I haven't read the Lynch yet, I'm waiting for a decent sized paperback -- all I've seen is the ghastly UK C-format thing. (Why does anyone buy them? Less durable than a mmpb, harder to hold than a hardback, and ridiculously expensive?)
Anyway, I think there's a boring D&D way of doing it, which does indeed derive from Lankhmar, and Brust does it brilliantly, and so does Tim Powers in The Anubis Gates.
The thing most worth talking about would be why this thing that never really existed in the form it typically exists in fantasy novels, and certainly not in a medieval world, is so common as to be a cliche. Why did Leiber's little bit of invention and extrapolation from C.18 London to Lankhmar become this standard piece of fantasy furniture?
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-05-26 12:52 pm (UTC)Anyway, I think there's a boring D&D way of doing it, which does indeed derive from Lankhmar, and Brust does it brilliantly, and so does Tim Powers in The Anubis Gates.
The thing most worth talking about would be why this thing that never really existed in the form it typically exists in fantasy novels, and certainly not in a medieval world, is so common as to be a cliche. Why did Leiber's little bit of invention and extrapolation from C.18 London to Lankhmar become this standard piece of fantasy furniture?