Small Addition
I just discovered that Steven Brust has a livejournal (skzbrust). Not only that, but Emma Bull (coffeeem) does as well, and comments on Mr. Brust's journal, along with several other writers I have not yet identified. This feels to me as though I've just walked into a coffee shop where writers I have admired since I was a teen are all bantering back and forth over lattes, tea, and klava.
Along with plugging these amazing writers, I'll plug the short story collection that not only hooked me on their writings, but gave me my first validity as a gamer. The collection is Liavek, and it's likely out of print. Like the Thieves World collections, which I've never read, Liavek is shared world, collaborative fiction. I consider it one of the very best (if not the absolute top) of the genre. It contains both Brust and Bull, as well as Jane Yolen, Will Shetterly, Patricia C. Wrede, and Gene Wolfe. Whether or not these folks actually did roleplaying, I can't entirely remember, but I have this vague memory of finding it at fifteen, the year I started playing Dungeons and Dragons, seeing that the introduction or afterword or some part of the book implied that these stories had come out of role play, and telling my parents that roleplaying was an essential part of the fantasy writing, world creating process. They must have believed me, because they're proud of me for doing game design now.
Liavek inspired a whole series of short fiction I wrote in high school that is now lost on a 3.5 disk somewhere in my files, in fact. So in a very real way, I have to credit the contributors with inspiring me along my apprenticeship. And now I can go and, in an extension of my metaphor, hang out in the same cafe!
The internet is wonderful.
--
(Just looked Liavek up on Wikipedia, and it appears that they did several collections. Why oh why must these things have been published in the 80s, when I was too young to be a book buyer! I turn to ebay in hopes of rescue, because now that I know they exist, I must go searching.)
Edit: Powells.com had all four of the other collections, as did Amazon marketplace. I have them all on order. Again, I sing the praises of the internet.
Along with plugging these amazing writers, I'll plug the short story collection that not only hooked me on their writings, but gave me my first validity as a gamer. The collection is Liavek, and it's likely out of print. Like the Thieves World collections, which I've never read, Liavek is shared world, collaborative fiction. I consider it one of the very best (if not the absolute top) of the genre. It contains both Brust and Bull, as well as Jane Yolen, Will Shetterly, Patricia C. Wrede, and Gene Wolfe. Whether or not these folks actually did roleplaying, I can't entirely remember, but I have this vague memory of finding it at fifteen, the year I started playing Dungeons and Dragons, seeing that the introduction or afterword or some part of the book implied that these stories had come out of role play, and telling my parents that roleplaying was an essential part of the fantasy writing, world creating process. They must have believed me, because they're proud of me for doing game design now.
Liavek inspired a whole series of short fiction I wrote in high school that is now lost on a 3.5 disk somewhere in my files, in fact. So in a very real way, I have to credit the contributors with inspiring me along my apprenticeship. And now I can go and, in an extension of my metaphor, hang out in the same cafe!
The internet is wonderful.
--
(Just looked Liavek up on Wikipedia, and it appears that they did several collections. Why oh why must these things have been published in the 80s, when I was too young to be a book buyer! I turn to ebay in hopes of rescue, because now that I know they exist, I must go searching.)
Edit: Powells.com had all four of the other collections, as did Amazon marketplace. I have them all on order. Again, I sing the praises of the internet.