Review of 'Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
As a self-professed D&D fan, this book was a must read to me. And, overall, I have enjoyed reading it, even though it has numerous flaws both in its style and its substance.
The strongest part of the book is when the beginning of D&D, and role-playing games as a whole, is traced to its wargame roots. I've been aware of that, of course, but not to the extent of which games, and which people decided to modify them in which way. The wargaming fanzine culture is also an interesting look of what the gaming scene was like before role-playing games entered the picture
This book is also quite a page-turner - easy to read, separated into a bite-sized chunks. It is easy to decide to read just one more vignette, and as a result, I've finished the book in the record time for me.
However, as a biography, this …
As a self-professed D&D fan, this book was a must read to me. And, overall, I have enjoyed reading it, even though it has numerous flaws both in its style and its substance.
The strongest part of the book is when the beginning of D&D, and role-playing games as a whole, is traced to its wargame roots. I've been aware of that, of course, but not to the extent of which games, and which people decided to modify them in which way. The wargaming fanzine culture is also an interesting look of what the gaming scene was like before role-playing games entered the picture
This book is also quite a page-turner - easy to read, separated into a bite-sized chunks. It is easy to decide to read just one more vignette, and as a result, I've finished the book in the record time for me.
However, as a biography, this work is definitely odd.
A lot of parts are clearly imagined by the author - as the author himself said - and I don't have much issue with it, rather, I have issue with the pointlessness of these imagined additions. They are not dealing with anything extraordinary, do not provide insight in the characters, do not contain particularly witty dialogue, and are written, overall, on the level of school essay.
The work is very fragmentary by nature, consisting on several short vignettes, and I can't help but think that many important things were left out of the spotlight
The author is also trying too hard, hindsight being 20/20, to ascribe significance to the events that were quite ordinary
