Scott Miller was a guy at the right place at the right time for the Shareware time period. His Twitter account happened to post something about a new book about the Shareware Era of gaming:
scottmiller
Not long after that, bookshop.org featured an anti-Amazon free shipment on books day, and happened to have Shareware Heroes as a featured book. “Fine,” says thebooklight reviewer. “The reviewing shall commence.”
This is not a book that probably just anyone from any period can pick up and enjoy. There are many moments of “you kinda had to be on that scene” to really understand why a given moment was exciting. There are many developments in modern gaming that we take for granted. Something that has been relegated to the wayside, however, is the kind of distribution Shareware had originally. The condensed version of this model was simply that it was possible for a lone programmer to pump something out and have his or her work distributed to people who might be willing to support future work. All that was necessary was to ask for a donation if someone enjoyed the game or utility. Usually, the amount asked for was around $10. The way the software was distributed was through BBS’s or Bulletin Board Systems which were sites people with phone lines and modems and sometimes though rarely T1 or T3 lines could host from their home if they wished. One could argue that in many ways, this was a less centralized time other than having the money for the hardware which was the bigger limiting factor.
Originally, as the book discusses, the entire game was given away for free while the aforementioned $10 was asked if someone enjoyed the game. These models were refined by companies like Miller’s Apogee, or another biggie, Id. All of these companies were trying to find the right level of giving things away for free versus reaching new customers who wanted to pay for the innovation. The result, of course, famously produced two huge titles which feature, perhaps not surprisingly, Nazis, and Demons from Hell, in that order. “Wolfenstein”, and “Doom” is another way of designating those titles. Turned another way, it was a little like the gaming hits of that era were memories of WWII being presented at a certain kind of angle. Maybe it was similar to a gaming purgatory where the games were a place to work out some stuff not entirely possible in reality. The quote “War is Hell,” though, were visibly borne out in the creation of the titles. Lest you think this is fanciful, let us also recall another huge title roughly in that sequence called “Duke Nuke’Em.”
Shareware Heroes does a great job of filling in a million little blanks that probably a casual reader did not even know existed. ID studios, for example, was an acronym at first. The book tells you what it stood for. Apogee, at a certain point, needed a new gaming engine. The surprising answer to where it was found and how it was made and what happened is in the book.
It might be better to say this book as at its best when it tells the story of Apogee and Id. It uses a format where it flashes to other game designers, but the timeline continuity of the narrative format suffers somewhat for this approach. The reader has to “remember back to that chapter on Apogee” which breaks the momentum. It does allow for telling the story of some other interesting characters, however, like Dave Snyder and his company MVP which is probably no longer a common thing to know about.
There are also screen captures from the games, and plenty of 90’s style pictures of the developers in the middle of peak geekdom. These definitely add flavor and a sense of humanity to the otherwise long churn of business models along with hits and misses that are occupying the bulk of the work.
What one cannot escape, however, is the sense that one is reading a eulogy of something that was and not something that still is or is going to be. Indeed, the last story concerning the game “Tread Marks” about a certain tank game developer is the epitome of moribund reminiscing. The story is certainly relevant–but it is also morose which one wonders if somehow all the gaming began to take a wrong turn at this juncture.
One tale about a game called “Escape Velocity” might be a kind of indicator as to why things shifted. Originally, gaming was the exception. Computers were a new thing, and if you had an hour or two as a kid between everything else going on in your life, you’d play. The maker of the game “Escape Velocity” picked up a copy of “Elite” when he was ten, but he lost the key to the copyright protection and so he could not play it. Instead, he had to imagine how awesome the game was, and “Escape Velocity” was his answer to those imaginings. In other words, it is great to imagine something, but then there is also the work of doing something to bring the imagined thing here. This is what is termed “art” and the wide variety of the early history of gaming has plenty of art. Later, that art starts turning more into crack. No longer was it about dealing with stuff or coming up with newer game mechanics but instead the desire is to “hook” the gamer on gameplay or escapism. Since the games were originally given away for free, the total escapism ability was low in the early days. Now everything is rigged for it. Even back then, though, there is at least one story of a developer who put everything on the line for his dream and lost his house and his sanity trying to sell and market a game–another interesting story in the book.
So what’s the verdict? Shareware Hereos is a great read if you are willing to admit that the days of the shareware publishing are essentially over and are now rolled into “freemiums” and “indy” types of scenarios. Shareware was indy, but it was also a little cooler than that. You could shove your code or your work up, never talk to a living soul directly, and make enough money to buy a house or raise a family. I’m not sure “Indy” has that same meaning, or “freemiums”. While the 90’s had a lot of problems, there was an aura of optimism around the ability to share and publish information that is now missing. This reviewer does not accept a euologized version of that era as the final word. Instead, the counsel is direct–rage, rage against the dying of the publishing model light! Do not go gently into that good night. Buttress your open sources, and fly high the flag of free press and distribution!
The book Q, by Luther Blisset is strange. It is strange because it was written in 1999. It is strange because it was also written by four people who used the pen name Luther Blisset. It is strange because they later stopped using that name, and it appears at least one of the people died in 2023, probably. Speculation must be the norm here because we have to trust what we are being told since the writers are anonymous. The book was written well before the poster Q appeared on the scene, and the idea of being anonymous in terms of the hacking collective was still also far away. In short, the book Q seems almost to be a cultural type of artifact that hinted at what was going to happen elsewhere, in a little different form, in a slightly different universe.
What topic did these four writers choose to discuss in Q? Well, they elected to write about how Martin Luther changed the nature of religion and the way the Catholic Church interacted with Lutherans and Anabaptists in Germany. It is probably not going to ruin the plot to tell you that the Catholic Church did not react with compassion and understanding. Indeed, they wanted to eliminate Luther and the Anabaptists–whereas the Anabaptists and Lutherans sometimes wanted to eliminate each other. Q, the titular character, acts as a spy and papal informer for the auspices of the Catholic Church. He always signs his letters with the letter Q. Sometimes, he is on the ground sewing the seeds of division in favor of the Catholic Church. At other times, he is securing funding from the Fuggers banking business, which operates with impunity along with the Vatican. In between times, there are uprisings with the Anabaptists, of which our main protagonist who goes by many names himself in the novel is, probably, one of. Other times, there are Lutheran uprisings or alliances. The Lutherans, in this work, are often cooperating with the Catholic Church to a certain extent. This is especially true regarding the Anabaptists, who feel that the Messiah has become little more than a stone statue and that to truly be alive in the work of Messiah requires a rebirth and an understanding of the kinds of works He did. These ideas are a direct threat, of course, to the Catholic powers and so when the uprisings begin to happen, the Catholic Church seeks to squash it. The Lutherans also dislike the Anabaptists since there are doctrinal differences they feel they cannot overcome. Uneasy alliances are the norm.
The first third of this book centers on the war-fighting aspect of several villages and movements and the body counts that accompany these moments. Our central character lives through these events and becomes progressively more jaded. The second third of this book concerns what he does after living through the wars and their outcomes. The last third involves the recognition that our protagonist, though it is hard to say that he is a protagonist in totality–somewhat more of an antihero–discovers that there was a spy within all the conflicts he fought that was subverting the movement before the movement even began to start. This becomes an old score that needs to be settled. The way in which it is settled is not how anyone expects.
The narrative goes on at times too long. At other times, a certain turn-of-phrase or statement is uttered in such a way as to be riveting or brilliantly constructed in terms of verbal utterances. It touches, at times, on Shakespearian greatness, only to be thrust down into Melvilleian-loquaciousness–which is to say–the brevity could be better. Sometimes there is a kind of stylistic shift that seems not to flow as smoothly as it might. Other times there is a romantic scene or torture scene that provides more detail than the reader requires.
Q outlines a plan. That should sound familiar to anyone who has been alive in the past 7 years. The plan, for this version of Q, is something that Q is not entirely pleased with and yet everyone seems to be following the plan, in one way or another. Everyone is aware that a new era is being architected, and that the old way of doing things is roundly done. The question, of course, is how the power structure is going to respond and who, when all the dust settles on the uprisings in towns and would-be liberators turn oppressors exit the field, will be left standing and what church will they belong to?
A big portion of the question centers on who is controlling the purse strings and why. Another portion concerns what should be done about those who are financing the rise and fall of Kings and Popes.
Nobody in the book is good. The people who might be considered to be that are quickly shown to be something else. However, even though most characters are thrust into acts barely above beasts on the battlefield and are buying prostitutes most often when off the same battlefield, they are forced into acts that certainly seem noble but also hinge on self-interest.
It is, in hindsight, a bizarre read that has more in common with what has happened on the political landscape in recent times than might be, at first glance, apparent. While the work as a whole presents no heroes and raises many doubts about religion along the way, one cannot fault the storytellers for telling the story. One wonders, however, why the storytellers focused on these pieces of the experience and why they placed the roles as they did. Was it for the sake only of a good story, or is there something more here than meets the eye that these four wanted to tell us? Perhaps this is as close as they dared to get.
Note: The version reviewed is probably the 1987 version. It has a blue and white cover with some pictures on it. The book has been updated several times, probably to keep it “new”.
Ralph Gower has put together a masterpiece. If you want to deepen your understanding of the Bible, there are few works with as many hidden gems as Gower’s has.
There are so many positives to this book that it makes sense to begin with the negatives. The worst thing that can be said about this book is that some of the pictures do not show the kind of detail that the text describes. The reader is left wanting the ability to change the angle of the view of the lens of the camera to get a better idea of subjects like the architectural layout of a certain kind of Biblical-era home. Toward the end of the book, it feels a little like Gower is rushing us through the end of the suggested three weeks of time it takes to thoroughly explore the sites he discusses. Probably, these sites are options he would work into a given tour of Israel depending on how fast or slow the tour in question was.
As for the positives, there are almost too many to list. A better way to discuss some hard-won expertise is to pose some questions that are answered by the book:
How was salt used in the Holy Temple?
What word did the Messiah use to calm the stormy waters?
Why was the above word used?
What does it mean if you eat a meal together?
Who was given the honored guest title in the Last Supper setting?
What was given him (the guest) that conveyed this?
What were the roles of women in Biblical Society?
What are notable exceptions to those roles?
Why was the Samaritan woman at the well at noon?
What distinguishes a Seer from a “navi”?
Where did the Sanhedrin re-locate after the Temple was destroyed?
What was there?
Why might that be significant?
These are but a handful of issues this book addresses. There are many textual breaks that have full-color pictures that show or reinforce what the text was saying, along with yellow-attention boxes at the end with what are often referred to as “call-out” types of information. Many great nuggets of wisdom can be found in these yellow boxes. Be certain not to skip them or gloss over them if you choose to read this book.
Another interesting perspective Gower offers is why the Pharisees were such a problem during the time of the Messiah. There are certain kinds of realizations present in the discourse that transcend the political and go directly to the spiritual. Often the point is emphasized that the Pharisees were concerned with the law, but why they were so preoccupied is seldom mentioned. Gower makes the differences transparent.
The best thing for the casual reader is probably that the chapters are arranged in a manner of reading that is more bite-sized so that if you happen to be busy during the day with other tasks, you can easily return to where you were last reading without any loss of context. This is reminiscent of a textbook meant to emphasize retention and the form works well in this instance.
It would be interesting to compare more recent copies to this edition to see if any subsequent edits have compromised the book. Revisionism in the publishing industry is a sad fact, and it would be a shame for this book to have been subjected to such myopic procedures. Perhaps if the opportunity presents itself, a follow-up review will be added to this one.
There are many books on the Bible out there. It is simple to do far worse than this one. Looking around on Ebay, it appears to run in the six-dollar range. For the information it has, it six dollars would be well-spent.
ISBN:978-1800181748
ISBN:9780156031967
ISBN: 080245951X