Is it worth reading? Yes. Could it have been a lot better? Certainly.

Masters of Doom tells the tale of John Romero and John Carmack, the primary forces behind the creation of id Software, the primary force behind the creation of the First-Person-Shooter (FPS) gaming phenomenon. With some biography and a lot of first-person accounts (pun intended) you’ll follow these guys from their earliest jobs to their ultimately diverging paths.

The first half of the book is far more entertaining than the second, which while appropriate does gloss over some of the more telling aspects of their personalities in light of a very different atmosphere. The side characters get short bios but are referenced far too often without telling us more about them through the changes or some of the deeper information that was surely behind their constant inclusion in the first place.

If you come into the book with some knowledge of the characters and situations as I did some of the tale will seem lacking in the detail you were hoping for. Without spoiling it for those less familiar the denouement of one of the pair could have been more detailed while remaining dispassionate.

• SPOILER SUMMARY*

Romero was (is) a joke yet the author doesn’t brutalize him as much as he should have through the collapse of ION Storm. This is fine as a journalistic approach, but telling this as a chronokogy for the most part is boring. Carmack’s descent and idiocy is revealed but without a more biographical approach you don’t get the flavor of the ripples he splashed into waves. The related tales of the rise of 3D Realms and Epic are equally missing despite their relevance to the world of Quake and Carmack’s refusal to humanize his games.

• END SPOILER *

As a droning historical account the book works, but as an exciting tales of the heady days of id and the acts of its primary creators it was quite boring and lacking in the area of commentary by the side characters the author obviously had access to.

Since there’s no choice for “I’m consuming this again” I figured I’d pass on a bit about the book and why I’m reading it again. Actually that should be quite easy to understand, it’s a tale of Hollywood excess, mismanagement and business-artist entanglement while chronically the death of one of the oldest movie studios, United Artists. What’s not to love?

This is an updated edition and a better print, my first edition yellow paperback fell apart at the seams, too many pages, not enough glue I suppose. But I read it twice before and it’s funny both literally and in a sad way. As the back-cover blurbs say, the best tale of Hollywood from the inside and a great story that’s true, pathetic and hilarious all at the same time.