No Alan Dean Foster?

[starblaze]

Hello Guys,

I was just looking over the Fantasy Hero playtest and I couldn't help but notice that Fantasy/Science Fiction writer Alan Dean Foster was missing. None of his writings were mentioned. Then I went to my copy of Star Hero and realized that none of his work was even mentioned alongside other authors.

Is there a reason for this? I mean he is one of my most favorite writers but he seems to be completely ignored despite the fact that he has written for both Fantasy and Science Fiction.

So what's up Steve?

[lemming]

Hmm, I'm not sure why. Alan Dean Foster has put forth some decent stuff, but he had also shown alot of deritive work. Maybe that's why?

[Steve Long]

ADF isn't in the SH bibliography because Jim chose not to put him on there for reasons I'm unaware of, and I chose not to put him on there because I haven't read anything of his except for Mad Amos.

ADF isn't in the FH bibliography because I haven't read anything of his except for Mad Amos.

The fact that he's written for both genres isn't really the key point, since neither Bibliography makes any attempt to be comprehensive. The SH biblio is a list of books that Jim and I find inspirational and/or useful for SF fans/gamers, based on our personal experiences. The FH biblio is more or less the same. Since we have no experiences with ADF in these genres, it would be wrong of us to list him.

[AlHazred]

Good reasons, Steve. I'd wondered when you'd hit the end of your time-window for reading your "must-read" list; it put my current rate of reading to shame!

If you've got the chance to read him (say, in 2005 or 2006 sometime), you should check out his Spellsinger series (a comedic crossworlds high fantasy setting) and his Flinx series (a decent sci-fi setting with some nice psionics). To be fair, neither is what I'd call "great literature", but they're still good reading; I whiled away many a day rereading both in my youth...

[Balok]

Foster is a good, light read. I find his work competent and interesting, but not inspirational in the same sense as I find the works of Clarke or Asimov.

Midworld is a good source of information if you want to put PCs in a situation where the ecosystem is trying to kill them in novel ways.

The Flinx stories are good solid space opera and can be mined for many useful ideas.

He does a good job, especially in his more recent "Diuturnity" books of establishing the thranx as an alien species. He also shows how sometimes little things add up to wars. These books show the earliest stages of the Commonwealth, which is the background setting for the Flinx books, and therefore give some insight into how political (and other) forces can shape organizations and alliances.

And, of course, if you want a god race, it's hard to beat the Tar-Aiym. Their science makes even the Malvans look like children! :)

[Armitage]

Originally posted by AlHazred
If you've got the chance to read him (say, in 2005 or 2006 sometime), you should check out his Spellsinger series (a comedic crossworlds high fantasy setting)

Which occasionally suffers from internal inconsistencies.

Book 1: Mudge mentions that horses, cows, etc. are practically second-class citizens because they are extremely stupid-most likely due to their lack of hands.
Book 3: Jon-Tom encounters a carriage company owned and operated by the horses who pull the coach and they constantly complain about the idiot employees that they are forced to rely on due the their lack of hands.
Book 5: The main characters are joined by a hinny who shows absolutely no lack of intelligence.

Book 3: Sorbl the owl mentions that if he so much as took a bite out of a mouse, its relatives would string him up.
Book 4: Sorbl is mentioned to be eating a fried mouse sandwich.

And why are mammals, birds, amphibians, and insects all sentient and anthropomorphic, but reptiles aren't?
Unless they appeared in Son of Spellsinger or Chorus Skating. I never read those.

And I never really liked Jon-Tom's constant attitude. "I'm from Earth, a civilized world, and you're all barbarians. So I know what's best for you, whether you want it or not." Sort of Earth Man's Burden.

[Enforcer84]

Originally posted by Steve Long
ADF isn't in the SH bibliography because Jim chose not to put him on there for reasons I'm unaware of, and I chose not to put him on there because I haven't read anything of his except for Mad Amos.

ADF isn't in the FH bibliography because I haven't read anything of his except for Mad Amos.

The fact that he's written for both genres isn't really the key point, since neither Bibliography makes any attempt to be comprehensive. The SH biblio is a list of books that Jim and I find inspirational and/or useful for SF fans/gamers, based on our personal experiences. The FH biblio is more or less the same. Since we have no experiences with ADF in these genres, it would be wrong of us to list him.

If you can track it down, he wrote the novelization for The Last Starfighter. One of my favorite movies. Its a pretty quick read, but it brings out the story from the movie quite well.

If you were ever interested.:D

[Fuzzy Gnome]

Fantasy Hero - Still no Alan Dean Foster!

[pawsplay]

Foster's best book may be the dark modern fantasy, "Into the Out of," about evil demons, African sorcery, and very unpleasant situations with airline toilets.

Not a big Spellsinger fan.

The Humanx novels vary. My favorites: The Tar-Aiym Krang, Sentenced to Prizm, and Midworld.

[Lord Mhoram]

If it is any consolation I listed the spellsinger books in my sidebar biblio for my transworld Fantasy article in DH #11.


I am a huge ADF fan, and every SF game I run have sentient Manti. I love the Thranx.

[Spence]

How about:

David Webber for the Honor Harrington universe and a really long list of others.

Debre Doyle and James D. MacDonald for the Mageworld novels

S. M. Stirling for countless mil-Sci Fi stories.

I have been playing with a StarHero campaign idea inspired by the Mageworld novels with a dash of Honor Harrington.

[Balok]

I haven't read any of the Spellsinger stuff. In what I have read, his best work is definitely the earlier Humanx Commonwealth stuff. The later stuff is getting a bit bizarrely metaphysical.

Although the scene at the end of the last book, where they thought they'd discovered a forgotten Tar-Aiym warship, and then realized They Had Discovered A Tar-Aiym Warship, was priceless (those who have read it know what I mean, and for those who haven't, I'd hate to spoil the punchline).

[AlHazred]

The Flinx stuff is pretty good IMO. It's not earth-shaking literature that will Change The Way You Look At Things, but I liked it; it felt like a good compromise between the loopier 70's drug-influenced Sci-Fi, and the squeaky-clean Sci-Fi of Asimov and Clarke. Later on, I discovered Vance's Sci-Fi, and that also fits that mold, but at the time, the field was pretty sparse. Things didn't really get shaken up until Gibson's Neuromancer. Now, a lot of the older stuff looks a little "quaint".

The Humanx Commonwealth series is still an excellent take on Sci-Fi Psionics. And I love the Manti too, although they are far to human-like for my current tastes in aliens...

[tkdguy]

Steve Jackson Games put out GURPS Humanx. Get a copy and translate to HERO.

[AlHazred]

How did the conversion work for you? Did the points add up?

[BlackSword]

Originally posted by pawsplay
Foster's best book may be the dark modern fantasy, "Into the Out of," about evil demons, African sorcery, and very unpleasant situations with airline toilets.


I read his book _Primal Shadows_ based in Papua New Guinea. It was a bit of a slow start, but once it going it was fairly interesting.

He did several novelizations of moves in the 80's. I am pretty sure about the Last Star Fighter and I think the also did Krull, and maybe a few of the other genre movies of that period.