Jeffro Johnson's book, Appendix N: The Literary History of Dungeons and Dragons, hit Amazon this week like the fist of an angry God. It rocketed up the lists to claim the top spot in multiple categories, and has people talking all over the place. One of those places is a podcast hosted by Declan Finn (aka A Pius Geek), a very Sad Puppy and Dragon Award nominee, and the author of Honor At Stake). You can hear the whole thing here:
It would be hard to understate how big an impact Jeffro has had on my way of looking at literature. Jeffro is pretty much the sole reason that Appendix N books are listed in the categories of books chosen by the Puppy of the Month book club, and we've had more than a few of them so far. It was his advocacy that sold me on the inclusion of Appendix N works, and so in many ways this blog was started as an answer to his call to arms for the true believers and modern day heirs of Howard, Burroughs, and Moore.
So it was extremely gratifying to hear him endorse our little corner of the culture war (at about 1:23:00 in the podcast) when he said, "Those guys are onto something, and if they wanted, they have the talent to go in and put stuff on Amazon in the list of criticism and theory of science fiction...they could just go in and camp out there. They would have a presence there that I don't think existed before."
That sort of acknowledgement makes it all worthwhile.
