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Jon Peterson's New Book - chirine ba kal - 11-04-2021
My copy arrived last night. It's very, very well researched and very, very well documented; I've actually seen or own copies of many of the sources that he uses and quotes.
A quick scan of the book - I read a tested and documented 1,500 - 2,000 words per minute - had me in screaming fits in no time; quite a few of the incidents I saw in my 45 years of being in the game hobby and industry - like why Dave sent me down to the TSR stockholders meetings as his proxy voter - are now explained, documented, and set in the context of those times, people, and places.
I strongly suggest that anyone and everyone interested in Dave Arneson, his life and work, and the history of the RPG industry get a copy of this book. Run, do not walk, to your nearest source for it; you will not be disappointed.
Re: Jon Peterson's New Book - Havard - 11-04-2021
chirine ba kal Wrote:My copy arrived last night. It's very, very well researched and very, very well documented; I've actually seen or own copies of many of the sources that he uses and quotes.
A quick scan of the book - I read a tested and documented 1,500 - 2,000 words per minute - had me in screaming fits in no time; quite a few of the incidents I saw in my 45 years of being in the game hobby and industry - like why Dave sent me down to the TSR stockholders meetings as his proxy voter - are now explained, documented, and set in the context of those times, people, and places.
I strongly suggest that anyone and everyone interested in Dave Arneson, his life and work, and the history of the RPG industry get a copy of this book. Run, do not walk, to your nearest source for it; you will not be disappointed.
Thanks. I have ordered a copy, but it hasn't arrived yet.
From what I understand the Arneson part of the story is mostly early in the book before he moves on to other parts of early TSR's history?
I would love to hear more of this whole history from your perspective Chrine.
-Havard
Re: Jon Peterson's New Book - Secrets of Blackmoor - 11-04-2021
People are telling me it is full of highly flawed assertions.
Skipping it.
Re: Jon Peterson's New Book - chirine ba kal - 11-04-2021
Havard Wrote:chirine ba kal Wrote:My copy arrived last night. It's very, very well researched and very, very well documented; I've actually seen or own copies of many of the sources that he uses and quotes.
A quick scan of the book - I read a tested and documented 1,500 - 2,000 words per minute - had me in screaming fits in no time; quite a few of the incidents I saw in my 45 years of being in the game hobby and industry - like why Dave sent me down to the TSR stockholders meetings as his proxy voter - are now explained, documented, and set in the context of those times, people, and places.
I strongly suggest that anyone and everyone interested in Dave Arneson, his life and work, and the history of the RPG industry get a copy of this book. Run, do not walk, to your nearest source for it; you will not be disappointed.
Thanks. I have ordered a copy, but it hasn't arrived yet.
From what I understand the Arneson part of the story is mostly early in the book before he moves on to other parts of early TSR's history?
I would love to hear more of this whole history from your perspective Chrine.
-Havard
So far, you are correct - this book is less about Dave and much more about the internal workings of TSR then anything else. Why I find it both fascinating and infuriating is that I saw and witnessed a lot of the events being described, and it fills in a lot of information that I've been wondering about for decades.
I'll do what I can re the history, but it'll be a while.
Re: Jon Peterson's New Book - chirine ba kal - 11-04-2021
Secrets of Blackmoor Wrote:People are telling me it is full of highly flawed assertions.
Skipping it.
I agree with you; there are some statements that I'm not at all sure about, and which I think should have been more clearly labelled as 'industry gossip' and/or 'speculation on the part of people at the time'. I have been looking over the documented information, which is well-noted in the footnotes, and what I'm seeing matches things and events that I saw.
As we've talked about in the past, the surviving documentation mostly comes from the Lake Geneva sources, and not from the Twin Cities; we, as a collective group, were never much into writing things down or keeping the documents for the future. I was, if I may be honest, considered to be a total weirdo and free for wanting to be Phil Barker's amateur archivist, and for filling up my basement with artifacts and texts from my time with him. Nobody really was interested in that kind of thing, as we were for the most part just a bunch of folks who wanted to run fun games and laugh a lot.
This is where you and your work come in. You have put one heck of a lot of time, effort, and money into getting out into the field and interviewing as many people from the time as you can. Your second volume of "Secrets" will be worth it, because of that; it will fill in a lot of gaps in our collective knowledge. I only had one view, looking up from the bottom, and I'm happy to get all the information that I can.
I'll be interested to see what you dig up.