Book Review: Of Dice and Men

The additional part of the book's title is "The Story of Dungeons and Dragons and the People Who Play It".  This should give a better idea of what the work is about.  I had to very clearly enunciate the "d" in "dice" when asking my local book store if they had a copy on the day of its release for fear they would think I was looking for Steinbeck's work and send me off to the classic literature section.

I did procure my copy without issue (it was located in the role playing games section in with all the rulebooks and manuals) and read it with ease.  Owing much to a Malcolm Gladwell or Michael Lewis style of reporting, its author also writes for Forbes magazine as his "day job".  David Ewalt (the author) is about my age and so many of his cultural references hit home and his exposure to Dungeons and Dragons mimics mine in large part (though I've never returned to its gameplay outside of videogame versions after I turned 17 or so).

I am admittedly a geek by nature though not by intellect so I enjoyed this book but didn't love it.  Those not familiar with or with an interest in Dungeons and Dragons would likely put the book down out of lack of interest and insider jokes about half way through.  For those who do have an interest in the subject the book provides a humorous look at the development of the game, the wranglings between its creators and owners and its place within the history of games.  D&D's influence on culture, movies, literature, TV, the internet, etc. is wide and deep and this book gives the reader an idea of the reasons behind this.

Alternating with the history of the game, Ewalt covers his own experiences with the game covering his discussions with various founders and developers as well as his own role playing campaigns and brief foray into LARPing.

In all I came away from the book more knowledgeable about the game, its history, its influence and am more aware of its place within the world of "games" (I didn't know about Kriegsspiel and how it influenced D&D and Steve Jobs until I read this book) across the globe.  The book was worth it to me and was entertaining to me as a geek.  How much it might really resonate with people outside the geek community I'm just not sure.

Book Review: Lost in Shangri-La

It has been a bit since I posted a book review and I wish I had a better one to post about.

Lost in Shangri-La sounded like an interesting book--a crashed military flight leaving a handful of survivors amidst an unmapped area of a tropical island filled with cannibals and Japanese soldiers.  Yup, it sounds interesting till you get into the details.

The plane wasn't shot down, the pilots screwed up and flew it into a mountainside.  The plane wasn't on a military mission they were out sightseeing.  The area may have been generally unmapped but it was known well enough to have earned nicknames and numerous overflights.  The Japanese soldiers that were left on the island were hiding in the jungle hoping to survive without resupply or support from the mainland.  The cannibals might have eaten each other after battle but had little to no interest in the white people who crashed into their midst.

The author sets up all of the dangers present to both the survivors and those who came to rescue them--its just that none of those dangers ever really occur.  The survivors and those who parachuted in to assist them spent a relatively comfortable and safe time recuperating and then were whisked out of the jungle on a specially mocked up glider.

The book just never really captured my attention.  The writing was adequate but nothing more than perfunctory descriptions of events and backgrounds.  You can tell he's really desperate for something to really happen in his tale...its just that nothing ever does.

Is the book worth a quick recap of a somewhat interesting sidebar event that occurred during WWII?  Sure, but an entire novel and being declared "The Most Incredible Rescue Mission of WWII" on its cover gives away its pretense at trying to be another best selling WWII tale that the public can't seem to get enough of--this one just isn't quite worth it and certainly not at some 300 pages, much of which is unremarkable filler.

Book Review: The Stars in Their Courses

Much like The Beleaguered City Shelby Foote's The Stars in Their Courses is culled from his epic, three volume, 2,968 page, 1.2 million word The Civil War: A Narrative.  Also like the initial work mentioned here, Stars recounts one of the most pivotal and famous events in not only the Civil War but in the history of our country as well.  The title of the work refers to an observation of the South's efforts at the battle of Gettysburg and how it appered fated to fail, that Lee was fighting not only the North but the course of history as well.

Foote's narrative, and that's what it is, not just a recapping of dry facts and figures, is again superb.  I have read no other work of military history that is as thoroughly enjoyable to read as his works.  One is able to grasp the larger movements at work during the various engagements while never leaving the intimate feelings and thoughts of individual players taking part.

Foote masterfully weaves documented evidence, personal journals, letters, reports, recollections, etc. into a true story of the events at the battle at Gettysburg in this work.  It truly was shocking to me how little I knew of this battle upon reading this book.  I always had an image in my minds eye as to what this critical event looked like, derived from those brief mentions in grammar and high school history books but learning what actually occurred was one of the most satisfying experience in reading that I have ever had.

Seeing the blunders on both sides of the battle (but more particularly on Lee and the South's part) and finding out just how close the battle was in swinging one way or the other brought home just how chaotic, random warfare can be and how close the South came to at the worst, winning the Civil War or at best, extending the war by many years.

If you want a proper understanding of the most consequential battle in our country's history, you would do well to acquire this book.  In closing I will let Mr. Foote describe why a historical narrative, such as the style in which he chose to craft his account of the Civil War, can be as, if not more valuable than a simple regurgitation of body counts and dollar signs as is taught to our kids in school.

I am what is called a narrative historian. Narrative history is getting more popular all the time but it's not a question of twisting the facts into a narrative. It's not a question of anything like that. What it is, is discovering the plot that's there just as the painter discovered the colors in shadows or Renoir discovered these children. I maintain that anything you can possibly learn about putting words together in a narrative form by writing novels is especially valuable to you when you write history. There is no great difference between writing novels and writing histories other than this: If you have a character named Lincoln in a novel that's not Abraham Lincoln, you can give him any color eyes you want to. But if you want to describe the color of Abraham Lincoln's, President Lincoln's eyes, you have to know what color they were. They were gray. So you're working with facts that came out of documents, just like in a novel you are working with facts that came out of your head or most likely out of your memory. Once you have control of those facts, once you possess them, you can handle them exactly as a novelist handles his facts. No good novelist would be false to his facts, and certainly no historian is allowed to be false to his facts under any circumstances. I've never known, at least a modern historical instance, where the truth wasn't superior to distortion in every way.