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Creative Mountain Games

The Book of Wonder PDF

5.00/5 (based on 1 rating)
CMGBOWE

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How well do you know your gaming roots? Many of the older gamers among us can recall reading Howard, Lieber, or Tolkien, but how many harken back to the tales of Lord Dunsany's The Book of Wonder? Now is your chance to catch up with this Fantasy Classic in PDF format. Inside are such classic short stories as...

  • The Bride of the Man-Horse
  • Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller
  • The House of the Sphinx
  • Probable Adventure of the Three Literary Men
  • The Injudicous Prayers of Pombo the Idolater
  • The Loot of Bombasharna
  • Miss Cubbidge and the Dragon of Romance
  • The Quest of the Queen's Tears
  • The Hoard of the Gibbelins
  • How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art upon the Gnoles
  • How One Came, As Was Foretold, to the City of Never
  • The Coronation of Mr. Thomas Shap
  • Chu-Bu and Sheemish
  • The Wonderful Window

There's more than a few surprises and familiar faces to be found, and it's free to you with our compliments. Enjoy!

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5.00/5 (based on 1 rating)

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There is none but Lord Dunsany!

5/5 —

Be forewarned, this is not “sword & sorcery”, it’s more “literary fantasy”.
That said, it’s great! And it’s a piece of history for all gamers, since without Lord Dunsany there very well might be no D&D; since Dunsany inspired Tolkien, who in turn inspired Gygax.
I highly recommend this collection of short stories (and I do mean short, none of them are more than a few pages long and easy to read in one sitting).

Some of my personal favorites are:
<><><>“Probable Adventure of the Three Literary Men”
A story about three thieves who plan to steal the fabled Golden Box from its sleeping guardian.
<><><>“The Hoard of the Gibbelins”
An old knight plans to rob the Gibbelins vast treasure-vaults…treasure which they use to attract their favorite food, man.
<><><>“How Nuth Would Have Practiced His Art Upon the Gnoles”
A master thief decides to top off his career with robbing the one place all thieves fear, the house of the gnoles. [A story of particular interest to gamers, the gnoles of the story being the forefathers of the gnolls of the game]
<><><>“The Coronation of Mr. Thomas Shap”
The story of a man who became obsessed with a fantasy world he dreamed up.
<><><>“Chu-bu and Sheemish”
Chu-bu, an idol, sat happily in his temple for over a hundred years, and each Tuesday the priests would come in and chant ‘There is none but Chu-bu”. Then one day they come and chant “There is also Sheemish”…
<><><>“The Wonderful Window”
A man buys a magical window that he uses to look into another world.

My ultimate favorite is probably “Chu-bu and Sheemish”, a story like no other, dealing with a battle of wills between two insignificant deities.
I would recommend this at any price, but hey! It’s FREE! So add it to your cart for your next order and, after reading some of the stories, you may want to join me in my chant:
“There is none but Lord Dunsany!”

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Liberty's Edge

A point of order on Theris Nordo Ichka's review.

Gygax was not influenced by Tolkien he wasn't a fan. More Robert E Howard, Morecock ect.
Aldoth wrote:

A point of order on Theris Nordo Ichka's review.

Gygax was not influenced by Tolkien he wasn't a fan. More Robert E Howard, Morecock ect.

Sorry to burst your bubble Aldoth, but Gygax was heavily influenced by Tolkien (where do you think halflings, orcs, or rangers came from? Just to name a few).

In his famous ‘Appendix N: Inspirational and Educational Reading’ (from his ‘Dungeon Master’s Guide’) Gygax clearly states “Tolkien, J.R.R. THE HOBBIT; “Ring Trilogy””

Also, fantasy was hardly a genre before Tolkien’s works brought it to immense popularity. Without this boost of interest in fantasy, who knows whether Gygax would have made his game at all, and even if he had, would it have gained so much popularity early on to allow its long life?

I think it would be extremely difficult to create any fantasy (books, games, whatever) after Tolkien without being influenced by him, in the same way it would be difficult not to be influenced by D&D now. All works build on those that came before.

---Theris
The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

Theris--

True enough. But in one of his "Up on a Soapbox" columns in Dragon, Gygax trivialized the Lord of the Rings trilogy, noting that the One Ring was "just a ring of invisibility with an interesting back story."

He wasn't a fan.
Dark Archive

I have nothing but love and true respect for both men; but it was quietly considered by a few that Mr. Gygax did borrow heavily from Prof. Tolkein. As did a lot of past and current fantasy authors.

But later on, yes there was indeed a distancing by Mr. Gygax from Prof. Tolkein's works, as to keep from being entangled with the Tolkein Estate.

That does not take away from the fact that both men were, still simply, quite genius.
Aldoth wrote:

A point of order on Theris Nordo Ichka's review...

I was just looking through my posts and I realized that in my rebuttal of your statement I was rather harsh. If any offense was taken, I am sorry and ask forgiveness.

Hey, don't we all borrow a little from those that have come before? I think Tolkien standardized Dwarves, Elves, Rangers, WIzards and Hobbits. Whether GG felt like he was inspired by Tolkien or not, it would be hard to say there was no influence. Just like it would be hard to say Barbarians in D&D weren't somewhat influenced by Robert Howard.
It would kind of like saying that comic book writers today weren't influenced by Superman. Maybe they don't take direct inspiration from Supes, but as a genre-defining icon, the fact that there was an influence seems hard to deny.

Joel Gates
www.greengatesinc.blogspot.com
Aldoth wrote:

A point of order on Theris Nordo Ichka's review.

Gygax was not influenced by Tolkien he wasn't a fan. More Robert E Howard, Morecock ect.

There is a bit of difference between 'not influenced by' and 'he wasn't a fan'.

As I remember, in the very original editions, Halflings were called Hobbits and Baalors(sp?) were Balrogs.

Just my tuppence

There is zero question in my mind that Gygax and OD&D was heavily influenced by Tolkien
Silver Crusade

Might well be that Gygax wasn't much of a fan at all of Tolkien...

Then again-- *Dave Arneson* had a LOT to do with the original D&D game (Gygax was a tabletop miniatures wargamer originally-- Arneson was the one who came up with the idea of playing *individual characters* in the first place, and with the idea that characters could gain experience and become more powerful from session to session), so maybe he was the Tolkien fan who brought a lot of the stuff into it-- however, since the Chainmail game's fantasy portion had a lot of material in it that was clearly derived from Tolkien...

Tolkien's works did have a lot of influence on D&D.
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