The WyrdCon 2013 book is finally out, published just in time to still be a 2013 volume. Lots of diverse content there, but pleasingly no really weak points whatsoever. A couple of the journalistic section parts (edited by Aaron Vanek) slip into being more commercial (read: advertisement) than analytic, and a couple of the academic, peer-reviewed ( Read more... )

In the time I have been neglecting this blog, several interesting pieces of academic role-playing research with which I am connected have turned up ( Read more... )

Things escalate and shrink at the same time - this year saw Knutepunkt publish no less than four volumes, one with just photographs and the others with a light, journalistic style. The reasoning behind the style is obvious, and something mentioned already by last year's editor, Juhana Pettersson: with enough academic channels already available, KP ( Read more... )

WyrdCon's 2012 Companion came out some time ago already, but it's taken me a surprisingly long time to read it. Its expanded version 2 can be freely downloaded here. The book consists of two parts. The first one is journalistic, edited by Aaron Vanek, and the second an academic (non-referee) section edited by Sarah Lynne Bowman. The book also makes ( Read more... )

Along with the MittelPunkt 2013 conference was published the fifth book of their series, this time called "Larp: Nur ein Spiel?", edited by Rafael Bienia and Karsten Dombrowski. (It's available for example from the publisher, ZauberfederA hundred pages long, the volume contains six essays and some reading tips. The language is German, and the book ( Read more... )

Today, after a month's wait, I received my own author copy of the Emerald book Social Information Research, edited by Åbo Akademi luminaries Gunilla Widén and Kim Holmberg and published by Emerald. It's a peer reviewed publication about various facets of social media research (from a LIS perspective), with the author list including several ( Read more... )

Normally, I'd write a review when I come across a new book on role-playing studies. This time, however, I can't understand what I have (just like I can't read the Russian or Czech larp works on my shelves...). In any case, LARP. Myśli i szkice, published by Gdanski Klub Fantastyki, looks very intriguing. Low on references, high on content - both ( Read more... )

I defended my doctoral dissertation successfully last Thursday against the brilliant Dr. Whitton. Today, I was formally granted the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by the School of Information Sciences, University of Tampere, Finland. I am very happy, also with what I heard of the appraisal, even though formally our School only recognizes two grades ( Read more... )

(This is a copy of the review I posted on Amazon, partially in reaction to an extremely biased one that was already there. While I too remain critical, the book certainly did not deserve all the prejudiced crap the first reviewer had uttered ( Read more... )

Here's a copy of my Amazon review of Jon Peterson's book Playing at the World. A History of Simulating Wars, People and Fantastic Adventures from Chess to Role-playing Games (San Diego: Unreason Press ( Read more... )