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Three Hearts and Three Lions

Fantasy novel influencing Dungeons & Dragons and Law vs. Chaos.

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The story involves a man transported from the modern world to a fantasy realm where the forces of Law and Chaos are at war.[1] The 1953 novella version of "Three Hearts and Three Lions" has been nominated for a Retro-Hugo award.[2]

Key facts and history

Michael Moorcock cited the novel as a major influence on his own fantasy, particularly the theme of a man from our world becoming a hero in a fantasy realm.[1] Floyd C. Gale in 1962 rated the novel version four stars out of five.[3] The original "Law" versus "Chaos" alignment system in the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game was particularly shaped by this novel.[4] The game's troll, which heals itself very rapidly when hurt, was taken from the novel's portrayal of that creature.[4]

What the cited sources add

A 2014 short story by Harry Turtledove, "The Man who Came Late", was written as a contribution to the anthology Multiverse: Exploring Poul Anderson's Worlds.[5] Randall Garrett and Vicki Ann Heydron wrote a humorous description of the plot in a piece titled "Poul Anderson's 'Three Hearts and Three Lions': A Calypso in Search of a Rhyme".[6]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Three Hearts and Three Lions" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ""Mike's Recommended Reading List""; "Elric of Melniboné by Michael Moorcock" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Three Hearts and Three Lions" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "NESFA 1953 Retro-Hugo Recommendations", New England Science Fiction Association, Inc. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Three Hearts and Three Lions" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Gale, "Galaxy's 5 Star Shelf", February 1962, p. 190–194 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Three Hearts and Three Lions" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Gygax, "On the influence of J.R.R. Tolkien on the D&D and AD&D games", March 1985, p. 12–13 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Three Hearts and Three Lions" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Multiverse: Exploring Poul Anderson's Worlds, (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Three Hearts and Three Lions" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?125329 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Three Hearts and Three Lions (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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