General information / Background / Purpose for this site.

While I have had an interest in and been aware of fantasy fiction since I was a child, it took a friend, Jonathan, to give me a much needed push and open my eyes to what a diverse genre it is. I discovered new authors that I never knew existed. Yay.

A couple of years ago I took an interest in exploring the literally influences of the role playing game Dungeons and Dragons -- much maligned but often misunderstood. Since D&D as it is often called was the first role playing game (rpg), I felt like I was exploring the birth of the whole rpg industry, now about 30 years young.

With Jonathan's assistance and previous reseach I found that the principle influences were the authors: J R R Tolkien, Michael Moorcock, Jack Vance and Clark Ashton Smith. So I went and researched the authors that influenced the creators of rpgs, Dave Arneson and E Gary Gygax all the years ago.

After a while I made a rough list of books that I should acquire to help me with my researches into this hobby. During my investigations I found some of the authors who influenced the authors I was currently investigating -- sort of like a microcosm of the whole fantasy genre.

With my list completed it also doubled as a introduction to books / authors / influences for our gaming group - Knights Below. Having been there and done the hard yards I hoped that it would help someone new to our group pick up some of our idioms and inside jokes that much easier.

And then, along comes two university assignments for my IT course at the Northern Territory University, so seeing the possibilities I used my recommended book list as the basis of my assignments. I also slightly shifted the focus of my new web site and tried to make it more of a general introduction to the authors mentioned so anyone could build on what I have completed and get into some quality reading.

That is the background and purpose of this web site: to help newbies to the authors mentioned take these as recommendations and advice to help them navigate the wealth of collections, omnibuses and individual titles currently on the market. The bias is Australian, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem -- ISBNs are universal.

Postscript: I have acquired many of the items on the list, the pursuit is on for the others ;-). Now just to find time to read them.

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