Talking About Richard Garriott’s New Book: “Explore/Create: My Life in Pursuit of New Frontiers, Hidden Worlds, and the Creative Spark”
Wow, that is a long title! Let’s take another look at that. Today we are going to talk about the book written by Richard Garriott and David Fisher titled “Explore/Create: My Life in Pursuit of New Frontiers, Hidden Worlds, and the Creative Spark.”
Explore/Create: My Life in Pursuit of New Frontiers, Hidden Worlds, and the Creative Spark on Amazon
Getting the necessaries out of the way. This article will contain some minor spoilers, but I will be hiding them in spoiler boxes.
This book has not been published yet and is being released 1/10/2017 on Amazon. My references are in regards to an Advanced Read Copy (ARC) I won in a random giveaway on Goodreads, and ready this week.
I am going to talk about this book first from an overall perspective as a sort of quick review piece. Following that, I will do a quick chapter by chapter commentary which will be hidden by a spoiler box to make it easier on the eyes.
Some of my comments will be of a personal nature while others may be about the content. Anything goes!
Please understand that I am not an objective reader. I have had contact with Richard on numerous occasions in various formats, including in person. From that association and common interests I share with him, this has led into us sharing several common friends, a couple of which are even mentioned in his book!
Thereby my review, while I will try to make it object where it should be, may be colored by biases I do not even realize I have. You have been told!
Explore/Create: My Life in Pursuit of New Frontiers, Hidden Worlds, and the Creative Spark on Amazon
As someone who had already been patiently waiting for the release of this book, I was rather excited when I won it in a Goodreads giveaway. This was followed by a slight bit of disappointment at the 30-day timeline only to turn once again into excitement when the book arrived a few days later, which for me was two days ago.
Explore/Create: My Life in Pursuit of New Frontiers, Hidden Worlds, and the Creative Spark on Amazon
While I was very interested in receiving it, I also was worried that I would find it somewhat boring. Not due to lack of being well written or good content but rather as someone who has been following Richard Garriott at some level or another most of my life, I was worried it would all be old news to me.
Quite the contrary, there were only a couple sections of the book that feel this way to me. Areas that I had heard stories about from Richard or seen on Youtube had new insights and revelations. To my astonishment, I even learned about a few of Richard’s adventures in life I had not known of. I attribute this to the fact that as a public personality, time alone in private with him is rare. So topics tend to be the ones that the majority of the public pull from him.
This book allows for a format in which Richard gets to share adventures that may not be as popular, but I find none the less intriguing.
While he certainly offers some advice here and there, it is more narrative and story driven. Recounting major stories, turning points, and adventures in his life with some commentary. I personally, was then able to draw some corollary’s in my own life and learn from his experience.
Being done this way led to a fun story that at many times completely engaged me, drew me in, and made me feel like I was living it a bit. Not in the way a good Fiction Novel would, but well enough to help me feel the experiences he describes.
David Fisher did a fantastic job overall in capturing the nuances of Richards personality in person, in print. I have had the honor to engage with Richard face to face on occasion and many times as I read this book I could easily hear him telling me the story!
There can be a lot of reasons someone may be interested in this book. Hoping to gain some insight or wisdom from a creative individual perhaps. You may be a fan or follow of one area of his life such as video game or space travel and are looking for things specific to that. Maybe you just find him and his stories fun or exciting.
For me, it is a combination of all these things and many others, which put this book was on my wish list. Whichever reason you are considering purchasing it for, do yourself a favor and get on the preorder list. It’s not lengthy which for some will be positive. For myself, that was the only negative.
If you want to hear some of my fun commentaries about the book, the following is a chapter by chapter commentary that overall I keep short. Spoilers will exist but will be mostly minor. I will try to avoid sharing anything that might ruin reading it for yourself!
Explore/Create: My Life in Pursuit of New Frontiers, Hidden Worlds, and the Creative Spark on Amazon
Chapter 1 – Titanic Mistakes
Chapter 2
I Was a Teenage Dungeon Master
The Night Comet Shoemaker Levy 9 Crashed Into Jupiter
Chapter 3
The Origin of Origin
It All Begins To Computer
Risky Business
Chapter 4 – The Wonders of Wondering
Chapter 5 – Minding My Own Business
Chapter 6 – A Universal Language
Chapter 7 – IV-Play, Or The New Rules of Engagement
Chapter 8 – Makeing Enemies
Chapter 9 – The Haunted Beginnings of Themed Interactive Events
Chapter 10 – The Magic of Science
Chapter 11 – The Discovery of the Pina Colada
Chapter 12 – The End of the Beginning of the World
Chapter 13 – Nothing for Money
Chapter 14 – We Created a World and Never Got a Day of Rest
Chapter 15 – Finder’s Leavers: A-Geocaching We Will Go
Chapter 16 – Playing for Keeps
Chapter 17 – He’s Got a Ticket to …
Chapter 18 – Packing (and smuggling) for Space: The Space Kielbasa
Chapter 19 – Taking Up Space
Chapter 20 – Don’t Kill Stephen Hawking!
Chapter 21 – Oh! The Places We’ll Go!
Explore/Create: My Life in Pursuit of New Frontiers, Hidden Worlds, and the Creative Spark on Amazon
I dedicate this article to Richard Garriott.
Richard Garriott has had at least some subtle, yet direct, effect on my life since I have been a child. Sometimes not so subtle. 🙂
It was enjoyable for me to get to read many of his great stories in detail and I look forward to the next volume!
But.. Richard,
J/K
Explore/Create: My Life in Pursuit of New Frontiers, Hidden Worlds, and the Creative Spark on Amazon
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Just find out about this book and want to order it right away. I usually read on my Kindle but was wondering if the book contained pictures, in which case I would maybe prefer a Hardcopy of the book. Are there pictures? In color? A lot?
Thanks!!
No pictures beyond the token one or two. You would be perfectly ok to go with kindle.