I've not seen anyone review it, and I wouldn't be dropping money on a whim on something I wasn't sure I'd get some pleasure out of reading. Certainly not on something you couldn't go into a games store or a book shop and take a flick through.

Now, if there were a couple of chapters online, it might induce me to buy a copy, but at present there is too little info available and nothing I can trust that would enduce me to buy.

Indeed, hasn't it been out for about a year? And I've never seen it mentioned anywhere except this forum about a year back. Maybe this all just passed me by.

Don't know for sure. I know there were two that came out about six months appart. One was written by someone here (in Italy I think), but there have been no advertisments or reviews or any further info. The other was writen by someone in the US and is full of mistakes, unsubstantiated bullshit, and stuff the author just chose to make up in order to make themselves fit into their own fantasy of being an important and informed author (as opposed to a deluded retard).

I'd be willing to spend my money on the former (red cover mimicking the red box), if I could get a good handle on whether or not I'd like reading it. The latter, I wouldn't be willing to accept as a free gift.

MetamorphosisSigma wrote:
Yes.

http://www.amazon.com/Designers-Dragons-Shannon-Appelcline/dp/190770258X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326804558&sr=8-1

But, considering it's already out of stock at Amazon.com (no reviews), and it was published by Mongoose "We Don't Need No Stinking Editors" Publishing, I have to assume it's a piece of crap.

 
So, what's the title of the book written by our fellow Acaeum member, with the red cover? Has anyone reviewed that one?

Yep. That's the one. Title aside, it could do with a good thorough review by someone capable, and a good chunky PDF preview to hook buyers. I like the red box mimic cover, although the artwork specific and the title are a little awkward, they'd not put me off if the content was up to something.

The other book appears to be a pile of shite put out by a pompous AH. I've not read anything from either the author or anyone else that would appear to indicate that it is based on fact or of any worth other than to massage the authors' own ego.

Mixed views.

viewtopic.php?p=188109&highlight=designers+dragons+shannon#188109

http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?bo ... hread=6500

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rp ... ustry.html

Without having read it I wouldn't damn it as others have done so.  I quite enjoyed the RPG.net articles.

Alexander wrote:
I keep reading it and in my eyes it's an excellent book, But considering that somebody consider my book a piece of crap    perhaps my advice is not the one you should seek. I was anyway pleased by the purchase and I wrote an Italian language review to be published soon.

Are you that bothered about whether or not the book is truthful or acurate? If the factual basis of the book is an irrelivance, then by the same reasoning, books on creationism are a good source of information about how the universe was formed.

Echohawk wrote:Actually, I think the only mention of something being "crap" in this thread was MetamorphosisSigma assuming the other book is "a piece of crap", based on the publisher. For what it's worth though, I liked your book, but more for the excellent interviews with Gygax et al, than for the lists of D&D products.

Yeah, I don't collect "Classic" D&D, so don't have much interest in Hunters of Dragons, haven't read it, and don't have an opinion on it (aside from not liking the title or the cover art).

Mongoose has a long history of lack of proofreading and editing in general, including presumably fact-checking and suchlike, and I based my presumptive judgment of Designers and Dragons on that. Since making my initial comment, I've read the reviews, and all of negative commentary focuses on exactly these issues.

I think that there are nits to pick with Shannon (a boy, not a girl)'s history, but that in general it's excellent.  The main gist of the criticisms from folks over on OD&D74 was that the book wasn't extensively footnoted (and that it wasn't sufficiently Wesley-oriented in its view of when RPGs began)---and while I think that the book would certainly be better with such, that's not what was published.  Perhaps in a 2nd edition?

I haven't finished reading the book yet, but in general it seems to be fairly-well proof-read:  I don't recall any egregious grammar/layout errors in the text, or an abundance of spelling and grammar mistakes (although IIRC I did find one PageXX so far).

I received the book for my birthday back in November, and am quite happy with it!

Let me recap my Italian language review of the book here:

1) The book is most definitely not cheap, but you can buy direct from Mongoose via Amazon UK for £ 30 plus shipping which in Europe is not that much
2) The book is very, very well researched. I am of course not the Great Omniscient Expert On Everything Gaming    but I collect a lot of magazines and books and, as far as I tell, Shannon Applecline did an outstanding job in tracking infos and little known facts.
3) The book is HUGE, over 420 pages (!), long on text and short on images.
4) The graphics are acceptable, the images are poor and sometimes I don't think they made a good choice (I can't really understand using the TSR DragonQuest cover in the SPI section instead of the original SPI edition ones)
5) Albeit I'm not English mothertongue, I spotted mistakes and mispellings in the text (for example SPI once became SSI) but nothing major. The usual Mongoose problems, I say. But such mistakes are not that many and in a book this size and so rich of infos, they were unavoidable.
6) The author choose to divide the book in periods, from the very humblest beginnings to the 'present' (present being 2010-2011) and he didn't use an alphabetical listing (wisely, in my opinion). As soon as a new company appears, Shannon describes its history in detail to the end. So, of course, TSR is the very first company to appear. Besides the 'major' companies histories the are the 'mini-histories' devoted to magazines and small publishers, usually just a page long or less (mind you, the font size is not big so there is quite a good amount of info there) used to better focus on some aspect of a majior company's history.
7) Shannon does not avoid 'hot' topics such as lawsuits, financial problems, bankruptcy and so on. They are covered very well and, as far as I can tell, with remarkable obiectivity. Covering such subjects is always a touchy matter and I have seen 'histories' being substantially a long listing of releases...

As I wrote in the ending of the review, if you are interested in the history of RPG companies, buy it!