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I also recently finished a fiction book, ‘Ready Player One’. I would recommend anyone who like classic arcade games and 80s nostalgia to get this book now. It’s set in a world where everyone logs into a virtual world to spend their time. Now imagine the Imaginationland episodes of South Park, but filled with characters and properties from the past few decades. And there’s a treasure hunt much like Charlie and the Chocolate factory, with the winner inheriting control over the virtual world. It’s fun to read all the references to all kinds of movies and games I grew up with. It’s primarily weighted towards 80’s nostalgia, referencing a ton of video games, music, and movies. But it’s a fun read, and I heavily recommend.

As a note, the movie rights were sold very quickly for the book. I imagine there is going to be a hell of a time trying to get the rights to show imagery from all of the tons of properties the movie references. South Park was able to do it with their Imaginationland episodes, so hopefully they can do the same.

Links of interest:
http://www.readyplayerone.com/
Boing Boing’s Review 

I recently finished Masters of Doom, by David Kushner. It chronicled the creators behind Doom, and the years leading up to the game. It brought me back to the games I played after getting our first Tandy computer in the mid-80s: Commander Keen, Wolfenstein, Big Blue Disk games, and other Apogee games. It was a great little history lesson on the team that created the iconic game. I wish there were more books out like this, behind the scenes on the creation of our favorite games.

As a great tidbit of knowledge, I found out that John Romero spent less than a year working for Origin Systems in Manchester NH, which is my hometown. The fact that there was a major gaming company in town while I was a kid is very impressive, if only they took 10 year old interns.

I’ve been trying to read more non-computer books, and I finally finished one after a few months. It’s a book called Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants, by Robert Sullivan, and it’s about the rats of New York City. It’s a great read, although it’s only roughly half about rats. It also goes into a bunch of tangets about periods of NYC history. If you’re interested in the city’s history, it’s a good read. One of these days I’m going to read an entire history book on just the city, I find it fascinating.

A great feature of this book is the cover art by Peter Sis. I found myself looking at the art many times, it’s a great abstraction of the city in the shape of a rat.

What I’m looking forward to from the upcoming Gears of War 3 game is the ‘Silverback’ power-armor. Looks like great fun.

For the past few years, I’ve been trying to read as much books as possible in the genre of military science fiction. My interest started with Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein. The book version features soldiers using power-armor, extending their abilities hundred-fold. This was a gateway to books like the Forever War, Armor, The Cobra Trilogy, Old Man’s War, and Ender’s Game. Much of these books describe powerful, mechanized body-suits which give the wearer super-strength, agility, and sometimes jumping power. So naturally, the armor in Gears 3 looks fun to play.