"If you steal from one source, that's plagiarism. If you steal from many sources, that's research."

I don't know if it's wise to attempt a complete listing of things we've mined for ideas or research (though you are always invited to play spot the reference) but I can list some of the things that inspired me to do the game in the first place. Feel free to list things you like too. [Rob]

Books

• Neil Gaiman, American Gods, but mainly because I read it and said "Hell, I could do better than that."
• Barry Gifford, especially Wild At Heart and The Sinaloa Story.
• Elmore Leonard. UA is supposed to be more Ellroy than Elmore, but I like my thugs and hoodlums a little funnier, a little softer boiled.
• Carl Hiassen, whose fingerprints are all over the early Florida sessions.
• Greil Marcus, particularly Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock & Roll Music, which I bought on Beale Street in Memphis, where our story began. Probably the key inspiration for the game. Also The Old, Weird America.
• TimPowers, obviously, and LastCall in particular. Probably few UA games about which you couldn't say that.
• Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon. Lots of thoughts about the overriding myth(s) of America. I've been reading and bookmarking it on my lunch breaks the past few days and have found some lovely UnknownUSA-infused passages. I'll post them where appropriate. [Mike]
• Geoff Ryman, Was. Forget Wicked; this is the post-modern Oz novel to end all post-modern Oz novels. (Warning: achingly sad.)
• John Steinbeck, The Grapes Of Wrath. One of the all time classics, of course, and my source for TheNephilim.
• Manly Wade Wellman, Who Fears The Devil? The country-fried Lovecraft. Great source for Beulay-country. I would have liked to do more there.
  
  • The Night Shade Books Wellman collections are excellent; I have the five volume series and recommend it strongly. [Bryant]
• Colson Whitehead, John Henry Days. Hella good book.
• Edward Whittemore, the Jerusalem Quartet. Ex-CIA Yalie writes about the Middle East in the 1900s from a fabulist's point of view. TimPowers meets Tom Robbins. "The Great Jerusalem Poker Game, as it came to be called, continued for twelve years - the stakes nothing less than the control of Jerusalem itself. Thousands of gamblers from around the world lost fortunes trying to win the Holy City, but in the end here were only three men at the table, the same three who had been there in the beginning." [Bryant]

Comics

• TheInvisibles by Grant Morrison. I made no conscious decision to emulate this book (Morrison would say nobody ever does, it's just the work of Nth dimensional hypermonkeys), but I love it so much, it's probably inevitable.
• Planetary by Warren Ellis. See remarks on The Invisibles.
• Preacher by Garth Ennis. Not an accurate portrayal of America by any means but a long lazy roadtrip through the American Myth as it looks to those of us from the Commonwealth.

Movies

• Too many road movies to list, but special mention must go to the Coen brothers' "Hayseed Trilogy": Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, and O Brother.
• After having seen it, a special mention to Masked and Anonymous. Choice movie about the decay of a different America. [Bryant]

Music

• Again, too much to list, but number one on the chart is The Band. A bunch of clever suburban kids from southern Ontario who dove head first into mythic America to try to see what makes it tick. For some reason I feel an affinity.
• Soundtracks

Visuals

• The photos of David Perry. A buddy of Barry Gifford, he takes atmospheric semi-arty pictures of cars and greasers and girlies and tattooed lowlifes of the Southwest. If we made an UnknownUSA movie he might make a good cinematographer.

Real Life

• My own Kross-Kountry Kitschapalooza and Konspiracy Roundup Road Trip, made with two college friends in the summer of 1996. One month, twenty-six states. Chronicled in my sadly out of print zine. Wow. Seven years ago.

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