Quote from: MarcoStarship Troopers gets classed. I could do a good game off of that!

-Marco

Actually, IIRC, Starship Troopers wasn't a Heinlein juvenile. It was originally going to be a juvenile, but the publisher thought the subject and execution was too adult, so it was released as an adult book. It does get the awesome vote from me, though.

-clash

Got another one:

The Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher
For an RPG campaign I would use the set-up and the beginning of the adventure but change the nature of the tripods/aliens, to keep the players guessing.

Diana Wynn Jones!

She wrote Howl's Moving Castle, as per the movie, and Archers Goon and The Homeward Bounders and A Tale Of Time City and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Homeward Bounders is especially good - its like Sliders with much skipping between parallel worlds. Thing is, it turns out that the bad guys are a bunch of roleplayers playing games with the worlds, who use the Bounders to keep the places they play with unreal enough for them to mess with.

Quote from: Dirk RemmeckeGot another one:

The Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher
For an RPG campaign I would use the set-up and the beginning of the adventure but change the nature of the tripods/aliens, to keep the players guessing.

A second vote from me as well. Jeez, I remember reading that back in grade school and loved it. Not too much fantasy involved in that, though.

And if you don't mind broadening the field into anime, give Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky (Laputa), and Princess Mononoke a view. They are all done by Miyazaki and filled to the brim with ideas to mine.

The Song of the Lioness books by Tamora Pierce
The first and last time that menstruation made for an interesting plot point.

Tripods series. First books I ever read. Post-apocalypse by alien invasion. Says alot about me, doesn't it?

EDIT: Damn! Someone beat me to it. Seconded... or thirded.

Watership Down may be more of a "read to" kids book. But it's a great example of how characters can be small, but tell an epic story.

I thought the Redwall books were a nice picture of an abbey.

Artemes Fowl showed an interesting world of cyberpunk faeries.

The Gormenghast books may be too high level for this discussion, as well, but I've suggested them to Harry Potter fans in my classroom and they seem to like them.

Quote from: stu2000The Gormenghast books may be too high level for this discussion, as well, but I've suggested them to Harry Potter fans in my classroom and they seem to like them.

Good suggestion. I've often used Gormenghast as my model for decaying fantasy societies. A crumbling castle that stretches for miles in every direction is just too cool not to steal.

Quote from: stu2000Watership Down may be more of a "read to" kids book. But it's a great example of how characters can be small, but tell an epic story.

Well if you like the idea of Watership Down as an RPG you are in luck. Originally it was done by Fantasy Games Unlimited in 1976. Then a GURPS version in the early 90's. An there in a risus fan generated game too.

Bunnies and Barrows is sensational. I've loved it for a long time. I love WD as much as most people love LotR.

However, I wouldn't recommend furry games like Furry Outlaws, or Ironclaw as being an especially good fit for Redwall, or Mouse Guard--a nicely done comic in a similar vein. I'd probanly use a light generic system like Fudge to create those settings. But you could easily adjust D&D or Ars Magica or something . . .

Quote from: Elliot WilenHarry Potter (Honestly I don't see the attraction for adults. Though I admit, I haven't read it at all.)
The Chronicles of Prydain (Ditto.)

Seriously, go read both of these series, before you bitch about how they're "too kiddie".*

Both are about growing as a person. Yes, they both center on a single character (with an interesting supporting cast) but both offer gobs and gobs of ideas for RPGs. By refusing to read either series, you're denying yourself fiction that has a quality that you just don't find these days.

* If it helps, I felt the same way at first. Mostly it was because I had picked up and glanced through the first chapter or two of the first book, which mostly details how shitty Harry Potter's life is, with over-the-top evil step-parents and a bully brother. The Dursleys are the least realistic or convincing characters in the series; they really are "kiddie" and they still bother me as characters .  

Anyway, after that first impression, I refused to read any of the series through for years, until my wife convinced me to at least give the rest of the first book a try. I was quite surprised. Although the Dursleys still bother me, they're but a small part of the series, and are easy to ignore. Otherwise, Harry Potter is amazingly well written from pretty much any angle of the craft of writing -- the characters are interesting, as is their dialog, the plot flows smoothly, even the sentence structure, grammar, and organization are heads and shoulders above what you normally find in "modern" fiction.

Seriously, go read the books. Forget about trying to be "grown up" for a while and enjoy them. You really will.

I have read the first Harry Potter novel in full, my life is too short to read more in the series.

Frankly, it was very weak stuff with poor characterisation and not especially good writing.

And as for being too grown up, I love a lot of different stuff, HP just isn't very good and while I would never discourage any kid from reading it (or anything much else apart from Gor) nor would I particularly encourage it (ie I wouldn't comment either way) as I think there are far better written books out there many of them just as accessible.

Harry is a mary sue, he has uberskills at that which he turns his hand to, he's amazing magically and brilliant at sports, I tend to prefer characters a little more convincingly human.

Wizard of Earthsea.

I was halfway through the first of them when I realised that all the characters were black.

Those books were challenging stuff, the characters you are identifying with all turn out to be black kids and the reader is not forewarned, it challenges racial stereotypes and is one of the very few positive images of different ethnicities in children's fiction.  It's subversive, because it puts a mostly white audience fictionally in the body of a black kid without that audience realising it until they already identify with them.

It reminds us that though people may look different outside they are the same within.  It makes it all the more apalling that when cast for tv they cast white actors in all the roles, given that it was absolutely intentional that the characters were black but that the reader would not initially realise that.

All that and it's a bloody good read.  I reread the original trilogy again a couple of years back and they still make good reading, particularly the one set in the tombs of Atuan (spelling?).

"Atuan" is correct. And you're right when you say it's a brilliant, subtly subversive series that rewards the adult reader as much as the child.