Read:
- Killer by Steve Jackson Games
- The rules of the game. KAOS predates Killer by several years, but
our Assassins' Guide owes a lot of it's refinements to this text.
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War
- The famous foundational military strategy text. Bugger all use at
the killing round level, of course, but to be admired for it's
common sense.
- Carl Von Clausewitz, Von Kreig (On War)
- A key text in modern military strategy, where terms like 'fog of
war' and 'war is the extension of politics by other means'
originate. More talked about than read, I suspect.
- Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince
- A classic political treatise which stands apart for it's focus on
the practical problems a monarch faces in staying in power. A must
read for all KAOS Dictators.
- Richard Connell,
The Most Dangerous Game
- A classic short story, in which our hero (a big game hunter himself)
finds himself hunted for sport by a jaded Russian aristocrat.
A must read for any KAOS Agent who's ever been in a killing round.
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord Of The Rings trilogy
- The classic for which so much modern fantasy liturature is mearly a
footnote to. Alledgedly an allagory on the plight of postgraduate
students (though I'm sure Tolkien would have denied it).
- Anything by Terry Pratchett
- Most famous for the Discworld series, as well as some rather good
childrens books, a couple of scifi novels, and 'Good Omens',
with Neil Gaiman. His work tends to be quite accessable for people
who don't read fantasy, but full of jokes and references that
amuse those who do. And he was guest of honour at the ill fated
ICON scifi convention of '94.
- Anything by Neil Gaiman
- Neil co-wrote Good Omens with Terry Prattchet, as well as writing
everything from novels to poetry to a B5 episode, but he's most
widely know as the author of Sandman, a comic book series
liked by people who don't like comics (because they really don't like
superhero comics) that won so many awards that the rules for many of
them where rewriten to exclude comic books. His works are adored the
world over by goths and Tori Amos fans.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy trilogy
- The books of the radio series that the tv series was based on. A
trilogy in five parts. As near as you'll come to required reading
on this list.
- Anything by Iain (M) Banks
- As Iain M. Banks, he's the author of a series of scifi novels set
in and arround the peripheries of the Culture, a far future, utopian
human and machine society. 'The Player of Games', 'Use of Weapons' and
'Look To Windward' are particularly good. He also writes general fiction
as Iain Banks, with 'The Crow Road', 'Complicity', 'Espadair St' and
'Dead Air' being worth a look. The Realm of Insanity BBS used to have
a story board set in the Culture.
- Anything by William Gibson
- "When writing a profile of William Gibson, be sure to mention that,
when he originally wrote 'Neuromancer', not only did he not know
what a 'modem' was, but he had never even seen a computer, and had
been raised in the forest by ponies." - NTK
Anyway. Neuromancer is a classic work of cyberpunk fiction, a
branch of scifi that has greatly influence KAOS fashion over the years.
- Anything by Neal Stephenson
- Famous for Snow Crash, a somewhat more accessable cyberpunk novel than
any of Gibson's work, and Cryptonomicon, a huge WWII and modern day
thriller that manages to make geeks and cryptography interesting without
telling lies. Zodiac and The Big U are also worth a look, too.
- Alan Moore, Watchmen
- Probably the best pervert suit comic book ever written. Starts out
with the death of a comedian and ends with a Shuggoth falling on
downtown New York. Rorschach outfit was influential during the
trenchcoat and floppy hat phase in the early '90's.
- Anything by Warren Ellis
- The Irvine Welsh of comic books, he's most famous for Transmetropolitan,
a sort of Fear and Loathing in Megacity 1 centered around the antics of
Spider Jerusalem, celebrity journelist for The Word.
- Anything by HP Lovecraft and associated writers
- Lovecraft is like the Vincent Van Gogh of horror fiction; barely
recognised during his lifetime, but hugely influential to
subsequent generations of horror writers. His short stories are
classic works, seamlessly blending elements from science fiction,
fantasy, detective tales and horror. See especially 'At The
Mountains of Madness' and 'The Dunwich Horror.' And his works form
the religious basis of KAOS's sometime pacifist warfare
adversaries, the nefarious Reformed Church of the Great Old Ones.
- Anything by Jhonen Vasquez
- Another comic book writer with a head full of bad noise. Author of
Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Squee and I Feel Sick, a comic
allegedly inspired by his experience working on Invader Zim at
Nickelodian.
- Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson,
The Illuminatus Trilogy
- One of those sets of books that the description 'roller-coater
ride' might actually be appropriate. It's filled
to bursting with every conspiracy you ever
heard of, as well elements from Discordianism, Lovecraft, stream
of consciousness writing, postmodernism and all
manner of other nonsense which is usually introduced,
trashed 20 pages later only to be
introduced again somewhere down the line. Great fun.
Other recommendations:
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Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Listen
- Read
- See
- Do
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