Post/Author/DateTime	Post
kisama 12-16-04, 04:03 PM	Hi folks, Laura K Hamilton is a writer who I think captures the whole "noir" atmosphere very well in her novels. You may want to give her books a read if you're looking for something new to add to your library. Her Anita Blake stories are an especially good source of ideas for any of you looking to spice up your Eberron campaigns... http://www.laurellkhamilton.org/
hiryuu 12-16-04, 04:38 PM	*tries not to gag from both the hideousness of the website and Laurell K. Hamilton's inability to write*
Erix d'Pheer 12-16-04, 04:48 PM	The bats! They won't stop following my cursor! Ahhhhh!
ThanisKartaleon 12-16-04, 05:12 PM	well, I can't really say anything about her writing, as I haven't read it, but her website? wow... that's... bad. If you're into the whole HTML thing, check the source code on her index page... :uh-huh: ... Okay, well I just read the free chapter of Guilty Pleasures... I'm not really impressed. Not only is the writing, well, not that good, but there are formatting errors all over the place. I will not pay for a book that will drive me crazy with formatting errors. And the whole idea of "Let's give these super-powerful undead beings that dominate with a gaze and suck human blood equal rights" thing is just a bunk idea, too. Well, that's what I get out of that site. Perhaps someone else will enjoy it.
Zalaz Mavi 12-16-04, 05:50 PM	While I'm waiting for Alan Furst's new book to make it to paperback and the reprint of Swords of Lankhmar to come out next month, I've been skimming through Hickman and Weis's Death Gate novels. With a few cosmetic changes, you could turn the Illumians from Races of Destiny into something resembling the Patyrns...
WynnHuntr2 12-16-04, 05:58 PM	Her books are great, well the Vampire Hunter and Faerie ones anyways, I dont really see them as source material for Eberron though. Triumverant of Power maybe but... Edward would make a cool NPC, as long as you didnt try and talk to him.
ThanisKartaleon 12-16-04, 06:00 PM	additionally, this is advertising... read the CoC.
okaynowa 12-17-04, 07:25 AM	Never talk about suggested reading within earshot of somebody with a literature degree. You'll get a torrent of suggestions in reply, such as: --Kenneth Robeson's Doc Savage serials are genuine pulp fiction, straight outta the 30's and 40's. Most are available as e-books now, though it's great if you can find the yellowed reprints from the 60's. I'm sure he's been mentioned in these forums before. --Milorad Pavic's Khazar Lexicon contains a lot of dream-related mystery, spans centuries, and would be a great crash-course in kalashtar weirdness. It's not pulp, exactly, but there's plenty of adventure hooks in simple, alphabetical order. --Find yourself some ooooold gothic fiction, like Rappacini's Daughter (Nathaniel Hawthorne) or The Great God Pan (Arthur Machen). A lot of old horror stories like these were put out in penny-dreadfuls and whatnot, sort of a precursor to pulp if you think about it. --James Gurney's Dinotopia may seem a little childish, but it can give you a good sense of creature scale (scaly creatures?) for those trips to Talenta. PS-- ran screaming from LKH site, left with bad taste in eyes.
kisama 12-17-04, 12:02 PM	Man, everyone's a critic. Sorry I brought it up.
Euangelion 12-17-04, 01:33 PM	Man, everyone's a critic. Sorry I brought it up. Don't be sorry. Some are going to like what you like, others aren't. It's also a lot easier to be a critic than to actually create something yourself. Mix that in with the anonymity of the internet, and you'll have at least one person who will eagerly deride anyone's personal literary/cinematic/television/favorite color/toothpaste preferences if they happen to commit the ultimate sin of actually admitting that they like whatever it is. Sure, it's annoying, maybe even hurtful, but don't let them get you down.
kisama 12-17-04, 02:51 PM	Thanks. I honestly found that except for Hamilton's very formulaic writing style, the books were pretty good. Her stories take place in a modern world D&D. Monsters walk the earth, vampires live among the population, magic exists, yada yada yada... The erroticism helped get me through some of the slow parts too though. :) With respect to the Vampires having equal rights though, I don't understand why you would dismiss that notion right away as silly. Think about it in Eberron terms. You have 3 hags rulling one nation, Medussa ruling another, Dragons rule their own continents, goblinoids have their own lands and used to be an entire nation... why are vampires getting the short end of the stick? In fact just think of what kind of high intrigue adventures you could have if vampires in Eberron started a campaign to be recognized as citizens! How would the churches react? How would the vampires benefit? What would that mean to the legal system? What happens when a vampire goes rogue and decides to go on a killing spree? Do vampire princes still duke it out for control of territory? If so, what happens if they can't keep the war secret?
Zalaz Mavi 12-17-04, 05:09 PM	Think about it in Eberron terms. You have 3 hags rulling one nation, Medussa ruling another, Dragons rule their own continents, goblinoids have their own lands and used to be an entire nation... why are vampires getting the short end of the stick? Vampires, secretly mind, feature largely in the government of Karrnath as well as within the ranks of the Emerald Claw. I also seem to remember a casual mention of an order of vampire monks in the Sharn sourcebook. Vampires are out there — they're just being quiet about it...
jake_lex 12-18-04, 10:28 AM	China Mieville's Bas-Lag novels, especially Perdido Street Station. New Corbuzon and Sharn have a lot in common.