So I had heard some cool things about Dark Sun prior to it's announcement and now that it's been announced (with FRICKIN COOL art; we need a wallpaper of that for around yesterday), I'd like to do a bit of background research and see if it's "for me", so to speak.
Are there any great resources for introducing you to the world? Any "must-read" Dark Sun novels available? That sort of thing.
Thanks!
-Ath
The original boxed set is your best bet. The first adventure would also give you an idea of what the world is like. Many of the sourcebooks can be found cheaply and are great reads.
Just keep in mind that the setting will change from the novels and some of the sourcebooks. WotC now sees that as one possible reality and is resetting Dark Sun back to before the novels.
From my end, what sets this setting apart is the harsh desert climate, the rag-tag approach to weapons and armor due to a lack of steel or industry, the complete control that insanely powerful sorcerer kings have, the amoral and immoral city-states, the absence of gods and their replacement by elemental forces, the way races have been mutated into something else, the insanely harsh landscape. It is a bigger, bolder, more dangerous setting.
Wikipedia has a good deal of info, including the product line.
Thanks, Alphastream! I'll take a look around.
Ive been a role player for 25+ years and I totally missed this campaign world, I got into Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance but Darksun I'd not heard of till the recent announcement. Ive just read the wiki article and the setting sounds very exciting. If the new campaign material excites me I will probably DM a campaign in this worl for my friends. Will make a nice change from woodlands and lots of greenery 
I really hope that templar returns to being a playable class in the new version, and that they detail a complete range of features and powers for them.
Don't forget to check the Dark Sun article on Wikipedia and some of the info on Athas.org.
You could track down the 3.5 rendition of Dark Sun if you're feeling really ambitious. It's in Dragon 315, 319 and 339 and also in Dungeon 110 and 111. I just dug them all out of my box of back issues.
Athas is the first campaign world I visited, but I'm not sure I'll play a half-giant gladiator this time around.
You can also check out Athas.org, the website the official fan website. They put out a lot of stuff during third edition.
The most important elements to me, personally, were that magic is inherently destructive, giving the world a post apocalyptic feel, where every spell turns more precious life to ash, forever barren as a result. only a few arcane casters practice preserving rather than defiling to fuel their spells. this is the fundamental concept of dark sun, from which all others are derived. Every spell is a potential twist of the knife in the already mortally-wounded planet, and every day is a fight for survival. magic is more corrupting as a result, and more feared. Psionics is more common for it, and the Gods have no place, but priests draw instead on harsher, more alien elemental entities. The tablelands are a wasteland, stripped of life and even metal, surrounded by impassible mountains and seas filled not with lifegiving water but drifting tides of silt. But all of these things are fundamentally traced back to the way in which arcane magic is practiced on Athas.