Role-playing game historian Ben Riggs unveils the secret history of TSR— the company that unleashed imaginations with Dungeons & Dragons, was driven into ruin by disastrous management decisions, and then saved by their bitterest rival. "Ben Riggs manages to walk the fine line between historical accuracy and fun about as well as anyone and SLAYING THE DRAGON is equal parts historical accuracy and entertainment. It was an essential read for me while directing and producing the Official D&D documentary but I’d recommend it to anyone regardless of the subject material. It’s a wild and fun ride through the turbulent history of one the most influential brands in our lifetime." - JOE MANGANIELLO Co-created by wargame enthusiasts Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, the original Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game released by TSR (Tactical Studies Rules) in 1974 created a radical new medium: the role-playing game. For the next two decades, TSR rocketed to success, producing multiple editions of D&D, numerous settings for the game, magazines, video games, New York Times bestselling novels by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, and R. A. Salvatore, and even a TV show! But by 1997, a series of ruinous choices and failed projects brought TSR to the edge of doom—only to be saved by their fiercest competitor, Wizards of the Coast, the company behind the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering. Unearthed from Ben Riggs’s own adventurous campaign of in-depth research, interviews with major players, and acquisitions of secret documents, Slaying the Dragon reveals the true story of the rise and fall of TSR. Go behind the scenes of their Lake Geneva headquarters where innovative artists and writers redefined the sword and sorcery genre, managers and executives sabotaged their own success by alienating their top talent, ignoring their customer fanbase, accruing a mountain of debt, and agreeing to deals which, by the end, made them into a publishing company unable to publish so much as a postcard. As epic and fantastic as the adventures TSR published, Slaying the Dragon is the legendary tale of the rise and fall of the company that created the role-playing game world.
From the "inventive...entertaining and thought-provoking" (Charles Yu) New York Times-bestselling author of Underground Airlines and Golden State, this sweeping legal thriller follows a sixteen-year-old who suffers from a neurological condition that has frozen him in time—and the team of lawyers, doctors, and detectives who are desperate to wake him up. In 2008, a cheerful ambulance-chasing lawyer named Jay Shenk persuades the grieving Keener family to sue a private LA hospital. Their son Wesley has been transformed by a routine surgery into a kind of golem, absent all normal functioning or personality, walking in endless empty circles around his hospital room. In 2019, Shenk—still in practice but a shell of his former self—is hired to defend Wesley Keener’s father when he is charged with murder . . . the murder, as it turns out, of the expert witness from the 2008 hospital case. Shenk’s adopted son, a fragile teenager in 2008, is a wayward adult, though he may find his purpose when he investigates what really happened to the murdered witness. Two thrilling trials braid together, medical malpractice and murder, jostling us back and forth in time. The Quiet Boy is a book full of mysteries, not only about the death of a brilliant scientist, not only about the outcome of the medical malpractice suit, but about the relationship between children and their parents, between the past and the present, between truth and lies. At the center of it all is Wesley Keener, endlessly walking, staring empty-eyed, in whose quiet, hollow body may lie the fate of humankind.
Between 1750 and 1920 over 15,000 people visited Antarctica. Despite such a large number the historiography has ignored all but a few celebrated explorers. Maddison presents a study of Antarctic exploration, telling the story of these forgotten facilitators, he argues that Antarctic exploration can be seen as an offshoot of European colonialism.
The sharpest, funniest comedy about money and morals in the 17th century is still the sharpest and funniest about those things in the 21st. The full, modernised play text is accompanied by incisive commentary notes which communicate the devastating comic energy of Volpone's satire. The introduction provides a firm grounding in the play's social and literary contexts, demonstrates how careful close-reading can expand your enjoyment of the comedy, shows the relevance of Jonson's critique to our modern economic systems, and provides a clear picture of how the main relationships in the play function on the page and stage. Supplemented by a plot summary and annotated bibliography, it is ideal for students of Jonson, city comedy and early modern drama.
Bartholomew Fair is the climactic play of Ben Jonson's great comic period. Using the fair as a symbolic representation of religious, social, and political conflicts in Jacobean England, Jonson satirizes Puritans, fortune hunters, country bumpkins, and inept representatives of the justice system, along with sharpsters and con men who inhabit the fair. This edition is the first to use the findings of feminist scholarship in examining the play's concern with forced marriage, pregnancy, sexual commerce, and widowhood.
This edition contains an introduction which looks at the special place of the play in Jonson's own life, his interest in London, the theatrical setting of the play and its sources and analogues. It also includes critical and explanatory commentaries and a glossarial index.
Written by some of the best sportswriters in the history of the game, Sidelines presents the NFL and its heroes (both the famous and the lesser known) from an insider's view of the game. Each NFL team is profiled with page after page of fascinating facts, illustration, and prize-winning photography. The book includes 288 pages of brilliant color photos and features a specially-designed 3-D Polaroid Mirage hologram on the cover. (Cadmus)
In What a Body Can Do, Ben Spatz develops, for the first time, a rigorous theory of embodied technique as knowledge. He argues that viewing technique as both training and research has much to offer current debates over the role of practice in the university, including the debates around "practice as research." Drawing on critical perspectives from the sociology of knowledge, phenomenology, dance studies, enactive cognition, and other areas, Spatz argues that technique is a major area of historical and ongoing research in physical culture, performing arts, and everyday life.
The release of the song “Hound Dog” in 1953 marked a turning point in American popular culture, and throughout its history, the hit ballad bridged divides of race, gender, and generational conflict. Ben Wynne’s A Hound Dog Tale discusses the stars who made this rock ’n’ roll standard famous, from Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton to Elvis Presley, along with an eclectic cast of characters, including singers, songwriters, musicians, record producers and managers, famous television hosts, several lawyers, and even a gangster or two. Wynne’s examination of this American classic reveals how “Hound Dog” reflected the values and issues of 1950s American society, and sheds light on the lesser-known elements of the song’s creation and legacy. A Hound Dog Tale will capture the imagination of anyone who has ever tapped a foot to the growl of a blues riff or the bark of a rock ’n’ roll guitar.
This edition of Ben Jonson's four middle comedies places the works in the popular history and culture of the times, 1605-1614, and surveys the influences, both classical and contemporary, on Jonson as a playwright. On-the-page annotations recreate the audiences perception of the plays as performances by commenting on the stage-directions, the self-conscious theatricality of characters and scenes, and the vivid colloquialisms of early modern London that give the dialogue a heightened dimension of realism. Brief introductions to each play discuss the local settings, sources, theatre history and further readings. The general introduction includes a biography of Jonson, a chronology of the plays and masques, and separate essays on each play, dealing particularly with Jonson's satirical treatments of trends and shams of the day, whether political, social, commercial, or spiritual.
The Alchemist is set during a plague epidemic in the Liberty of Blackfriars in 1610 - and was first performed on tour in 1610 by the company whose London home at Blackfriars was temporarily closed due to a plague epidemic. The play is a sublimely accomplished satirical farce about people's diverse dreams of self-refinement: they all want to transform themselves into something nobler, richer, more powerful, more virile, just as base metal was supposed to be transformed into gold in the alchemical process. During their master's absence from the house, the con-artists Face, Subtle and Doll Common dupe a series of 'customers' whose greed leads them to believe in the existence of the fabled Philosopher's Stone. As their equipment boils over and blows up in the offstage kitchen, so their plot heats up and is exploded by the sceptical Surly and the arrival of their master - who quietly pockets their proceeds and marries the rich widow to boot. The lively introduction focuses on the play as a comedy about swindlers and characters on the margins of society. It highlights Jonson's cratft as a dramatist and his masterful use of language, building into the play all actors and directors need to know about its characters and action. With helpful on-page commentary notes, this student edition also discusses the play in its theatrical and historical context and traces its connections to modern theatre, bringing its farcical comedy vividly to life.
This book has the highest impact factor of all publications ranked by ISI within polymer science. It contains short and concise reports on physics and chemistry of polymers, each written by the world renowned experts. It remains valid and useful after 5 or 10 years. The electronic version is available free of charge for standing order customers at: springer.com/series/12/.
A reality show in print, A Dying Way of Life showcases a boy-to-manhood series of excursions through God's creation. As Ben makes his way through the woods and waters where he grew up, he leads us on a journey of appreciation for his world and the people and creatures that inhabit it. Often humorous and sometimes introspective, his stories range from documentaries of "this-is-the-way-it-really-happened" to mostly true fables and campfire tales he heard as a little boy. He encourages us to see--through his eyes--this unique and disappearing lifestyle. A much-loved teacher, coach, and minister, Ben used his tales to set the stage for teaching young people about much more than classroom situations. His sons are the fifth generation to inhabit the land purchased by the family in the early 1900s and the fifth generation to attend the same little country church founded in 1880.
What modern authoritarian leaders have in common (and how they can be stopped). Ruth Ben-Ghiat is the expert on the "strongman" playbook employed by authoritarian demagogues from Mussolini to Putin—enabling her to predict with uncanny accuracy the recent experience in America and Europe. In Strongmen, she lays bare the blueprint these leaders have followed over the past 100 years, and empowers us to recognize, resist, and prevent their disastrous rule in the future. For ours is the age of authoritarian rulers: self-proclaimed saviors of the nation who evade accountability while robbing their people of truth, treasure, and the protections of democracy. They promise law and order, then legitimize lawbreaking by financial, sexual, and other predators. They use masculinity as a symbol of strength and a political weapon. Taking what you want, and getting away with it, becomes proof of male authority. They use propaganda, corruption, and violence to stay in power. Vladimir Putin and Mobutu Sese Seko’s kleptocracies, Augusto Pinochet’s torture sites, Benito Mussolini and Muammar Gaddafi’s systems of sexual exploitation, and Silvio Berlusconi and Donald Trump’s relentless misinformation: all show how authoritarian rule, far from ensuring stability, is marked by destructive chaos. No other type of leader is so transparent about prioritizing self-interest over the public good. As one country after another has discovered, the strongman is at his worst when true guidance is most needed by his country. Recounting the acts of solidarity and dignity that have undone strongmen over the past 100 years, Ben-Ghiat makes vividly clear that only by seeing the strongman for what he is—and by valuing one another as he is unable to do—can we stop him, now and in the future.
Ben and Joe Weider are the legendary founders of the modern fitness movement. Their name is synonymous with athletic excellence and their proven programs have created champion bodybuilders and sports professionals for more than fifty years, making Weider Nutrition International the number-one sports nutrition company in the world. Now in "The Edge," the Weiders share the training secrets of the pros that can help anyone interested in fitness achieve peak performance. Here's why athletes and weekend warriors alike need "The Edge" *Cutting-edge research- The most advanced scientific research on supplements and nutrition informs the book, offering readers a definitive guide to natural performance-enhancing supplements as an alternative to steroids. *Specificity- Fitness goals, weight training, and nutrition programs tailored to individual needs. *The Weider Triangle Method- This simple program combines weight training, nutrition, and skill training. *Variable Weight Training- As the founders of the International Federation of Bodybuilders, nobody knows more than the Weiders about weight training. All of the recommended exercises are demonstrated in photographs by natural bodybuilding champions Mike O'Hearn and Gea Johnson. *Dynanutrition- A revolutionary nutrition program based on the Weiders' 10 Commandments of Nutrition. "The Edge" is an effective prescription for anyone who wants to be on top of their game—and look their best while they're playing it.
This title was first published in 2001. This study questions whether the development of foreign and security policy co-operation within the EU has constrained or empowered Danish, Dutch and Irish foreign policy. This entails a study of the relationship between national foreign policy and EU frameworks for co-operation.
Brown v. Board of Education, which ended legally sanctioned segregation in American public schools, brought issues of racial equality to the forefront of the nation’s attention. Beyond its repercussions for the educational system, the decision also heralded broad changes to concepts of justice and national identity. “Brown v. Board” and the Transformation of American Culture examines the prominent cultural figures who taught the country how to embrace new values and ideas of citizenship in the aftermath of this groundbreaking decision. Through the lens of three cultural “first responders,” Ben Keppel tracks the creation of an American culture in which race, class, and ethnicity could cease to imply an inferior form of citizenship. Psychiatrist and social critic Robert Coles, in his Pulitzer Prize–winning studies of children and schools in desegregating regions of the country, helped citizens understand the value of the project of racial equality in the lives of regular families, both white and black. Comedian Bill Cosby leveraged his success with gentle, family-centric humor to create televised spaces that challenged the idea of whiteness as the cultural default. Public television producer Joan Ganz Cooney designed programs like Sesame Street that extended educational opportunities to impoverished children, while offering a new vision of urban life in which diverse populations coexisted in an atmosphere of harmony and mutual support. Together, the work of these pioneering figures provided new codes of conduct and guided America through the growing pains of becoming a truly pluralistic nation. In this cultural history of the impact of Brown v. Board, Keppel paints a vivid picture of a society at once eager for and resistant to the changes ushered in by this pivotal decision.
This authoritative new edition of "Epicene" locates it precisely in the world of Jacobean wit, court, commerce sexual ambiguity and theatrical innovation which are its own subject-matter.
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