Community

How well do you know your FR Authors? Every Monday you can expect an update to the author roundtable, featuring many of our best Forgotten Realms authors’ answers to the world’s most important questions, right here on this blog. Submissions for new questions welcome through private message. 

READER: What was your favorite toy?

Elaine Cunningham (co-author of The City of Splendors): A piano my parents bought it when I was five years old. Best. Toy. EVER! That, and art supplies. Music and art kept me pretty busy as a kid.  But the chemistry set was fun, too, as was putting together the anatomical model kids: the Visible Man, the Visible Woman, and an assortment of plastic organs. After putting together the heart model, I never looked at Valentine’s Day in quite the same way. (Friend Elaine)

Ed Greenwood (author of The Sword Never Sleeps): A model railroad built by a friend’s dad. We could just stare at it for hours, not running trains, but getting our eyes down to “ground” level and peering at details. He superdetailed ivy growing on walls, trash, the interiors of rooms visible through windows . . . everything. Our imaginations took us on hundreds of stories in that modeled world.

Paul S. Kemp (author of Shadowrealm): Star Wars figures. By a wide margin. (Friend Paul)

Jak Koke (author of The Edge of Chaos): Hotwheels. I had miles and miles of tracks and dozens of cars. Even had a rare powered track and electric cars that ran on it. (Friend Jak)

Erin Evans (author of The God Catcher): Anything I could invent elaborate stories around. My Little Ponies were a favorite—although their stories usually involved deep-seated family feuds, political drama, and escaping from the Playmobil circus lions. I recall one mayor of Ponyland was ousted after his evacuation plans didn’t go so well and some of the ponies were almost eaten waiting to be airlifted by Pegasus ponies. It caused a coup. (Friend Erin)

Mark Sehestedt (author of The Fall of Highwatch): STAR WARS figures, of course! I was five-years old in the summer of 1977. I was already a hopeless geek thanks to my dad, being soundly immersed in Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, Get Smart, and Planet of the Apes in all its many incarnations. But seeing STAR WARS for the first time when you’re five years old, in the era before video games, DVDs, and 200 cable channels . . . it really was almost a religious experience, and STAR WARS figures were the relics of my childhood.

My favorite? Couldn’t pick just one, but my favorite sets were definitely the Hoth toys—the big AT-AT, the wampa (LOVED the wampa!), the tauntaun, the snowspeeder. Best times ever were the rare winters when we actually got enough snow that school was cancelled and I could take the Hoth sets outside for authentic adventure.

Richard Lee Byers (author of Unholy): A wooden sword. (Friend Richard)

Philip Athans (author of A Reader’s Guide to R.A. Salvatore’s Legend of Drizzt): I have fond early childhood memories of Major Matt Mason. I LOVED Major Matt Mason. That was me at age 4 or 5. Then Legos. I was mad for Lego all the way through junior high. Then I discovered D&D. Then I went to college and it’s better we don’t get into that. My new favorite toy is my Mustang GT. (Friend Philip)

Erik Scott de Bie (author of Downshadow): I was really partial to this particular stuffed dog called Odie (not really that original), such that I demanded they turn the plane around when I forgot him in Hawai’i and swore a blood oath against my school camp cabin mates when they hid him from me. And oh, sweet, sweet vengeance will be mine! (Friend Erik)

Jaleigh Johnson (author of Mistshore): A stuffed toy fox with a beautiful red-brown coat. I named him Tricky. I got him on vacation during a particularly bad school year, and he's been with me ever since. (Friend Jaleigh)

Richard Baker (author of Avenger): Legos. Why in the world didn’t they have Star Wars Legos when I was a kid? I never would have moved out of my parents’ house. (Friend Richard)

Rosemary Jones (author of City of the Dead): Winnie-the-Pooh: I have a stuffed one based on the artwork of Ernest Shepherd (rather than the Disney version), sent by an aunt when I was five or so. He's pretty battered, but he still lives on the top of one of my bookcases along with Eeyore, Tigger, Kanga, and Roo (she was a seriously great aunt). (Friend Rosemary)

Bruce R. Cordell (author of City of Torment): A tape record on which I used to record audible plays about a space ship that bore only accidental resemblance to the Star Ship Enterprise. My brother and sister served as unwilling actors in all my productions. (Friend Bruce)

James P. Davis (author of Circle of Skulls): Transformers. Tons and tons of Transformers. Saving up my allowance for weeks, recording every episode, seeing the animated movie countless times in the theater before getting it on tape and wearing it out. Save for one (allegedly stolen) character, I still have every Transformer I ever collected…and I’m still tracking down the new ones that I like. J (Friend James)

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