reported on as follows: "Bilbo Baggins was a Hobbit who lived in his Hobbit hole and never went for adventures, at last Gandalf the wizard and his Dwarves persuaded him to go. He had a very exiting (sic) time fighting goblins and wargs. At last they get to the lonely mountain; Smaug, the dragon who guards it is killed and after a terrific battle with the goblins he returned home — rich! This book, with the help of maps, does not need any illustrations it is good and should appeal to all children between the ages of 5 and 9." Young Rayner Unwin’s recommendation convinced his father to publish The Hobbit in hardcover in 1937, to strong sales and critical acclaim. Stanley Unwin asked Tolkien for a sequel to The Hobbit as early as December 1937, a request that would take over 15 years to come to fruition as The Lord of the Rings. During that long process, Tolkien would revise The Hobbit for the first time to bring it into closer agreement with developments in The Lord of the Rings, especially in the depiction of Gollum and the One Ring. Although The Hobbit had been available in the U.S. from 1938 in hardcover, it had not been published in U.S. paperback by the mid 1960s, partly because of Tolkien’s distaste for the “degenerate” paperback format. This all changed when Ace Books put out an unauthorized U.S. paperback edition of The Lord of the Rings in 1965 after finding what they perceived to be a copyright loophole. Ballantine Books rushed to put out authorized U.S. paperback editions of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit in 1965. Tolkien made additional revisions to both works both for his own satisfaction and to cement their U.S. copyright status, with The Hobbit’s third edition appearing in 1966. The most common version of The Hobbit available during the Appendix N era would have been the 45th printing and onwards of the Ballantine Books revised paperback, featuring a lovely watercolor cover illustration by Tolkien himself of Bilbo’s escape from Mirkwood astride a barrel. Gary Gygax denied that Tolkien’s works were a particular influence on the development of Dungeons & Dragons, but he certainly would have been conscious of the desire of prospective players to experience the trappings of Middle-earth. Many denizens of Middle-earth including Hobbits, Ents, Orcs, and Balrogs were present in the “Fantasy Supplement” of Chainmail (1971), Gary Gygax’s medieval miniatures wargame that was the immediate predecessor to Dungeons & Dragons. The Tolkienian references continued in Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson’s original Dungeons & Dragons (1974) box set until the Tolkien estate caught wind of this. To avoid copyright and trademark violations, TSR modified or removed Tolkienian references from Chainmail and Dungeons & Dragons in 1977, with Hobbits becoming Halflings, Ents becoming Treants, and Balrogs becoming Type VI Demons, etc.

Special guest Gavin Norman (author of The Complete Vivimancer and Theorems & Thaumaturgy) joins us to discuss Jack Vance‘s The Dying Earth! Jack Vance originally wrote the loosely connected stories that comprise The Dying Earth while serving in the United States Merchant Marine during World War II. Vance’s fiction had started appearing in pulp magazines as early as 1945, and The Dying Earth marked his first book publication when it was released in digest-sized paperback in 1950 by Hillman Periodicals, best known as a comic book and magazine publisher. The Dying Earth appears not to have been particularly successful at first, as it was not reprinted even as Vance’s career went on an upswing in the late 1950s & early 1960s. Hillman ceased publishing in 1961 and Lancer Books snapped up The Dying Earth, reprinting it in paperback in 1962 with a cover by the ever-versatile Ed Emshwiller depicting the denouement of the story “Ulan Dhor”. The Dying Earth did well enough that Lancer kept it in print until they went bankrupt in 1973, by which time its reputation was such that it has remained in print to this day through a series of different publishers. No doubt the continued success of The Dying Earth led Jack Vance to revisit the setting starting in the mid 1960s. These new stories that would eventually be published as The Eyes of the Overworld (1966), followed by the post-Appendix N books Cugel’s Saga (1983) and Rhialto the Marvellous (1984). Gary Gygax wrote in issue 2 of The Excellent Prismatic Spray (2001) that he first became a fan of Jack Vance after reading The Big Planet (1957) in the pulps in the early 1950s and then was “absolutely enthralled...as no work of fantasy had done for a long time” with the publication of The Eyes of the Overworld in 1966. The Dying Earth further cemented Gygax’s love of the setting. When it came time to devise a magic system for Dungeons & Dragons, Gygax felt that a “Vancian” system of memorized spells that are expended when cast and that then must be re-learned before casting again was the best way to provide flavor and balance the magic-user against other classes. The Enchanter series by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt would provide the situational pre-conditions for spellcasting in D&D, but these spell components were often glossed-over, as Gygax laments as early as 1976 in issue 6 of The Strategic Review, the predecessor to Dragon magazine. Oddly, D&D’s publisher TSR appears never to have tried to license the Dying Earth setting even though Gary Gygax remained a huge fan of Jack Vance and actually had significant contact with him after Dungeons & Dragons took the world by storm. The first time gamers would get to officially adventure in the Dying Earth was with the publication of Pelgrane Press’ The Dying Earth Roleplaying Game in 2001. Goodman Games has since licensed the Dying Earth setting for its Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, with a target release date of late 2017.

Swords and Deviltry (Ace Books, 1970) by Fritz Leiber was originally published in paperback as part of Ace Books’ complete seven volume saga of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Although Swords and Deviltry is first in the series chronology, it was actually the fourth book published. Leiber and his lifelong friend Harry Otto Fischer created Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in an exchange of letters in 1934, basing the pair loosely on their own friendship, with Fischer as the diminutive Mouser and Leiber as the towering Fafhrd. The first story featuring the Twain (as they are often called) to appear in print was “Two Sought Adventure” AKA “The Jewels in the Forest” in 1939 in Unknown magazine. A handful of further Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories trickled out over the next two decades until Cele Goldsmith commissioned brand-new stories for Fantastic magazine starting in 1959, which lead to the Ace paperback collections of the late 1960s. Other than the continued interest in Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, this new appreciation of Leiber’s fantasy fiction was one of the biggest contributors to the sword and sorcery renaissance of the 1960s. In fact, Leiber is credited with coining the term “sword and sorcery” in 1961 when Michael Moorcock called for a name for the type of fantasy fiction that Howard, Leiber and others were coming to exemplify. By the time Swords and Deviltry was published Leiber had been writing tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser for over 30 years, but it is only in this book that he revealed their full origins in the stories “Induction” (1957), “The Snow Women” (1970), “The Unholy Grail” (1962), and “Ill-Met in Lankhmar” (1970). Swords and Deviltry featured a typically moody Jeffrey Catherine Jones cover, although the effect is compromised by the trade dress of later printings: Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser’s gaming history actually predates their first publication, as Leiber and Fischer created a complex three-dimensional board game in 1937 to amuse themselves and help them visualize the Twain’s stomping grounds of the city of Lankhmar and the world of Nehwon. This game was later re-developed and published by TSR as Lankhmar in 1976. Leiber and Fischer weren’t mere hands-off IP licensors, however. Leiber would contribute a witty conversation with Fafhrd and the Mouser about wargaming in the very first issue of The Dragon (1976), followed by the short story “Sea Magic” in issue 11 (1977). Fischer’s short story “The Childhood and Youth of The Gray Mouser” then appeared in issue 18 (1978). Lawrence Shick and Tom Moldvay gave Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser their first Advanced Dungeons & Dragons write-up in issue 27 of The Dragon (1979). The Twain and various other denizens of Nehwon were given a whole chapter in James M. Ward’s and Robert J. Kuntz’s Deities & Demigods (1980), with memorably gritty illustrations by Jennell Jaquays. Future notes on the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series will cover later TSR Lankhmar publications, post-TSR licensees and other games that have been directly influenced by the city of Lankhmar. Stay tuned!

Conan (Lancer Books, 1967) by Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, and Lin Carter was part of first comprehensive paperback edition of the Conan saga. Conan was the fifth volume published, although it is first in the internal chronology--later printings of the series numbered the books in chronological order. When Lancer when out of business in 1973, Ace Books picked up and completed the series, keeping it in print until the mid 1990s. In a now controversial move, series editors de Camp and Carter filled in gaps in Conan’s timeline by expanding Howard’s unpublished notes and fragments, re-writing non-Conan stories, and writing entirely new stories, thus jump-starting the Conan pastiche era. For the purist, the Howard-only stories in this collection are “The Hyborian Age, Part 1” (1936), “The Tower of the Elephant” (1933), “The God in the Bowl” (1952, Howard’s original version first published 1975), and “Rogues in the House” (1934). Regardless of the editorial controversies, the Lancer/Ace series was the only widely available source of Howard-penned Conan stories for nearly three decades, sustaining the sword and sorcery boom from the late ‘60s to the mid ‘90s. Robert E. Howard’s furious prose and the now-iconic Frank Frazetta cover illustrations on many of the volumes have cemented Conan the Cimmerian in popular culture. Frazetta had clearly read and internalized the dynamism of the Conan stories, as shown by his cover painting of Conan’s epic struggle with Thak the apeman from “Rogues in the House”. As Dungeons & Dragons was created in the era of peak Conan, it is natural that Conan’s presence would be felt, starting with a write-up in Robert Kuntz and James M. Ward’s OD&D supplement Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes (1976). Gary Gygax himself would write up Conan as he appeared in various stages of his career in Dragon magazine issue 36 (1980)--a treatment that presaged the eventual AD&D Barbarian class in Dragon issue 62 (1982) and Unearthed Arcana (1985). Conan the Cimmerian has since remained a perennial roleplaying game property, both with TSR and other publishers, but that’s a story for another day….

The Compleat Enchanter by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt is a compilation of the first three novellas in the Harold Shea/Enchanter series, “The Roaring Trumpet” (1940), “The Mathematics of Magic” (1940), and “The Castle of Iron” (1941, revised 1950). The Compleat Enchanter was first published as a Nelson Doubleday/Science Fiction Book Club hardcover in 1975 before being released as a Del Rey paperback in 1976, featuring a charming Brothers Hildebrandt cover painting. The three adventures in this book take place in the worlds of Norse Mythology, Edmund Spenser’s epic poem The Faerie Queene, and Ludovico Ariosto’s epic poem Orlando Furioso. De Camp and Pratt would later team up for two more Harold Shea stories, “The Wall of Serpents” (1953), and “The Green Magician” (1954). These stories fall outside of the Appendix N Book Club reading list since they were not collected in paperback until 1979, but Gary Gygax and Tim Kask must have been big fans since “The Green Magician” made its first reappearance in print since 1960 in issues 15 and 16 of The Dragon (1978)! In any case, the Harold Shea series undoubtedly left its mark on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, most obviously in the magical spell component requirements in The Players Handbook and the Against the Giants series of modules.

Hoi and Jeff explain what the Appendix N is and why they care.