HYPERBOREA / Best Intro Stories

**Posted by Chainsaw** 3/20/2014 8:21 pm

Imagine you have a friend that's not familiar with the body of work that inspires AS&SH, so you want to suggest some of the best samples of REH, CAS and HPL and maybe someone else (your personal favorite outside of these three, perhaps). What would your top 1-2 stories be for each of those authors?

Ideally it would be something accessible and fun that would lead them to read more, so try to avoid that esoteric piece that you've "come to appreciate" after many years and maybe now think is the best (that might be a good idea for a different thread though).

**Posted by JasonZavoda** 3/20/2014 8:54 pm

Chainsaw wrote:
Imagine you have a friend that's not familiar with the body of work that inspires AS&SH, so you want to suggest some of the best samples of REH, CAS and HPL and maybe someone else (your personal favorite outside of these three, perhaps). What would your top 1-2 stories be for each of those authors?

Ideally it would be something accessible and fun that would lead them to read more, so try to avoid that esoteric piece that you've "come to appreciate" after many years and maybe now think is the best (that might be a good idea for a different thread though).

For CAS I'd recommend The Tale of Satampra Zeiros

For Lovecraft - At the Mountains of Madness

For REH - Beyond the Black River

For Algernon Blackwood - The Willows

**Posted by Ghul** 3/20/2014 8:57 pm

Chainsaw wrote:
Imagine you have a friend that's not familiar with the body of work that inspires AS&SH, so you want to suggest some of the best samples of REH, CAS and HPL and maybe someone else (your personal favorite outside of these three, perhaps). What would your top 1-2 stories be for each of those authors?

Ideally it would be something accessible and fun that would lead them to read more, so try to avoid that esoteric piece that you've "come to appreciate" after many years and maybe now think is the best (that might be a good idea for a different thread though).

Here are some favorites of mine that really evoke S&S / Weird Sciece role-playing, IMO.

REH: Tower of the Elephant, Worms of the Earth
CAS: The Tale of Satampra Zeiros, The Coming of the White Worm
HPL: The Call of Cthulhu, The Shadow Over Insmouth

Special Mention:
Vance: The Last Castle
Leiber: Ill met in Lankhmar

**Posted by Maezar** 3/20/2014 9:03 pm

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/

**Posted by Handy Haversack** 3/21/2014 7:41 am

Ghul wrote:
Special Mention:
Vance: The Last Castle
Leiber: Ill met in Lankhmar

I'd add

Vance: The Tschai novels
Leiber: "Lords of Quarmall" in Swords Against Wizardry. Though "The Jewels in the Forest" (Swords Against Death)--and is it "Beauty and the Beasts" where they are stuck in a version of the ancient Middle East?

**Posted by Blackadder23** 3/21/2014 9:36 am

All of them!

**Posted by Ghul** 3/21/2014 10:33 am

I was trying to keep my own selections in the "short fiction" range, so that the type of person Chainsaw describes does not become overwhlemed. Planet of Adventure is my favorite Vance work, but it's a lot to absorb for a newbie whom you are trying to provide "samples" to. The same goes for At the Mountains of Madness -- incredible novella, but a lot to chew on for the newly initiated.

**Posted by JasonZavoda** 3/21/2014 2:46 pm

Ghul wrote:
I was trying to keep my own selections in the "short fiction" range, so that the type of person Chainsaw describes does not become overwhlemed. Planet of Adventure is my favorite Vance work, but it's a lot to absorb for a newbie whom you are trying to provide "samples" to. The same goes for At the Mountains of Madness -- incredible novella, but a lot to chew on for the newly initiated.

I think that At the Mountains of Madness is a good intro because of the extraordinarily normal and yet adventurous start. If you weren't particularly familiar with Lovecraft's work this novella is very surprising. It beginds almost as a regular artic explorer story and is, in its way, one of the more mundane mythos stories while still being one of the best written and most exciting.

Last edited by JasonZavoda (3/21/2014 2:47 pm)

**Posted by Blackadder23** 3/21/2014 5:41 pm

With respect to AS&SH in particular - rather than just as an intro for the general reader - I would suggest "The White Ship" by HPL, "The Seven Geases" by CAS, and "Tower of the Elephant" by REH. All of those are reasonably short.