Here’s Lark at the summit of Dooly Knob (5,278 feet), not the mountain we set out to climb. We couldn’t make it up Frary Peak, and turned around when we hit a snowy patch that neither of us felt comfortable attempting. It was a good lesson, and we had a great trip. I decided Frary […]
We just got back from a camping trip in Albion Basin, which is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. Moose are common up there, and we saw not one, but four, in the same evening. The shot below is from Cecret Lake, at about 9,700 feet, with Sugarloaf in the background (11,000
My high school girlfriend introduced me to the Amber series back in the early 1990s, and shortly thereafter to Amber Diceless Role-Playing (paid link), the RPG based on the books. Zelazny, like a lot of Appendix N authors, writes with economy and punch. Nine Princes in Amber grabbed me with its opening sentence, “It was starting
Reading Appendix N: The Chronicles of Amber, by Roger Zelazny Read More »
Our dog Charlie died today at age 17. My wife got him as a puppy, I entered the picture when he was 9, and our daughter has known him for 4 years. He fell asleep in my wife’s arms while I was on the way home, and she passed him to me to hold when
Martin Brown from Grognard Games produced a great short video introduction to Appendix N, the influence the works therein in had on D&D — from thieves and paladins to plane-hopping and alignment — and the inspiration those works can provide today. It’s a bit surreal for me, though: He’s called Martin as well, and is
Grognard Games’ introduction to Appendix N Read More »
I finished Fritz Leiber’s The Swords of Lankhmar this morning — my 20th Appendix N book. I’m not a fast reader, or perhaps more accurately I’m not a hurried reader, so tackling all 100 books of Appendix N is going to take me a while. “Swords” took longer than the other Lankhmar books to date
Appendix N: 20 down, 80 to go Read More »
My dog Charlie’s thought process when I gave him a whole hamburger on the way back from the vet: There’s a hamburger right there! I’m going to grab it! I GOT IT! Ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod there’s an ENTIRE HAMBURGER in my mouth! Wow that doesn’t fit at all! Quick eat the rest before the fat
A whole hamburger!? Read More »
Since I first posted about Reading Appendix N, I’ve been pointed to several similar reading lists that are either contemporary with Appendix N or related to it in some other way. None of them are additions to Appendix N — to date, Gary’s 2007 additions are the only ones I’ve found — but they’re all
Other Appendices N Read More »
Yesterday I stumbled onto an excellent blog, Raven Crowking’s Nest, which is also home to a project to read and write about the books in Appendix N. The author, Daniel Bishop, is an old-school gamer with a lot of insight into the hobby, and his posts on Appendix N books are great. He kicked off
Raven Crowking’s posts on reading Appendix N Read More »
There’s a long gap between my first Appendix N book, The Hobbit (paid link) — which was also my first Reading Appendix N book post, as I’m going in the order I read them — and my next one. One of my best friends in high school, Stephan, introduced me to H.P. Lovecraft by way
Reading Appendix N: The Dunwich Horror and Others, by H.P. Lovecraft Read More »
