Cold Weather Novels ? (No spoilers please)

[Rivermurk the Vengeful]

Hi

I'm starting this campaign soon (as a player) and am very excited. I enjoy background reading and fantasy novels as it helps me flesh out my character and get into the theme of things. I recently read 'Winter Witch' was very enjoyable. I am looking for suggestions for other fantasy novels with a cold/snow theme. I recall reading the 'Icewind Dale' trilogy many years ago which was pretty good as well.

Any recommendations welcome!

Thanks

Philip

[Tangent101]

I don't know about fantasy novels, but there are some excellent fiction novels that are about being in winter conditions. Some get downright depressing in fact (like one short story about a guy who falls into a river and just as he gets a fire going so he can dry off and not freeze to death, the branch above him dumps a load of snow onto his fire, extinguishing it).

[Dave Gross]

A few chapters of Master of Devils take place in winter, but the story's spread out over an entire year.

[Dave Gross]

Rivermurk the Vengeful wrote:

Hi

I'm starting this campaign soon (as a player) and am very excited. I enjoy background reading and fantasy novels as it helps me flesh out my character and get into the theme of things. I recently read 'Winter Witch' was very enjoyable. I am looking for suggestions for other fantasy novels with a cold/snow theme. I recall reading the 'Icewind Dale' trilogy many years ago which was pretty good as well.

Any recommendations welcome!

Thanks

Philip

You might enjoy Dan Simmons' The Terror.

[Lord_Krachah]

J.V. Jones: Sword of Shadows

Winter Fantasy at its best.

[Dave Gross]

Also, if you can catch either of the documentaries or any of the books on the antarctic expedition of the Endurance, you'll feel as if you've been trapped on the ice for months. Here's the one I liked best.

[Rivermurk the Vengeful]

Thank you all for the recommendations, I will definitely check them out.

I am genuinely flattered to have received a response from the creator of Radovan and Jeggare. Let me just say: I LOVE YOUR BOOKS. I think they are the cream of the Pathfinder Tales (Master of Devils was glorious btw).

[Rivermurk the Vengeful]

re: the Endurance, I will check those out. In response I must recommend 'Alive' by Piers Paul Read, which was brutal and gripping.

[Conman the Bardbarian]

Endurance was good, The Boys of Everest was good if I recall, a number of Everest books are good.

[tssfulk]

Rivermurk the Vengeful wrote:

Hi

I'm starting this campaign soon (as a player) and am very excited. I enjoy background reading and fantasy novels as it helps me flesh out my character and get into the theme of things. I recently read 'Winter Witch' was very enjoyable. I am looking for suggestions for other fantasy novels with a cold/snow theme. I recall reading the 'Icewind Dale' trilogy many years ago which was pretty good as well.

Any recommendations welcome!

Thanks

Philip

It's been years since I read it, but I remember loving The Left Hand of Darkness by Le Guin.

[Wyrd_Wik]

Jack London's Yukon stories have a pulpy punch to them. Though I would add, To Build a Fire is overrated.

Some good non-fiction recommendations:

Ancient Mariner by Ken McGoogan covers the life of Samuel Hearne, an explorer with the Hudson Bay Company who explored much of the Canadian arctic.

Fatal Passage (also McGoogan) is a bio of John Rae the man who discovered the northwest passage and was involved in trying to locate the Franklin Expedition.

Both books do an excellent job of conveying their subjects experience and the harrowing conditions they worked in.

[zimmerwald1915]

No one's mentioned The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? It's not a wonderful source on dealing with winter conditions, but Tumnus and the Beavers have much to say about living under a regime like Elvanna's, and could help you visualize characters like Nadya, Ringeirr, and Solveig. And of course Jadis has a lot to say that could help you visualize, well, various jadwiga.

Hmm, it's almost as though the similarities of the names aren't a coincidence.