A compelling corporate saga mired in mythmaking.
A chronicle of the rise and fall of TSR, the company behind Dungeons & Dragons.
With a trove of research and candid interviews, Riggs investigates the many missteps that would ultimately sour “years of stunning success” for the tabletop gaming giant. This debut book follows the creation of D&D by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, the incorporation of TSR, and Gygax’s eventual ousting from the company in 1985 due to slippery shareholder politics. The new CEO, Lorraine Williams, was more of a businesswoman than a gamer. Amid declining sales of kits and rulebooks, Williams sought success elsewhere in the market, overseeing the production of breakout fantasy novels and ill-fated gimmicks like VHS–integrated board games. TSR failed to retain its staff and took for granted the artists and writers who contributed to its occasional victories. Eventually, a shifty distribution contract with Random House left a “pile of debt…[that] threatened to bury TSR,” which ultimately led to the company’s 1997 acquisition by rivals Wizards of the Coast. TSR’s story is inherently compelling, but Riggs ceaselessly attempts to conjure additional lore from the company’s history. He exalts Gygax, referring to him as “Saint Gary” numerous times, and descriptions of the old TSR offices repeat ad nauseam throughout the text as the author tries to transform the spaces into hallowed grounds. Like his description of Gygax’s prose, Riggs is often “labyrinthine and bombastic,” hailing many creators as geniuses and Einsteins of their field. Many sections are riddled with rhetorical questions and quickly answered. “Was this the end?” Riggs asks in an early chapter. This indirect, undercooked storytelling will frustrate many readers. Riggs is certainly a passionate raconteur, but one can easily imagine a better tale without the unnecessary embellishments. Jon Peterson’s Game Wizards and David Ewalt’s Of Dice and Men are good choices for veteran gamers, but it seems the definitive history of D&D has yet to be written.
A compelling corporate saga mired in mythmaking.Pub Date: July 19, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27804-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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