Joined: Jan 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 118 Location: Manchester, alas. Karma: 6
Re: The Maze of Peril « Reply #16 on Sept 6, 2008, 10:17am »
I'd love to read the article. Searching for it on-line brings up an enormous number of references, but they're very often anti-gaming religious groups citing it, and other articles, rather selectively. I was a little surprised that such an old piece, particularly one that does receive comment even now, is not more easily available on the Internet.
Joined: Jan 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 118 Location: Manchester, alas. Karma: 6
Re: The Maze of Peril « Reply #23 on Sept 9, 2008, 1:23pm »
Thanks Dan, lovely to finally read the article. I've a copy of Dr. Holmes' Fantasy Role Playing Games on the shelf next to me, written around the same time as this piece, and it's interesting to compare the style and content of the two, produced as they were for slilghtly different audiences.
It also reminded me of something I always wanted: a table painted with blackboard paint! *sigh* Not sure the missus would approve... Hmm, thinking about it, do they even still use blackboards in schools these days?
Joined: Mar 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 571 Location: NYC Karma: 34
Re: The Maze of Peril « Reply #24 on Sept 10, 2008, 9:47am »
Awesome! I'm fascinated by the mix of elements in Holmes' career (as well as that of Carl Sargent), and there's some nice tidbits relating to that here, like his gaming group being made up of doctors & nurses with a "touching faith in the power of healing". As expected, there's also glimpses of the early history of the game (lamias as PCs!), as well as the social context of the article - apparently by 1980 you could assume that a general audience would have some idea what D&D is, since Holmes seems remarkably free of the need to laboriously explain the fundamentals of a role-playing game.
I checked with Space & Time Books' publisher, Gordon Linzner, and they do indeed have copies of Maze of Peril left in stock. Last time we met I pumped Gordon for background on the book's publication. He wasn't a D&D fan, although as someone who had been going to SF cons since the '50s he was certainly aware of the game. He decided to publish Maze because he thought it was a good read & would make a good addition to his small press catalog. No particular details about the book's history stood out in Gordon's mind 20+ years later. We speculated that it wasn't picked up by a major publisher because it was relatively short, at a time when fat fantasy trilogies and series were the going thing, and perhaps also due to a prejudice against "game fiction".
Re: The Maze of Peril « Reply #25 on Oct 7, 2008, 9:51pm »
I just received my copy of The Maze of Peril from Tavis and it made my day - thanks Tavis.
It appears from his conversations with Gordon the publisher that only 1,000 copies were ever printed and so far, 22 years later, only half of those have sold. That makes the book a rarer item than I thought, and here was me naively thinking I may one day have found a copy in an Australian 2nd-hand bookstore.
I was interested to read in the back of the book that Boinger/Zereth stories appeared in Alarums & Excursions, which I think shall prove to be a harder treasure to obtain.
I was interested to read in the back of the book that Boinger/Zereth stories appeared in Alarums & Excursions, which I think shall prove to be a harder treasure to obtain.
Not necessarily. Lee Gold still produces A&E and I've heard that she will provide photocopies of articles from previous issues, for a fee. Might be worth getting in touch.
...still, if you don't ask, you don't get. Does anyone know specifically which issues of A&E Holmes' stories appeared in, or at least a website with an index of issues?
Joined: Jan 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 118 Location: Manchester, alas. Karma: 6
Re: The Maze of Peril « Reply #28 on Oct 8, 2008, 3:03pm »
Ah, looks like my information is a bit out of date, greyharp.
EDIT to add: Have you seen this Acaeum thread about a Holmes bibliography? Annoyingly, the bibliography it links to lacks the A&E issue number info you're after, although it does mention the name of the stories, but if you look to the bottom of the page there's a post from February saying that "zhowar" has the issue numbers and will post an update... Obviously a bit overdue Might be a lead for you to follow if you can contact zhowar.
« Last Edit: Oct 8, 2008, 3:12pm by bigjackbrass »
Ah, looks like my information is a bit out of date, greyharp.
Your info might be out of date bjb, but my memory is shocking. I have a copy of zhowar's article on my hard drive, but forgot all about it. Even worse, I've read the Acaeum thread in the past and forgot it even existed. You're right, looks like zhowar and grodog are the people to talk to, thanks again.
What I'd really love to see is a web page dedicated solely to Holmes and his D&D output, to bring all of these loose threads together for D&D history posterity. Maybe I'll get off my procrastinating butt one day and do something about it.
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Might be a lead for you to follow if you can contact zhowar.
You're right, looks like zhowar and grodog are the people to talk to, thanks again.