A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Confession time: I've wanted to read this book for a very long while.

Edgar Rice Burroughs is my favorite author. Certainly others have occupied that title at different places and times: Mark Z. Danielewski weaves incredible meta-narratives in everything he writes, and John Keats had a poesy to him unparalleled to this day, but ERB had the spark of true genius within him, evident to me from my first reading of Tarzan of the Apes at the tender age of 12. His writing was simple yet elegant, with neither the flat affect of Ernest Hemingway nor the bombast of F. Scott Fitzgerald, two other titans of the early 20th century American literature scene. I won't be reading all of his books on the list at once, for too much of any good thing is poisonous, but I would be lying if I said I hadn't been waiting this entire time to begin the John Carter saga.

And what a saga it is! 11 books detail the daring exploits of Virginian gentleman Captain John Carter on the Martian world of Barsoom. This world, far removed from our own and yet similar in many ways, sets the stage for a tale of powerful love, unending strife, and the bitter resolve of a dying planet. If it sounds like I'm gushing, it's only because I am; I absolutely loved this book, that which kickstarted the "sword and planet" genre that Leigh Brackett later revitalized. 

I could spend the rest of this article giving you a synopsis of the story, but that wouldn't be very interesting and I'd feel like I was competing with the good people over at Wikipedia. Instead, I'd like to talk about why I like ERB so much, and why I've (paradoxically) read so little of his works. Burroughs had the idea that most anyone could be a hero, and it came through in his writing. Tarzan was the child of British nobility left alone and nursed on a gorilla's teat. John Carter is an (admittedly immortal) everyman soldier, who begins the story searching for gold in the then-uncharted West. David Innes of the Pellucidar series is blue-blooded investor. These are all interesting backstories, to be sure, but they lack the deterministic "half-blood child of a god/demon/monster" that later fantasy would popularize. At heart, Burroughs characters were ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances, and their stories revolved around how they reacted to and solved the problems they faced.

Say you're a child growing up in not the richest part of town, with not the best grades and not the best looks, who maybe had not the most friends or the most romantic opportunities or the most self-confidence. And you head on down to the second best library in town because they still have the old books and you pick up a tattered trade paperback with a burly dude clutching a half-naked woman on the cover. You take that book, and you sit down in one of the over-stuffed, patched chairs the library has and you start to read. And you learn that cover dude? He wasn't always burly. He didn't always have the woman. Hell, 20 pages in and he's naked and nearly dead after being chased down by giant green Martians with four arms. But you keep reading, and you get to the part where he romances Dejah Thoris, the titular "Princess of Mars." You read about the fights he gets in, the wars he influences, the way he changes the entire Martian society just because of how inherently different he is and for a moment you stop thinking you're so powerless. Maybe you start thinking you can be great too.

I don't have much more to say about this book; at least, I don't have much more that wouldn't sound like the ramblings of a man who should probably consider re-upping with his therapist. Go on and read some old adventure books, it'll be good for your soul.

The Book of Skaith, by Leigh Brackett

Today we look at The Book of Skaith, a collection of three novels featuring the hero Eric John Stark's adventures on the strange and deadly world of Skaith. EGG listed Leigh Brackett in Appendix N without further comment on her works; no recommendations are made for particular works or series. As even Wikipedia agrees that Stark is Brackett's most enduring character, I thought this would be a good representation of her storytelling and writing style.

The Book of Skaith comprises three 150-page novels: The Ginger Star, The Hounds of Skaith, and The Reavers of Skaith. I'll be going over each of these individually first, then giving my overview on the story as a whole.

The Ginger Star opens with Stark debriefing himself on his upcoming assignment. His mentor and adoptive father, Simon Ashton, has gone missing after a peacekeeping mission to the backwater planet of Skaith. Skaith was recently discovered by the greater galactic people, and its thriving natural community work on a technological scale more or less equivalent to Earth's medieval period. Stark learns that the planets citizens are by and large held under the thumb of the Lords Protector, a shadowy entity that, in an attempt to provide sustenance for the poor and sick, holds nearly a third of the planet in forced servitude. Misguided charity aside, the world of Skaith is dangerous in many ways; half-human monsters lurk in rivers, murderous, drug-crazed Farers wander the highways, and hellhounds stalk the northern mountains. Stark soon finds himself embroiled in a prophecy that threatens to change the world of Skaith forever.

Frankly, I wasn't a fan of the first book, although my mood improved greatly over the subsequent two. Stark is certainly an interesting character, a sort of Tarzan/John Carter pastiche tempered by the heat of battle (and Mercury). In this story, however, he serves as little more than the window by which we view the much more interesting secondary characters. Despite two brief contacts with the aforementioned fish-monsters and hounds, Stark doesn't do very much in this first book; Gerrith, the wise-woman who prophesies his adventure, and Halk, the expert swordsman out to avenge the death of his wife, are much more intriguing and end up solving the majority of the problems.

This changes immediately at the onset of The Hounds of Skaith, as Stark finds himself the new master of a group of what I can only call dire wolves. The hounds have a pretty cool ability to instill fear into intelligent creatures from a distance, either causing them to fall to their knees and weep or killing them outright. That is a cool idea, and it's used to great effect as Stark tries to escort Ashton back to the only spaceport on the planet. Brackett's creativity really shines in this book, as Stark is pitted against cannibals that ride sandstorms like surfers ride waves and hybrid bird-men that whip up whirlwinds with the beating of their massive wings. It's one of the reasons I've always liked the Sword-and-Planets genre: while fantasy has all too often fallen into the generic trap of sticking to classic European mythology, sci-fi has the freedom to explore the very limits of human creativity.

Stark's mission comes to a full head in The Reavers of Skaith, as his army begins to retake the planet that has been trying its damndest to kill him. This book also contains an extended scene between Stark and Ashton that reveals more of their history and relationship. As Stark and Ashton continue their race towards the spaceport, they have their first encounter with alien species not from Skaith, in the form of a treacherous space pirate and his crew. The juxtaposition of laser cannons and half-naked savages is done well, and really serves to illustrate the plight of Skaith's inhabitants: trapped on a dying planet, hopelessly backwards in comparison to the galaxy around them but fiercely protective of their autonomy. Bracket does a good job making you empathize with her characters, even if her protagonist is a bit wooden.

Altogether, The Book of Skaith is a perfectly sound Swords-and-Planets series, and if you take it as a single book (as I did) it manages to tell an entertaining and convincing story in about 450 pages, which wouldn't have taken me as long as it did had not the first chapter been so difficult to start. I pride myself on being able to slog my way through most things (I've read the entire ASoIaF series to date, and even managed to hate-read War and Peace), but the first few pages of The Ginger Star were not engaging in the least. As I mentioned before, this falls mainly on the shoulders of our protagonist, who has pathos equivalent to most stones; Stark rarely shows fear, which is par for the course with fantasy novels, but his equal refusal to show love, anger, or emotion of any kind certainly doesn't win him over to the audience.

I would be doing Brackett a disservice to not mention that the bulk of the Eric John Stark stories were written in the late 40's-early 50's, while the books contained in this collection were all published in the mid 1970's. I won't deny the possibility that Skaith represents Stark (and by extension, the author) on the downswing, because I have nothing else to compare it to. All I can say is this: the inhabitants of Skaith, varied and multifaceted as they are, seem to come to life in a way Eric John Stark never does. It is as if Brackett's writing evolved, but the established character she had been basing her stories around for 20 years never did. When I think about the world of Skaith, I come to images of brutal telepathic wolves, sandstorm-riding psychopaths, four-armed warriors, and the bringing of the whirlwind. I am reminded of a villain who is anything but and a story where most characters are as morally gray as any great space opera. I am brought to a story that manages to tell a great tale in such a small place and time, but I can't help but leave feeling that "The Adventures of Eric John Stark" are anything but.

The Broken Sword, by Poul Anderson

Goddammit, Poul.

Before I continue, let me warn that if you're put off by talk of rape, incest, or other sexual atrocities that you're going to want to skip this one. You really won't be missing much.

Ugh. Let it also be known that I'm writing this after having accidentally slammed my finger in a door, which coincidentally mirrors the experience of reading the book. Truly, life imitates fiction. Well, I've put it off long enough, lets just get this over with so I can move on to Leigh Brackett.

The Broken Sword, written a year after Three Hearts and Three Lions, is another retelling of classical myth: in this case, Viking tales of faeries, trolls, giants, and other creatures of the Nine Worlds. And in that, it succeeds magnificently. The war between the elves (synonymous with faeries) and the trolls is a lengthy, well planned story. The way it goes about telling that story, though, is goddamn bonkers. So lets do this.

Imric is an elf-lord who desires a human son for unknown reasons. So he decides to steal one, but also can't do that unless he swaps it out in an even trade. So he goes down to his dungeons and rapes a troll he's held captive for several centuries. Imric does some magic to quicken the quickening, and the baby is born: half elf, half troll (this is important later). He does some swapping, and now he's the father of a handsome human male, who he names Skafloc.

The fake son then is raised as a human by a Viking family and is given the name Valgard. Owing to his troll nature, Valgard is a lunatic berserker, and fares well in combat alongside his father and brothers. One day, however, his brother doesn't come back from a hunt, having been ensnared by a witch who has cast a spell on Orm (the Viking dad) in order to kill his entire family. The witch has taken the form of a beautiful woman to seduce Valgard's brother, and when Valgard finds him, he too is seduced by her. In a fit of jealous rage, Valgard kills his brother. Then he goes back to his family, who eventually find out what he's done, so he is forced to kill his father and other brothers. Returning to the witch's cottage, she tells him that he is not actually human, and therefore shouldn't feel bad, and that his real dad is some distant fey asshole that he really should kill. Then she transforms back into an old lady, and he runs away in rage and presumed disgust at what he's been porking.

Valgard hatches a plan to get back at his real dad by joining forces with the trolls. So he kidnaps his two sisters (intending to sell them as wives to the trolls) and hitches a ride to Trollheim. This entire time, Skafloc has been reared in the arts of elvish fighting, and trained as a powerful lover by Leea, Imric's sister (who also sleeps with Imric, as the story is sure to remind us). In a remarkable coincidence, Skafloc and Imric are heading to Trollheim to wage war, and arrive at the same time Valgard does. A fight ensues, wherein Valgard accidentally murders one of the sisters and the other is "freed" by Skafloc, who we now learn is so handsome that he can seduce a woman despite looking exactly like her insane, fratricidal brother. The sister, Frede, is taken back to Elfheim. Meanwhile, Valgard stews in his anger and vows revenge against Skafloc and all of elfkind.

Skafloc and Frede quickly start a-wooin', much to the disappointment of Leea, who is deeply in love with the man. The trolls mount a quick counter-attack, however, leaving her little time to pout: the castle is overrun, and Skafloc and Frede make a quick getaway while the trolls are beating up Imric and having their way with the elven women. For the next 30 or so pages, Skafloc and Frede work as raiders, hitting troll encampments left and right and fleeing into the daylight whenever they are attacked. After realizing he's not doing enough damage, Skafloc decides to raise Frede's dead family to ask for advice. He is told to seek out the broken sword destined to be wielded by him (it was shown earlier, but not in any meaningful capacity) and also that he's been sleeping with his sister. He doesn't care, but Frede is livid and asks him to return her to the human world. With a heavy heart, she departs her beloved, but finds out later that she's pregnant with his kid.

Skafloc steals the sword from its hiding place in Elfheim by turning into a wolf, then an otter, then seducing Leea right out from Valgard's bed. With the sword, he heads towards the land of the sidhe, and then the land of the giants, seeking a blacksmith that can repair the sword. After the sword is repaired, he goes on several quests — killing a dragon, seducing giant women, plundering ancient ruins, etc.— that the book decides not to talk about. As in, the narrator literally says "Skafloc did these things, but they aren't part of this story so we're going to move on." Lord have mercy, I'm almost done.

So Skafloc's sword, along with the giant steed he stole, turns him into the sort of invincible hero that Poul would later satirize in "On Thud and Blunder." I implore you to read the facetious introduction to that essay, and then the following honest-to-god passage from this book:

"...Through the clangor rode Skafloc, smiting, smiting. His blows shuddered in byrnie and bone, shocks that slammed back into his own shoulders. Weapons lashed at him, to be stopped by shield or shorn across by sword. The hawk-scream of his blade sounded through wind and thunder. None could stand before him, and he led his men through the trolls and turned on the foe from the rear..."

Fascinating, no? Regardless, we're at the end. Skafloc kills all the trolls (along with Frede's new fiancé, because this book just can't let anything stay nice) and finally slays Valgard in noble combat. Oh wait, no he doesn't. What happens is Valgard kills Skafloc with the magic sword, then slips on his own blood and impales himself. The end. Fuck you.

To those who say I'm being harsh, I will admit that a lot of the above was embellished and over-simplified for humor's sake. This book is an attempt at the style of Norse mythology — gratuitous rape, murder, and incest being par for the course — that is, begrudgingly, fairly entertaining. And I've been led to believe that even Poul admitted towards the end of his career that he would not have written The Broken Sword again. From any other author, this book would be unremarkable. But from Mr. Anderson, who I've grown to respect greatly by virtue of his other offerings, I'm simply disappointed. The book is littered with plot holes (if both trolls and elves can't stand iron, daylight, or Christian prayer, why does the son of them have no such weaknesses?) and makes such baffling decisions with regards to plot and pacing that I was actually astonished to learn that it came after Three Hearts and Three Lions. I'm even more baffled that so many people seem to think this is a masterpiece of the genre, with Michael Moorcock claiming it better than Tolkien. My honest opinion? I don't feel I've gained anything by reading it, and I don't intend to read it again.

The Face in the Frost, by John Bellairs

Prospero and Roger Bacon, the two main characters in a story that seems crammed with wizards, were wizards. They knew seven different runic alphabets, could sing the Dies Irae all the way through to the end, and knew what a Hand of Glory was. Though they could not make the moon eclipse, they could do some very striking lightning effects and make it look as though it might rain if you waited long enough.

We're taking a break from Poul Anderson for a moment, in part because the third book on the list (The Broken Sword, coming up next) hasn't arrived yet and in part because I really got a hankering to read about magic users. Personally, I like my mages like I like my scotch: well aged and made using a process I don't fully understand. Robes and floppy hats are a must. Wands are large, twisted and gnarled, none of these twigs maneuvered by a flick of the wrist. In my home campaigns, magic is a dangerous, unpredictable force of nature wielded only by those crazy and wise enough to have survived years of training, and I can respect a book that treats its power as dangerous both to the target and the caster.

I'm not going to get too deep into the story of this book, because I'm not quite sure I understand it myself. Perhaps that was Bellairs' intention. I will go so far as to say that the premise is fairly simple: two wizards find out they have been placed under a curse, and set off to defeat the evil sorcerer. Me losing the plot, therefore, had less to do with the complexity as it did with the absolute weirdness of the world it's set in. Our main characters face every challenge — from raising the dead to dispelling illusory towns to checking in on a Red Sox game — with the sort of bored nonchalance that you or I would do if asked to describe our daily routine. This position is understandable when you realize that we're talking about men with decades of magical training, but Bellairs is unabashed about not holding our hand when it comes to the world he's built. In fact, so much of the book is spent referencing things that are never explained that it sometimes gave me the feeling of reading the middle book in a series. Time is meaningless, as the aforementioned Red Sox game indicates, as is space: the book is set in the South Kingdom, a fictional land of 7 kings and countless duchies that is also adjacent to France and the island of England, which is besieged by either pirates or Mongols, I forgot which. This book is absolutely bonkers, but in a good way, like a half-remembered fairy tail from one's childhood.

It doesn't help that he first paragraph of the prologue, quoted above, does not lie with regards to the number of wizards in this book. Nearly every person our heroes reference or encounter is a mage of some sort — off the top of my head, I count 6 out of 10 named characters as possessing some magic ability — but for those expecting high-flying, world-rending magical battles, I recommend you look elsewhere. Magic in this world is more subtle, reflected early on in a hilarious passage wherein Prospero recites a spell that rattles all the pans in the house and causes all the clocks to chime: a spell, Prospero laments, that he has never found a use for. It makes sense, in a strange way: in a world where magic is as much a force of nature as gravity, it stands to reason that the vast majority of spells would be utterly useless, or at least incredibly specific in their use. I've always thought that a system like that, wherein magic users don't gain new spells but instead learn how to better control and manipulate the spells they already know, would be really interesting in play. Sort of like sympathy in The Kingkiller Chronicles, the test of a master wizard would be not in how much magic they can wield, but in how much they can wield safely.

The Face in the Frost is, ultimately, an exercise in world-building. It takes a few ideas and stretches them to their breaking point, and for that I have to begrudgingly respect it. I've never been one to demand strict explanations from my fantasy works (call it Gygaxian Naturalism if you will), because I find they often don't affect the plot to any significant degree. Think of it like Star Trek: you [TECH] the [TECH] to stop the [TECH] from overloading, and as long as you don't go into any further detail, the suspension of disbelief is never broken. The OSR, and rules-light games in general, seem to have embraced this philosophy in regards to world-building and dungeoncraft, and I for one believe it makes for a better game in the long run. To that end, I have to say that Bellairs book, for all its eccentricities and inscrutability, is as monumental as so many other sci-fi/fantasy authors have said it is.

Three Hearts and Three Lions, by Poul Anderson

The fantasy classic of a modern warrior, an ancient realm of sorcery, and a sword that sang of slaying...

There are few things in this world that pique my attention like retellings of classic stories that hide their plagiarism until the final act. I'll admit that such writing is invariably a double-or-nothing gambit: if the reader enjoyed the original work, the reveal will invariably send them back through the book gleefully looking for the parallels they initially missed. However, if either story falls flat, the reader will be left with nothing but a bitter taste and the feeling of having wasted their time. Risky business for a writer, but to quote my favorite Dark Souls NPC, "what is courage, without a dash of recklessness?"

Three Hearts and Three Lions (hereby abbreviated to THTL, or Thittle) follows the exploits of one Holger Carlson: engineer, Carlsberg beer enthusiast, and reluctant lothario. On the outset of WWII Holger joins the Danish resistance, and it is here that, during a daring escape to America, he is shot by Nazi's and awakens in a strange fantasy realm. From here on, the story becomes unabashed wish-fulfillment of the most enjoyable sort. Holger is preternaturally good at nearly everything he does: his wit and cleverness are unparalleled, women of all race and sort flock to him, and within the span of several weeks he becomes a literal hero of legend. This all makes sense within the context of the story,of course, because Poul Anderson is not a hack. That being said, good luck trying to recommend this book to a friend without them assuming you're trying to push air terminal schlock on them.

In fact, this goes back to the problem I spoke of earlier: because this book keeps its cards down until the final few pages, I imagine a lot of people found it derivative and quit early in. At its core, Thittle is a modern take on a chivalric chanson de geste, but someone unfamiliar with the concept of the heroic cycle (or someone whose literary world was saturated with invincible heroes, as I imagine mine will soon be) might not pick up on the often-subtle self-deprecation that Anderson weaves into the character of Holger. While the object of no less than 3 supremely beautiful women's affection, Holger is a jealous and bumbling man; though he is an unparalleled combatant, he begins most fights on his ass, having been taken by surprise. The big reveal becomes much less so when you realize that the book itself has alluded to it a thousand times throughout the story: Holger is not the hero, he's merely playing all the hero's parts.

In short, you should read this book. Hell, everyone with an interest in RPG's should read it, if only to see where the hobby got some of its best inspiration from. Holger is a dyed-in-the-wool paladin, complete with lay on hands and turn undead (well, turn fairies). The issue of alignment, a long standing source of confusion for gamers, is clarified expertly here: Law is the kingdom of Man, Chaos is the forces of those who oppose Man's dominion, and Neutral is anything too dumb or apathetic to take a side. It's right there, clear as crystal, and yet we as a hobby have had to endure over 35 years of chaotic neutral murderhobos and lawful stupid paladins. There are some really good ideas in this book, ideas I fully intend to steal for my future homebrew campaigns. If the rest of the books on this list are as influential as this, I can see why Gary was as inspired as he was to create D&D.

The High Crusade, by Poul Anderson

The aliens had expected a simple mission of shock & awe. Too bad they ran into free Englishmen...

Wow. What a way to start the list. I knew getting into this that pretty much none of what I would be reading could be considered high literature, but this caught me off guard. Medieval knights conquering a race of aliens? Well, lets check our preconceptions at the door and dive right in.

The High Crusade begins as a story-within-a-story-within-a-story, as an unnamed space captain reads through an English friar's account of an encounter that happened over 1,000 years ago. The friar, Brother Parvus, tells of the small town of Ansby, year of our lord 1345, after a strange metal craft descends from the skies. A local baron, Sir Roger de Tourneville, on his way to fight the French, investigates the ship. After a brief encounter with the inhabitants (a blue-skinned, stout people named the Wersgorix) in which Sir Roger is victorious, the one remaining alien is brought back to the abbey for questioning.

After some trial and error they find a way of communicating with the creature, named Branithar. Discovering that the Wersgorix are a conquering race, and that their ship is outfitted for war, Sir Roger decides that Branithar's ship can be of use against those damn Franks. After piling everyone in town into the ship, however, Branithar's treachery comes to a head as he activates the autopilot to return to his home. How will our heroes fare against the awesome technological might of this mysterious civilization from beyond the stars?

As it turns out, remarkably well. Over the next 200 pages -- this story starts very quickly, and never lets up -- the noble Englishmen conquer several military establishments, then the world they landed on, and finally form a confederation of outsider alien races to take the battle to the Wersgorix themselves. Anderson spares no expense in describing the various combat scenes, and I thought them all both captivating and believable. The inter-species politics, likewise, are well-written, and I found myself on more than one instance secretly wondering how Sir Roger was going to talk his way out of his latest situation. And make no mistake: Sir Roger is a bullshit artist of the highest pedigree. His entire plan hinges on convincing several alien races that the Earth (which he simply calls "England") is a powerful, spacefaring collection of warlords. Which, now that I think about it, isn't too far from the truth, but had I been GM'ing these encounters I'd have set a pretty high DC on that check.

All together, this book and its corresponding short story ("Quest," easily found online) succeed at something that comparatively few things do: telling an original, entertaining story without overstaying their welcome. It helps that Anderson is a legitimately funny man, and manages to weave humor and action effortlessly in each scene. The High Crusade got some real chuckles out of me, owing mostly to the fish-out-of-water nature of the characters and narration.

So, story aside, the question then becomes: what, if anything, led Gygax to recommend this book to readers, and what can players and GM's learn from it? To be honest, I can't seem to find any real parallels between the story and the game, although the module Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (in which the adventurers explore the remains of a downed spaceship) could have been influenced by it. On the player side, some people have said that the paladin class, a character driven by religious fervor and determined to smite evil, doesn't jive with the "pulp fantasy" feel that D&D encompasses. While I'm led to believe that the paladin was more heavily influenced by the main character in Poul Anderson's other book, Three Hearts and Three Lions (the next on my list), there are many characters in this book who call upon God and the saints for courage in battle. I've no small love for the paladin class myself, so maybe my next character will start every charge with a deafening shout of "For God and King Edward!" as Sir Roger so valiantly does.