Appendix N

Appendix N is a book in which Jeffro Johnson reviews the forty-three works and authors that were listed (as "Appendix N") in 1979 by Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax as the seminal influences on his famous role-playing game.  It covers well-known classic authors such as Poul Anderson, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Michael Moorcock, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Jack Vance, and less-remembered authors such as Gardner Fox, Fletcher Pratt, and Margaret St. Clair.





Sadly, the book is written in confessional self-important blog style, and each entry is filled with irrelevant anecdotes and asides. Some entries seem to have very little content about their supposed subjects. I found the book disappointing and completely exasperating. A much better thing to do that read this book is to take the "Appendix N" list and read the authors.  One will learn a lot more this way.

The Conspirators: A Tribute to Jorge Luis Borges

This is a collection of fourteen pieces, written in tribute to Jorge Luis Borges, and edited by Alcebiades Diniz Miguel, who also contributed one of the fourteen pieces.  Other notable authors include Rhys Hughes, Mark Valentine and John Howard (in collaboration), Justin Isis, Jonathan Wood, Brednan Connell, D.P. Watt, Adam Cantwell and Eric Stener Carlson.

The bulk of the stories are good to excellent. Only one, the opening tale by Rhys Hughes, did I find labored and dull. The best story was that by D.P. Watt (a writer new to me), together with the bookish tale by Mark Valentine and John Howard. Most are openly Borgesian in nature, some more so than others.  In all a good read and a good tribute.