Scouts...
- Thread starter barnest2
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alex_greene
Guest
I noticed. 
A lot of Larry Niven has crept into the books as well, among other influences that I recognise.
A lot of Larry Niven has crept into the books as well, among other influences that I recognise.
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
barnest2 said:Well at least im not going mad
What has larry niven written, ive heard its good, never got the chance...
(and what sort of thing came from his work i love knowing that kind of thing)
"The Mote in Gods Eye" with Jerry Pournelle is probably a * major OTU influence, as are Pournelle's Mercenary and Co-Dominion Series. "King David's Spaceship" (Pournelle) is a dandy example of a planet trying to avoid paternalistic interdiction.
Protector and World of Ptaavs are two other excellent SF books Niven wrote; a gift from earth is a bit rougher, but an original look at....psionics.....in a campaign.
* I'd say it's The definitive influence, but I've never completely deconstructed and compared the two..
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
BP said:
Hidden by Imperial Rescript. Why do you want to know ? {knock knock} ...it's for you....... :twisted:
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
captainjack23 said:"The Mote in Gods Eye" with Jerry Pournelle is probably a * major OTU influence, as are Pournelle's Mercenary and Co-Dominion Series.
* I'd say it's The definitive influence, but I've never completely deconstructed and compared the two..
Blend what we see of the human state in Mote with Anderson's Polesotechnic League and Terran Empire and the grand mess that is Dune's Imperium, and you get (for certain distillation conditions) the Third Imperium.
This mix also gets you a good chunk of Free Trader culture, Navy traditions, hard vacc suits/combat armor, The Long Night, and a smattering of other familiar elements.
Add in a fair bit of Andre Norton and E.C.Tubb and you complete the recipe for traders and get most of what you need for psionics and pharmacopia.
E.C. Tubb's Dumarest series is pretty well certainly the single greatest influence on the original Traveller from 1977. There's a quote from Loren Wiseman in the wild to the effect of "We just copied Tubb and were surprised everyone didn't know that."
Number two among literary inspirations for the original would be H. Beam Piper's Terro-Human Future books. Space Viking is especially notable, then there's The Cosmic Computer, Uller Uprising, etc.*
All are great reads (well, I can only attest to the first 12 Dumarest books out of 32, but I'm working my way through them...)
Poul Anderson's books, as mentioned, are also among the major original influences (Ensign Flandry, The Man Who Counts, etc.) as are Harry Harrison's books.
And, yes, lots of others. Even more in later version of Trav as time has given us more great SF.
Now, I had read all the literary influences cited in the original Traveler except the Dumarest books by the time I bought Traveller in '77. And I've got to say there were a lot of things in Traveller I didn't grok even after running it and playing it for 30 years. Till I read the first Dumarest book, The Winds of Gath. Now, every chance I get, I tell fellow Travellers to get and read this book, and as much other Dumarest as you can. It's a model for everything about Traveller that the other authors don't have (and a great book!)
*There is a cross-over between Piper and Pournelle. Pournelle has described it in print, but basically Piper authorized Pournelle to use his universe, hence we have Tanith, etc. in Pournelle's works.
Number two among literary inspirations for the original would be H. Beam Piper's Terro-Human Future books. Space Viking is especially notable, then there's The Cosmic Computer, Uller Uprising, etc.*
All are great reads (well, I can only attest to the first 12 Dumarest books out of 32, but I'm working my way through them...)
Poul Anderson's books, as mentioned, are also among the major original influences (Ensign Flandry, The Man Who Counts, etc.) as are Harry Harrison's books.
And, yes, lots of others. Even more in later version of Trav as time has given us more great SF.
Now, I had read all the literary influences cited in the original Traveler except the Dumarest books by the time I bought Traveller in '77. And I've got to say there were a lot of things in Traveller I didn't grok even after running it and playing it for 30 years. Till I read the first Dumarest book, The Winds of Gath. Now, every chance I get, I tell fellow Travellers to get and read this book, and as much other Dumarest as you can. It's a model for everything about Traveller that the other authors don't have (and a great book!)
*There is a cross-over between Piper and Pournelle. Pournelle has described it in print, but basically Piper authorized Pournelle to use his universe, hence we have Tanith, etc. in Pournelle's works.
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