Gary Gygax, creator of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, has passed away at the age of 69. I shall have to pull out some of my books tonight for a read in his honour.
Update: I don’t think I could possibly have put it better than how the guys at Penny Arcade have paid tribute.
Update 2: There’s a great obituary for Gygax over at Ars Technica. It’s amazing to think of the impact this man’s work has made on so many people in the world!
This is something that has bothered me for many years now and is so absurdly simple and silly that I finally feel the need to rant about it on the interweb. I love Minotaur but I really, really wish they would stop putting their damned price stickers on the product itself, rather than on the shrinkwrap. I mean, for a store that basically survives off niche markets, which are far more likely to be composed of collectors, it doesn’t make any sense to me that they would basically damage the merchandise they’re selling.
Robert Jordan, the pen name of author James Oliver Rigney, Jr., died earlier today (by my local time). I read many of the books of the Wheel of Time series and it saddens me to hear of the author’s passing. My condolences to his friends and family.
While I wasn’t a real fan of the aforementioned series I did enjoy reading about the mythology of the world Robert Jordan created and liked to “check in” with the progress of the plot. Apparently Jordan left instruction revealing the intended progression of the story so that when, inevitably, another author is brought in to finish the work they can complete the final volume how it was originally envisaged.
In an interview with J. K. Rowling for the TODAY Show in America, the author has given us some extra tidbits about what has happened with the characters 19 years on.
Many years after I first started reading Harry Potter (about 6 years) the 7th and final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has been released. I got the book on opening day and I ended up reading through the entire book inside a day, starting at around 10:30am and going until 8pm with only quick breaks in between. Whilst the rest of this post will details some of my initial analysis and thoughts I will say straight up that I thoroughly enjoyed this book and think it the best in the series (although the later books are all really good). It’s also a perfect end to the Harry Potter saga (although I am suffering from Post-Potter Depression). If you haven’t read the book yet then you should stop here and go read it as there will be spoilers coming up!
Continuing on from my previous list, here are some more books you might like to check out for your collection. Once again, I tried to keep the list manageable so expect some more booklists!