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(Another) Top 100 Novels of All Time List

Posted by Rick on in Lists 2 Comments

(Another) Top 100 Novels of All Time List

Here is my own (Another) Top 100 Novels of All Time. In fact it’s actually much more because I couldn’t trim it far enough, plus there are entire series listed. The Wheel of Time Series is 13 books by itself.

1 – The Odyssey by Homer
2 – Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
3 – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
4 – American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
5 – A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
6 – The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
7 – The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert
8 – Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
9 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
10 – Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
11 – The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
12 – On Basilisk Station, by David Weber
13 – Horatio Hornblower Series by C. S. Forester
14 – Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
15 – The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
16 – The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan
17 – Ulysses, by James Joyce
18 – The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
19 – A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce
20 – Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
21 – Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
22 – The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner
23 – Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
24 – Darkness at Noon, by Arthur Koestler
25 – The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
26 – Under the Volcano, by Malcolm Lowry
27 – The Way of All Flesh, by Samuel Butler
28 – Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell
29 – I, Claudius, by Robert Graves
30 – To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf
31 – An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser
32 – The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers
33 – Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
34 – Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
35 – Native Son, by Richard Wright
36 – Henderson the Rain King, by Saul Bellow
37 – U.S.A. (trilogy), by John Dos Passos
38 – Winesburg, Ohio, by Sherwood Anderson
39 – A Passage to India, by E. M. Forster
40 – The Wings of the Dove, by Henry James
41 – The Ambassadors, by Henry James
42 – Tender Is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
43 – Studs Lonigan (trilogy), by James T. Farrell
44 – The Good Soldierby Ford Madox Ford
45 – Animal Farm, by George Orwell
46 – The Golden Bowl, by Henry James
47 – A Handful of Dust, by Evelyn Waugh
48 – As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
49 – All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren
50 – The Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder
51 – Howards End, by E. M. Forster
52 – Go Tell It on the Mountain, by James Baldwin
53 – The Heart of the Matter, by Graham Greene
54 – Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
55 – Deliverance, by James Dickey
56 – A Dance to the Music of Time (series), by Anthony Powell
57 – Point Counter Point, by Aldous Huxley
58 – The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
59 – The Secret Agent, by Joseph Conrad
60 – Nostromo, by Joseph Conrad
61 – The Rainbow, by D. H. Lawrence
62 – Women in Love, by D. H. Lawrence
63 – Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
64 – Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
65 – Portnoy’s Complaint, by Philip Roth
66 – Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov
67 – Light in August, by William Faulkner
68 – On the Road, by Jack Kerouac
69 – The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett
70 – Parade’s End, by Ford Madox Ford
71 – The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton
72 – Zuleika Dobson, by Max Beerbohm
73 – The Moviegoer, by Walker Percy
74 – Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather
75 – From Here to Eternity, by James Jones
76 – The Wapshot Chronicle, by John Cheever
77 – The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger
78 – Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham
79 – Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
80 – Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis
81 – The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
82 – The Alexandria Quartet, by Lawrence Durrell
83 – Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas
84 – A High Wind in Jamaica, by Richard Hughes
85 – A House for Mr Biswas, by V. S. Naipaul
86 – The Day of the Locust, by Nathanael West
87 – A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway
88 – Scoop, by Evelyn Waugh
89 – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Spark
90 – Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce
91 – A Room with a View, by E. M. Forster
92 – Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
93 – The Adventures of Augie March, by Saul Bellow
94 – Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner
95 – A Bend in the River, by V. S. Naipaul
96 – The Death of the Heart, by Elizabeth Bowen
97 – Lord Jim, by Joseph Conrad
98 – Ragtime, by E. L. Doctorow
99 – The Old Wives’ Tale, by Arnold Bennett
100 – The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
101 – Loving, by Henry Green
102 – Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie
103 – Tobacco Road, by Erskine Caldwell
104 – Ironweed, by William Kennedy
105 – The Magus, by John Fowles
106 – Under the Net, by Iris Murdoch
107 – Sophie’s Choice, by William Styron
108 – The Sheltering Sky, by Paul Bowles
109 – The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain
110 – The Ginger Man, by J. P. Donleavy
111 – The Magnificent Ambersons, by Booth Tarkington
112 – 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
113 = 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne

A good book is one that makes you think, makes you discover new worlds, and one that changes your life. All of these changed mine.

GM Help: RPG setting ideas

Posted by Rick on in Ideas, Settings 0 Comment

GM Help: RPG setting ideas

One of the strengths of the D20 systems is the wide range of settings it can be used in. Between Dungeons and Dragons, Modern, Future, Cyberpunk and the Past supplements just about any setting can be run fairly effectively. I’ve so far ran a Time Travel Fantasy game, a Steam Punk/Victorian Era game, and a near future high tech space game with this system. Here’s a list of some other settings that I think would make a great game.

Torchwood – United States

A new rift has opened up in whatever major city you’re most familiar with. Captain Jack is in town to check it out and see how big it is. Unfortunately he finds that it needs a 24/7 team to watch over it. This is where the PCs come in, they can either be drafted or coerced by Captain Jack, or be members of a secret military organization or even private company dedicated to such things. This could be a Bureau-13 type setting with aliens, time-travel, and unexplained monsters, along with the very occasional siting of the good Doctor. Having this be over seas from the main part of Torchwood gives the characters the ability to get some occasional help or specialized equipment when needed, but not be totally dependent on them.

Roadmarks

Based on the book of the same name by Roger Zelazny, Roadmarks is the story of a couple who travel a road through time. Characters can be police from some where in the future tasked with patrolling the road. Or they could be hapless travelers from any era who turned off on the wrong road and ended up here. Perhaps they’re looking to just get back, or possibly they’re trying to make a profit off the road by (illegally) running artifacts from the past to the future. Or possibly providing modern guns to participants in ancient wars.

Space 1899

This was a game system from the 1980’s that had a great background, but wasn’t too popular for some reason. The discovery of liftwood allows the building of ships capable of space flight. This fueled further colonization of not only Earth, but Mars which was essentially a Colonial-era Africa in Victorian times. Using the D20 Past rules, some various D20 Steam Punk settings, and a bit of research into Victorian eras a great game could be built.

Zompocalypse

Zombies have risen, and are eating brains. Use D20 Modern and a basic Zombie template. The Zombie outbreak could be a localized event or a world wide event. This would be a great setting to play boringly “normal” characters who have been trust into an extraordinary  situation. The area of conflict can be an entire town, or an office building, mall or school. Characters have to use makeshift weapons and depend on whatever supplies they can find. This could be a one off game, or an entire campaign as the PCs explore and father clues to find out how the got Zombies started.

As can be seen, most any setting can easily be created in the D20 system. So go take advantage of it! And have fun!

All I want to do is Sing and Dance

Posted by Rick on in Misc 0 Comment

All I want to do is Sing and Dance

I’m looking for suggestions on new music to check out. I use to use Kazaa Lite for this. I’d randomly type in a word, or perhaps a type of music and download everything I came across. Then I’d spend hours going through what I downloaded looking for stuff I liked. Then it was a quick trip down to Everyday Music to look and see what they had that I liked.

I found a good group called Toybox after looking for the word “Sailor.” I was actually looking for Ray Steven’s “The Pirate Song, (I Want to Sing and Dance,)” after seeing some friends perform it at Embers (also known locally as “the” Bar,) for a GBLT benefit.

Anyways – I liked it so much that I downloaded a few more of their songs. They’re very Aqua like – but for some reason the tunes and words are much catchier. I mean, Barbie Girl is ok, but Toy Box takes that a step further and puts it in all their songs. From the first album Fantastic, I like “The Sailor Song,” “ET,” “Tarzan and Jane,” and “Best Friend.” Best Friend is funny, on the CD there is a music video included that brings us back to Aqua’s Barbie Girl.

Anyways, I think that my favorite type of music has become Techno or Punk Remakes of more famous songs. Me First and the Gimme Gimmeies are a really good example. Pretty much their entire discography is based on remakes. One of my favorites is “Science Fiction Double Feature,” being a big Rocky fan back in the day (a mere two years ago,) it really hit the spot with me.

Another type that I enjoy is Old Time Radio. Jack Benny is probally my personal favorite, but (George) Burns, and (Gracie) Allens, Bob Hope, Fibber McGee, etc, are all really good too. My only gripe is that my car MP3 player won’t play these at the lower bit rates. Most are 30 minute shows, since the orginial format is so bad they’re ripped at a really low rate, so 21 – 30 minutes ends up being your typical 5-7MB file. Being a bit of an amateur historian, it’s really cool to listen to these old shows. Unluckily I don’t have the 45 minute commute to work like I use to, so it’s hard to find time to listen to them. 9 times out of 10, they’re usually funnier then anything that’s on the air today.

So if anyone has any suggestions for some music to check out, hamellr@yahoo.com. (remove the extra period,) would be appreciated. Please no Modern Country or Rap! I don’t want to shoot myself, or get shot for listening to the wrong type of music.