Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks
An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms
Ratings5
Average rating3.6
15
An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms
Ratings5
Average rating3.6
An amazing journey through the thriving worlds of fantasy and gaming What could one man find if he embarked on a journey through fantasy world after fantasy world? In an enthralling blend of travelogue, pop culture analysis, and memoir, forty-year-old former D&D addict Ethan Gilsdorf crisscrosses America, the world, and other worlds—from Boston to New Zealand, and Planet Earth to the realm of Aggramar. “For anyone who has ever spent time within imaginary realms, the book will speak volumes. For those who have not, it will educate and enlighten.” —Wired.com “Gandalf's got nothing on Ethan Gilsdorf, except for maybe the monster white beard. In his new book, Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, Gilsdorf . . . offers an epic quest for reality within a realm of magic.” —Boston Globe “Imagine this: Lord of the Rings meets Jack Kerouac's On the Road.” —National Public Radio's “Around and About” “What does it mean to be a geek? . . . Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks tackles that question with strength and dexterity. . . . part personal odyssey, part medieval mid-life crisis, and part wide-ranging survey of all things freaky and geeky . . . playful . . . funny and poignant. . . . It's a fun ride and it poses a question that goes to the very heart of fantasy, namely: What does the urge to become someone else tell us about ourselves?” —Huffington Post
Reviews with the most likes.
Former Dungeons and Dragons geek turned travel writer finds himself getting pulled back into ‘the life' after the Lord of the Rings films are released, and decided to chronicle the state of modern geekdom.
It's interesting, from an anthropological perspective - Gilsdorf has a bit of an insider's perspective, but it's one that he fights against. He spends half the book trying to convince himself he's above the people who play MMOs, or who LARP, or attend conventions, but eventually he realizes that he is those people, to an extent, and that those people are actually pretty cool in their own ways. He's writing for a muggle audience, so he doesn't go into those subjects in too much detail, but it's a nice overview of disparate yet connected communities.
While doing this Gilsdorf also relates his chronicle/investigation to his personal life - how he first started getting interested in D&D when his mom got sick, and how he started getting back into ‘the life' as he started approaching his 40th birthday.
One of the things I found appealing about this story was that I went through a similar personal history as Gilsdorf - I experienced nowhere near the same amount of personal tragedy, and was more a comic reader and CCG player than a D&D person, but I did grow up feeling like an outsider, and turned to sci-fi and fantasy as a result, only to drift away from it in my teen years before being pulled back in after the Lord of the Rings films were released. So I felt a connection to the author and his ‘quest' as a result.
