watchya readin'?

[Wee67]

Was Black Sabbath’s “Master of Reality” mentioned? It came out in ‘71.

It was, but it was not one of the albums focused on. Sometimes it focused on albums recorded in '71 one rather than released. It talked more about the Stones recording Exile on Main Street than Sticky Fingers, the album released in '71. That said, I admit Exile is one of the Stones best.

[MRP]

Just finished Ben Riggs' Slaying the Dragon: The Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons

mxPpMHK.jpg

First let me start by saying, I enjoyed the book. Riggs is a good writer and his prose flows and is eminently readable. I did learn a lot form the book. But, it is not, as the title purports, a secret history of Dungeons & Dragons, it is an anecdotal economic history of the rise and fall of TSR. It deals very little with the game itself except as a product that is produced and sold. It glosses over the origins and creation of the game briefly and shallowly, deals very little with the gameplay or mechanics of the game, but waxes long on the products, the production, the marketing, the market successes and market failures of the game, the management of the company, and other matters of that ilk that contributed to the meteoric rise and crashing fall of TSR leading to the sale of the company to Wizards of the Coast in 1997. It has a denouement chapter on the immediate aftermath of that sale, but other than that does not cover the last 25 years of the history of the game at all. It ends when TSR ends.
But I understand that putting D&D in the title rather than TSR is going to sell more books and secret history will garner more reader interest than economic overview of the rise and fall of a company. So in that Riggs and his publisher display more marketing savvy than TSR did through most of its history.
It's a good read, with lots of interesting info and some good research. Well worth checking out. But I do have some issues/questioning.
First is that while he is building his case for the causes of the fall of first the Blume/Gygax regime and later the Williams regime at TSR, he puts forward a lot of ideas and events and suggests causal relationships between them. He however, skips forward and backwards in time form chapter to chapter while building his case, making it seem like things have a causal relationship, but because he does not define the timeline of events, and presents those events out of chronological order, the causal relationship is dubious, especially when he hints that events that took place later in time influenced decisions about earlier events or that later events affected how earlier events were perceived prior to the later events happening. His timeline is cloudy, and that makes many of his causal hypothesis have questionable validity. He does have a lot of insightful observations, and there maybe be some fire to the smoke he is showing, but his methodology in presenting it undermines his credibility in a lot of it. He has a lot of anecdotal evidence, and some hard data to back up some of his suppositions and hypothesis, but his blurring of timelines in his methodology is problematic. And the bigger issue with that is that unless you are familiar with that timeline already, the presentation seems more convincing than it is, because the blurring of the timeline hides the flaws in his suppositions and analysis.
Second is an overreliance on some sources. Obviously in a work of this sort, you are at the mercy of who is willing to talk to you when you are doing the research. And those that are willing to talk more, provide more grist for the mill. In the story of the rise and fall of early TSR (i.e. the Blume/Gygax story) and the rise and fall of later TSR (i.e. the Williams era) there are a lot of conflicting stories of what happened, and not everyone involved is willing to talk about it, and not everyone who talks is entirely truthful or accurate in their recollections. There's a lot of he said/she said going on in a lot of it. And it's clear that Riggs either picked a side or only had access to people on one side in some of those instances, because he does little to represent counterclaims or other sides of the story from those of the sources he relied on for the bulk of his material. He makes a point of mentioning he could not get Lorraine Williams to speak with him on the record for this, and he mentions there is a difference of opinion about some of the issues, but he doesn't offer a balanced view of the two sides, and does little to verify the accounts of the sources he leans on for his material. He does mention those who corroborate it, but he either doesn't talk to or doesn't talk about those who dispute some of those accounts. And again someone who is not already are of those disputes and conflicting accounts might not think to question the versions that Riggs puts forward. I am not saying the side he chose is wrong or right, just that there is not an attempt to present both sides when giving his accounts of what he was told when digging in to the issues. He gives lip service to a few of the "hot button topics" such as does Gygax take too much credit or not get enough blame or is Lorraine Williams really the villain everyone thinks she is, but then neither of them were his sources, and he doesn't seem to question much about what the sources he leaned on claimed, and that again from a methodology standpoint raises questions about the validity of his analysis and hypothesis.
As a popular survey of the topic to produce a "journalistic feature" on the topic, it works. It's entertaining, offers some new data and insights and raises a few questions. As a scholarly investigation or deep five investigative journalistic piece, it falls down because of its slipshod methodology. And if you are looking for a history of Dungeons & Dragons as a game or a pop culture phenomenon, this ain't it. It's a look at the company, and some of the people at that company, who produced and sold the game. And that in and of itself is an interesting topic that needs more exploration. But it's not what the title purports to be. I'd still give it a 3.5/4 ish out of 5 stars for what it is, and most of my criticisms come from it not being what I hoped it would be (and with me being a harsh critic because my academic background was in economic history and historical methodology).

-M

[Werewolf]

I don't think we will ever get a truly accurate history of the creation of D&D because Gygax is still so deified in some circles of fandom and they don't want to ruin the myth. Some of the ugly side of the myth that has leaked out over the years was Gygax wasn't a good businessman and a goodly portion of TSRs problems were of his doing. He also could be controlling, cruel and petty. Like when he tried to erase co-creator/major contributor Dave Arneson from D&D history and prevent him from getting royalties.

By the 90s TSR was in terrible shape. Wizard of the Coast buying D&D saved the property.

[Liu Bei]

Just finished Inside Star Trek: The Real Story by Herb Solow and Bob Justman. Before that I read The Making of Star Trek by Stephen Whitfield.

The former was written well after the show ended by two of the biggest behind the scenes players, the latter by a fan as the show was being produced.

Both are highly recommend, but I’d have to give the nod to Inside Star Trek. It gives a much more detailed look into the production of the show, and the people who made it happen.

Now I’ve switched gears and started book 5 of Goblin Slayer, a D&D style Japanese light novel series. Very good, and highly recommended. It’s not as pretentious as some of the stuff being pumped out stateside, but it is a lot of fun.

[KingKickass1983]

Just picked up Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome
Dreamweaver, Doomsage, Sunday Times Bestseller
By Garth Marenghi

Dunno if anyones a fan of Darkplace here...

[Duncan]

I just caught up on Mick Herron's Slough House (Slow Horses) series via audiobooks. I give it a 10. It's great spy fiction (lower stakes, not save the world stuff) with Black Adder level wit. Now I'm on to Lawrence Block's Burglar series which shows promise. It started in 1977, so I have to remember standards back then, "The blood was the same type as the suspect's." Just do a DNA test...oh, wait.

[Liu Bei]

Just picked up Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome
Dreamweaver, Doomsage, Sunday Times Bestseller
By Garth Marenghi

Dunno if anyones a fan of Darkplace here...

I am! I never heard of this book before now. Let me know how you like it, because I’m already sorely tempted to blind buy it.

[drquest]

I have a terribly long work commute so I listen to a lot of audio books. I have several favorites and started a re-listen to one of my current favorite fiction series.

It’s called Dungeon Crawler Carl.

https://soundbooththeater.com/shop/a...-crawler-carl/

It’s a LitRPG book which plays out like a video game or table top roll playing game. It sounds kind of odd but there’s an entire genre of those types of books.

Dungeon Crawler Carl is so packed with humor and is a cool story about a regular guy called Carl and his cat named Princess Donut. The audiobook is narrated by Jeff Hays and he is an amazing narrator and his voice acting is awesome.

The 6th book is coming out in July and I wanted to go through them again before the new one comes out. The 2nd trip through the dungeon has been fun.

I explained the book series to a couple of my coworkers and they started it as well.

LitRPG’s aren’t for everyone but this is quite a cool series IMO.

[MRP]

I don't think we will ever get a truly accurate history of the creation of D&D because Gygax is still so deified in some circles of fandom and they don't want to ruin the myth. Some of the ugly side of the myth that has leaked out over the years was Gygax wasn't a good businessman and a goodly portion of TSRs problems were of his doing. He also could be controlling, cruel and petty. Like when he tried to erase co-creator/major contributor Dave Arneson from D&D history and prevent him from getting royalties.

By the 90s TSR was in terrible shape. Wizard of the Coast buying D&D saved the property.

Riggs actually addresses the Saint Gary perspective as a problem, and points to a lot of the mistakes and poor decisions he made on terms of running the company (including absenteeism when he went to Hollywood) and especially how the deal Gary cut with Random House for distrubution in the book trade (rather than the obby trade) came back to bite TSR and was a major factor in their collapse in the 90s. So softballing Gygax to protect his legacy is not one of the issues this book had.

-M

[monitor_ep]

Because SeaQuest DSV came out on blu-ray I have been finding books that would have fit into that worlds:

Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson Undersea Trilogy (Undersea Quest, Undersea Fleet, Undersea City)

Book 1 Undersea Quest by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson.jpg
Intrigue surrounds the mining of uranium beneath the underwater dome city of Marinia. Jim Eden, expelled from the Sub-Sea Academy on trumped-up charges, seeks out his uncle who disappeared while mining at the bottom of Eden Deep. While for looking clues to his uncle's disappearance, Jim runs into some men who try to stop him.

Book 2 Undersea Fleet by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson.jpg
David Craken, a firm believer in the existence of sea serpents, disappears in search of them only to reappear drifting offshore months later. His friend Jim Eden and members of the Sub-Sea Academy retrace David's journey and soon run into the strange creatures that had been only mythical before.

Book 3 Undersea City by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson.jpg
Krakatoan Dome was specifically designed to cope with the tremors of its earthquake prone area. Problems begin when more quakes occur than had been expected, which many experts suspect are being artificially created. The Sub-Sea Academy assigns Jim Eden to investigate, because of his experience working underwater, and also because his uncle is the prime suspect.

These came in late 60's early 70's but they read like an extension of SeaQuest DSV. They were a great read and I couldn't wait to read them. I was lucky and found them at used book store, being this old some people price these way too high.

[KingKickass1983]

I am! I never heard of this book before now. Let me know how you like it, because I’m already sorely tempted to blind buy it.

Its good so far, I can't help but hear his voice as I read it.

[J.B.]

House Rules by Heather Lewis.

Never heard of this book or the author before. One day on Youtube I see this:

So now, I'm intrigued. Without even watching the video, I started looking for the book. It was Out Of Print and the only place I found it was, occasionally, on ebay. She only wrote 2 other books: House Rules (her first) and The Second Suspect (both OOP) before she decided to check-out at age 40. From what little information I've found on her, she lived a very troubled life, much like the characters in her books. Notice was published after her death. I got lucky and scored House Rules for a decent price on ebay. It's about abuse, sex, abuse, sex, abuse, sex.......and horsies!

Maybe one day I'll find a copy of Notice for a similar price; maybe not.

[monitor_ep]

Gordon R Dickson: Secrets Of The Deep

Currently reading:

Another SeaQuest DSV type adventure book series that would have fit into that worlds:

Robby Hoenig adventures are timeless young adult stories in the tradition of Arthur C. Clarke's Dolphin Island. Secret Under the Sea: Dive into adventure in the last unknown territory on Earth - the sea. Join Robby Hoenig and a cast of characters as unusual as any ever met on a distant planet...

Book 1: Secret Under the Sea
Book 1 Secrets Under The Sea.jpg
Robby Hoenig's family and trained dolphin live undersea in a lab/house pod where his parents are study aquatic life and that includes some rare sea life from Mars. An aquatic visitor from another world is threatened by a criminal gang..
dickson-secretunderthesea.2.jpgsea mole.jpg

Book 2: Secret Under Antarctica
Book 2 Secret under Antarctica.jpg
A scientific expedition becomes a race to stop a terrorist plot for world-wide disaster, buried beneath the ice of the South Pole...

Book 3: Secret Under the Caribbean
Book 3 Secret underthe Caribbean.jpg
The key to a baffling puzzle - and the truth about a mysterious monster - are locked inside a sunken Spanish ship . . .

[Wee67]

House Rules by Heather Lewis.

So now, I'm intrigued. Without even watching the video, I started looking for the book. It was Out Of Print and the only place I found it was, occasionally, on ebay. She only wrote 2 other books: House Rules (her first) and The Second Suspect (both OOP) before she decided to check-out at age 40. From what little information I've found on her, she lived a very troubled life, much like the characters in her books. Notice was published after her death. I got lucky and scored House Rules for a decent price on ebay. It's about abuse, sex, abuse, sex, abuse, sex.......and horsies!

You've inspired me to go back and re-read the first big boy book I ever read!

[B-Lister]

Currently reading Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Mighty Morphin Power Rangers II. When that's finished, I have to get caught up with the Manga "Go! Go! Loser Ranger!" (aka Sentai Daishikkaku/Ranger Reject).