Over the past five years, The MIT Press has curated an impressive series of Game Studies books, including several of great interest to myself and readers of this blog: Appendix N: the Eldritch Roots of Dungeons & Dragons (published by Strange Attractions and distributed by MIT Press), and several by Jon Peterson: The Elusive Shift, Game Wizards, and the forthcoming second edition of Playing at the World. The full list of books in their series can be viewed here.
The latest book in the series, out on May 14th, is Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons, an anthology tied to this year's half-centennial of D&D. It contains various chapters written by the likes of Jon Peterson, Gary Alan Fine (author of Shared Fantasy), and Daniel Justice, and edited by Premeet Sidhu, Marcus Carter and José P. Zagal, all academics at various universities.
Having written the above, I find myself a bit stunned to also announce that I was able to contribute to this volume...!
Specifically, among the contents is a chapter on J. Eric Holmes that I have co-written, along with Tony Rowe of the Cryptic Archivist blog, titled "'Doctor Holmes I Presume?' How a California Neurology Professor Penned the first Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set".
I haven't seen a physical copy yet, but the book is slated to be a 392-page, 6 by 9 inch papeback with 16 black & white illustrations and the color cover posted above (I'm not sure who the artist is, but I will update this when I find out). I will share the full contents of the book in a future post (Update: the Table of Contents are now posted here).
It's currently available for pre-order on Amazon ($34.99), and with a price drop guarantee:
50 Years of Dungeons & Dragons
And there is also a Kindle version available for $25.99. Other booksellers offering it can be found through the MIT Press page.
Many thanks to Tony for asking if I wanted to work on this with him, submitting the proposal for our chapter, and generally organizing and driving things forward!
See also:
Playing at the World Revised Edition Out in July, with a cover by Erol Otus!
"The Making of OD&D: 1970-1977": Everything We Know About this Book
Update:
Tony has now also written about the book: "Book update: Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons"
