Howdy partners welcome back to the trail, in this stop we have ourselves a geek classic here. Masters of Doom tells the tale of John Carmack and John Romero, how they once started as lowly programmers trying to push the edge of technology and somehow changed the entire culture of gaming for better or worse.
This story is madly fascinating by being brutally honest about the Johns and their rise to power. Carmack is a self motivated nerd who just wants to hammer out the code to get the job done, Romero is an experimental jackass that takes no solace in anyone else's emotions. These people are in essences uncaring pompous pricks that are really good at computers, they do the things their way and everyone hates them because of it. However at the end of the day there is still a passion that you can not deny from them.
This book is blunt, in the same manner as the Johns and pulls no punches with foul language and tells it like it was. It includes great mini biops on various people you know (American McGee and the ID Mom were among my favorites) as well as incorporate the culture at the time as well. One fact that I found hilarious was that one day after the US government forced the ESRB to come into existence Doom was released to the public via shareware.
It also tells you that both together managed a rise and fall for the glory that was Doom and Quake I, and how they were apart made Ion Storm and Id crash from its mighty perch. The various business dealings would make you head tilt upon how Eidos managed to put up with all the nonsense that Romero was cooking, or how in the world no one thought Carmack was a terrible business owner and not just a hard worker.
This book is a time capsule about early computer gaming, the excitement of having two people and a bastion of friends pushing computer hardware to the absolute maximum and creating the games that they wanted to have created and making a boat load of money using unorthodox methods. The book does not sugar coat anything it simply tells it like it was and excepts you to be mature enough to think it is awesome or just question why Microsoft would allow a Giant Vaginal door to take place with the members of Gwar hitting people with dildos (yes that actually happened).
If you grew up in the 90s this will be a blast from the past that you will love to revisit, if you are wondering where trolling started it also tells you that as well, or if you wondered how two people with no business skills managed to finance an empire based around video game it talks about that as well. A must read if you are a gamer to find the zenith into FPS that is still tried and true to this day.
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