Used with permission from Bethesda

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim®

Released on November 11th, 2011, Skyrim is the fifth major entry in the long running Elder Scrolls series.  Taking place in the fictional province of its namesake, Skyrim trades in the Lord of the Rings aesthetic of the previous game for a more brutal, down-to-earth experience featuring lots of battle axes, horned helmets, mead halls, and other viking themed elements. With a world as vast and deep as Skyrim's, it's likely that even if you started playing it when it came out, you still haven't seen all it has to offer. But even if you aren't looking for more, you might find it interesting to check out what the writers and designers at Bethesda were reading when they were creating Skyrim, and as a library, we can help with that.

• Conan the Barbarian

If you like Skyrim’s rough and tumble, blood and grit encrusted take on The Elder Scrolls, you’ll probably Conan the Barbarian, one of the primary touchstones that Bethesda's designers looked to when building that aspect of the game.  Many authors have written stories featuring Conan over many forms of media, but all of them follow a similar theme: deeply personal tales of adventure, thievery, and bloody revenge set against an epic fantasy backdrop that contrasts the brutal savagery of nature with the decadent hypocrisy of civilization.  The Prince Rupert Library has an anthology of the Conan novels written by Robert Jordan (of Wheel of Time fame), which should be as good an introduction to Conan as any.

• Lord of the Rings

When talking about something like the The Elder Scrolls, no list of recommendations would be complete without mentioning the original modern fantasy epic.  From elves to orcs, and epic quests to magical swords, The Lord of the Rings has it all and did it first.  In addition to being the originator of almost every trope associated with fantasy today, Lord of the Rings is widely considered to be the best written story in the fantasy genre, and the most consistent and well realized fantasy world ever created.  This is the first thing you should read if you’re looking to get into fantasy.

• Dragonflight

Right from the start, dragons are a pretty big part of Skyrim, so If you’re a big fan of that particular aspect of the game, a good book about dragons would probably be right up your alley.  As one of the most popular series of novels on the subject, Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern fits the bill.  And where better to start than the beginning, with Dragonflight, the book that started it all?

• Scandinavian Mythology
  

Serving not only as a direct inspiration for many elements of The Elder Scrolls, but indirectly as a major influence on The Lord of the Rings and Conan the Barbarian, Norse mythology might just be the most important source of inspiration for Skyrim.  Pretty much every aspect Skyrim’s culture, from the way its inhabitants look and dress, to their religion (Sovngarde is directly based on the Norse legend of Valhalla), down to many of the magical creatures that inhabit it, like frost trolls and giants, belong to the Vikings and their ancestors in Scandinavia.  Not to mention that many concepts of the larger Elder Scrolls lore borrow heavily from Norse Mythology, such as the planes of Oblivion, which bear more than a passing resemblance to the 9 Norse worlds.  If you’re at all interested in the lore of the The Elder Scrolls, you might find a good, accessible book about Norse Myths, such as H.R. Ellis Davidson’s Scandinavian Mythology to be surprisingly interesting.