OT: Books

[Adam Wiggins]

[coder at ibm.net:]
> On 25/11/97 at 02:46 PM, Richard Woolcock <KaVir at dial.pipex.com> said:
> >I dislike the whole concept of 'safe' areas... Surely there must be some
> >better alternative?  Admittedly, preventing undead from entering the
> >Temple of Light would be quite reasonable, but to simply have an area in
> >which people cannot fight just doesn't seem quite right.
> 
> One thing I have have noted in my logs to consider is doing a parallel to
> the Veils of Alzaroc (a great book BTW).  Very simply, in the book people

<Off Topic:>
Folks mention books on here from time to time, and I usually make
a point to go check them out.  We've asked what muds are most influential
to people's creative processes (although, it might be time to ask again
as it's been a while).  I'd like to know what books people consider
influential to their mud creation or even mudding style.  Personally
I've labored to try to get the muds I've worked on to be much more
like the best books I've read; in particular I like to imagine how
scenes from my favorite fiction would transpire on my mud.  In some
cases such lines of thought have lead to me redesigning whole sections
of the game...

I'll start, although now that I think of it the task of remembering
all the books that I have drawn on over the years is a bit difficult.

Tolkien's stuff (of course), especially the Silmarilion.  A lavishly
detailed, complex, and beautiful world.

Frank Herbert's Dune.  See Tolkien.

Robert E. Howard - everything.  One of the founding fathers of the
sword-and-sorcery genre with pulp short-stories from the turn of the
century.  Most famous character is, of course, Conan the Cimmerian.
I still think that no author has ever matched his style for raw,
intense vitality in so few words (most of his stories are only about
ten type-written pages).  I've always felt that muds are far too
tame as far as how they present the events that transpire ("You hit
Bob on the head, doing 12 points of damage") and I frequently refer
to his works when building text strings for combat messages etc.

Micheal Moorcock's Elric stories (also of course).  Dark pulp fiction in
the style of Howard.  Everyone knows these I'm sure.  Ran into Moorcock
himself at (of all places) the Comic Book Con in San Diego this year.
(He was a tad out of place - a sixty-something guy with an english
accent amongst hordes of geeks and surfers.)

Orson Scott Card's 'Treason'.  A very simple story (the first one he
ever wrote, I believe), but the races have some extremelly interesting
'powers', a few of which I ripped off directly for some muds I worked on.

Mickey Z. Reichart's (spelling?) 'The Legend of Nightfall', for the best
thief book I've ever read, suffering only from slight sappiness towards
the end.

Dan Simmons' 'Hyperion' and 'the Fall of Hyperion'.  Just great sci-fi.
Unlike most stuff in the genre, it doesn't boost the science stuff at
the expense of a boring story and paper-thin characters, nor does it
invent ridiculous 'science' in order to advance the story.

Larry Niven's ...um, can't remember the name, but the short stories about
the tall albino fellow.  He reminds me *very* much of a typical mud
character - a self-serving wanderer who just happens to fall into the
most incredible of situations, and who uses intelligence to survive
in a universe filled with tougher, stronger, older, more powerful
people than himself.  (The 'science' in these stories is somewhat lacking,
however.)

Mike Resnick's 'Santiago'.  Some nice stuff with assassins and underground
factions, plus social manipulation.

Vernor Vinge's 'Fire Upon the Deep'.  Gotta love those dog-men.  Nice
application to the whole hive-mind thread, as well - much more interesting
than the Borg.  Plus this guy lives just down the road from me.  He
obviously frequents the internet (or at least he did back when he wrote
the book) as his implementation of the Known Net is very close to a
large-scale version of the Internet.

Don't remember his name, but the book is 'The Diamond Age (or, A Young
Lady's Primer)'.  Characters and story are quite forgetable, but some
really nifty ideas about near-future technology.

C.S. Freidman's trilogy 'Dark Sun Rising', 'When True Night Falls',
and 'Crown of Swords'.  This is the only epic fantasy I think I've
ever read which doesn't draw a single whit upon Tolkien.  I would *love*
to implement (or, better yet, someone else to implent) a mud based on
this world, and that's considering the fact that I don't like muds based
on books.  The fae magic by itself just begs to be put in a game.


Can't think of any more at the moment.  Looking forward to hearing
everyone else's list.  Oh, honorable mention goes to the anime flic
Ninja Scroll (which I reference here from time to time) for creative,
over-the-top combat and foes (the Devils of Kimon, especially).

BTW, JC - you mentioned several times "Myer's 'Silverlock'" and I looked
in a local library as well as several bookstores but found neither
any books by the title Silverlock and no authors with the last name Myer.
Is it just out of print, or what?

</Off Topic>

> live on the surface of a decayed star which has a number of peculiar
> characteristics.  One of the oddities is that there are periodic "veil
> falls".  The general result is that any character can interact with any
> other character within a dozen or so veil fall layers of them on either
> side.  Further seperation and they can still _see_ them, but are no longer
> able to interact (they walk right thru them etc).  The really interesting
> aspect is that this also applies to the physical universe as well.  A 20
> veil-fall character may be able to see the freshly landed 0 fall
> space-ship, but will walk right thru it, the 40 fall character conversely
> won't even see the ship and visa versa.
> 
> This would be paralleled in the game by having characters which are too
> widely seperated (levels or whatever) not even able to be aware of each
> other, let alone interact.  Characters on a closer par would be able to
> detect each other, even communicate with some effort (writing for
> instance), but not direct physical interaction.  Etc.

Hum, this runs along the same lines as the game-progression stuff
we have briefly touched on in the past - character's graduating to
a new plane of existance, where interaction with the lower plane(s) is
fairly limited.  Except in this case you wouldn't need to actually
have seperate locations.
Of course, it also raises a fair share of interaction issues typical
of such things: what happens when the 0 guy chucks a rock at the 30 guy?