Our Appendix N Archeology and Adventures in Fiction series are meant to take a look at the writers and creators behind the genre(s) that helped to forge not only our favorite hobby but our lives. We invite you to explore the entirety of the series on our Adventures In Fiction home page. Adventures in Fiction: Sterling E. Lanier by Jim Wampler Yesterday was the 95th anniversary of the birth of Sterling E. Lanier. He wasn’t just a favorite author of E. Gary Gygax, nor was he merely a cited influence on both the Dungeons & Dragons and Gamma World role playing games. For those things alone he would still be notable and of interest to role playing gamers everywhere. Sterling E. Lanier was the quintessential polymath. His personal interests ranged from skin-diving and boating to bird watching and conservation causes. He was also a naval and military history buff. Graduating from Harvard in 1951, Lanier trained to be an archeologist and anthropologist. He later worked as a research historian in museums in the 1950s. One of his many passions included the speculative field of cryptozoology, which later fueled much of his fiction writing. Lanier was also a talented sculptor, and supported himself for many years with sales of his sculpted miniatures, which were primarily focused on animal motifs. Besides having his sculptures included in the collection of The Smithsonian, Lanier once sculpted a series of miniatures based upon J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings books. Tolkien is said to have been quite taken with the sculpts, but only approved them on condition that they never be commercialized. True to his word, Lanier never released the miniatures and they remain virtually unseen to this day. So it should come as little surprise then that Lanier was also a life-long fan of speculative fiction writing who eventually tried his own hand at that avocation as well. Sterling E. Lanier’s first published work was a short story called Join Our Gang? which appeared in Analog Science Fact & Fiction in May, 1961. Shortly after that, Lanier took a position in the literary field, becoming an editor for Chilton Books. It was at this time that Lanier played a key role in bringing the world one of the great genre works of all time. Having read Frank Herbert’s “Dune World” in Analog magazine, Lanier championed...