Of course I played Dungeons & Dragons as a kid. Who didn’t? Back then the cool kids played the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons variant, and in the very back of the Dungeon Master’s Guide was the brief but deeply informative Appendix N. Here was where the designers shared the literary influences that shaped AD&D.
Writers ought have their own Appendix Ns. So, without further ado:
- C.S. Lewis, absolutely anything, with mild caveats that he was essentially unable to stop being an apologist for Christianity. If religion bothers you, stay away. But if you happen to be Christian or can abide literature deeply rooted in Christianity, there’s so much here to be recommended. My personal fave is The Screwtape Letters, which is so thought-provoking I sometimes lose sight of how hard I’m laughing.
- J.R.R. Tolkien, absolutely anything. No less Christian than Lewis in his personal life, he did a far better job of abstaining from evangelization in his writing. No one ever worldbuilt like Tolkien. No one has done it since.
- Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller series (consisting for now of two books, The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear, with The Doors of Stone due to come out… um… a decade ago) has some of the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read in fantasy coupled with worldbuilding approaching Tolkien.
- Daniel Keys Moran’s Tales of the Continuing Time. Heinlein defined an SF “juvie” as a book with literary quality appropriate for adults which was nevertheless approachable by bright children. After the grandmaster himself, Dan has a fair claim to being the best author of juvies. Buy them for your teenagers. Read them with your teenagers. Then steal them from your teenagers and put them on your bookshelf.
- Madeleine l’Engle, anything but especially the Swiftly Tilting Planet series. As with Lewis she tends to write drenched in Christianity, but like Lewis the skill of her storytelling is simply off the charts. Highly recommended.
- Lord Dunsany, anything but especially The Book of Wonder and The King of Elfland’s Daughter. I don’t even know where to begin praising him. Once started, I don’t know if I could end. His Book of Wonder is especially good for new Dunsany readers, as it’s a collection of short stories that all punch well above their weight class. Has there ever been a better opening paragraph than The House of the Sphinx and “When I came to the House of the Sphinx it was already dark. They made me eagerly welcome. And I, in spite of the deed, was glad of any shelter from that ominous wood. I saw at once that there had been a deed, although a cloak did all that a cloak may do to conceal it. The mere uneasiness of the welcome made me suspect that cloak”?
- Mercedes Lackey. Is she a guilty pleasure? No. No, I feel no guilt whatsoever about the pleasure I’ve had reading her Diana Tregarde, SERRAted Edge, and Valdemar novels.
- Dan Simmons is painfully hit or miss. His hits are so transcendent it makes the misses so crushing. Hits: The Crook Factory, Carrion Comfort, his Hyperion series, Ilium and Olympos, The Terror, Drood, and so many more. Misses: most of his modern day detective fiction, Darwin’s Blade et al.
- John le Carré. Of course John le Carré. Anything by John le Carré. I’d pay good money to read his shopping lists.
- Stephen King. Ignore anyone who looks down their nose at King. He’s earned the highest literary award, even surpassing the Nobels: tens of millions of fans who will get into knife fights to claim the honor of giving him their money first. I don’t even like horror as a genre and I still find myself reading and re-reading King, taking notes, and discovering how to up my own game.
- Brandon Sanderson, whose Legion novella series just blew me away.
- Saladin Ahmed’s Throne of the Crescent Moon is luminous. Saladin himself, the one occasion I met him, was a truly gracious gentleman.
- Roger Zelazny. Anything, but especially his Amber series, which sparked my imagination as few things have. Jack of Shadows is another must-read.
- John Brunner’s Traveller in Black. It feels experimental, like a literary thought experiment, but is put together as beautifully as a Swiss timepiece.
- Robert Heinlein. The man, the myth, the legend. Later in his career he suffered a stroke and his output from then on became increasingly squirrelly, but until that point he was the undisputed master of science fiction past, present, and future, our once and future king.
- Walter Jon Williams, anything, esp. This Is Not a Game, Implied Spaces, Hardwired. This Is Not a Game has one of the most realistic portrayals of an AI villain I’ve ever read. Absolutely chilling.
- Rose Estes and Mountain of Mirrors, Douglas Terman’s By Balloon to the Sahara. One Christmas my Aunt Dianne, who worked in a bookstore, became the first person outside my immediate family to buy me books. Thanks, Aunt Dianne. The first hit was free.
There are countless more authors in SF and fantasy who are worth reading, from classics like the Warlord of Mars series or Lovecraft’s Arkhamverse to modern, cutting-edge things like Ann Leckie’s Ancillaries or just plain fun escapes like Murderbot. You live among an embarrassment of literary riches: indulge yourself!