I just finished
Chicks Dig Gaming, from Mad Norwegian Press, an anthology of thirty-five (thirty-six if you count the editors' foreword) essays from various women on the subject of gaming.
Anthologies, by their very nature, tend to be a mixed bag (unless it's a series of stories/essays by the same author, and sometimes even then), and this is as true for nonfiction anthologies as for fiction. That said, I think that the former tend to depend more on the central premise than the latter, if for no other reason than because fiction anthologies tend to be defined by their genre (or, alternatively, a single idea, such as "Elvis" or "weddings," etc.), which allows for a great deal of latitude in terms of how each writer approaches the theme.
Nonfiction anthologies, in my experience, tend to be more specific in what's under examination, often examining an intersection of two (or more) particular topics, e.g. the law and Marvel/DC superheroes, or philosophy and
The Simpsons, etc. In that regard, the specificity is a strength, as the particular aspect of a particular subject will delve into various topics that might otherwise be overlooked. To put it another way, the mixture of two particular things creates a "chocolate in my peanut butter" moment.
Which is, unfortunately, where this book goes off the rails.
Let's start with the first part: gaming.
This book takes, if not the broadest interpretation of what "gaming" means, then one that's still incredibly expansive. Computer games, board games, console games, card games, tabletop role-playing games, and others are all given different coverage at different points. In one essay we're talking about a board game about
Nellie Bly's trip around the world that's been out of print for decades, and in another we're talking about the
Professor Layton series. It dilutes the thematic coherence rather badly; questions of economic viability aside, this should have been several different books rather than just one.
Nor does the other half of the intersection, women, help to bring things back around. Simply put, no one is in a position to speak with regard to half of the population, which reduces things to a series of anecdotes, which likewise offers no greater insight into much of anything (apart from the authors themselves). Some women talk about misogyny, others describe the gaming space as being very welcoming to women, and several actually ignore the topic altogether, talking about gaming while completely ignoring any aspect of sex or gender.
To be clear, there
are some gems in here. The aforementioned Nellie Bly essay was interesting and informative, for instance, and the interview with Margaret Weis had some interesting tidbits that I hadn't known (e.g. Larry Elmore came up with Raistlin's signature gold skin, white hair, and hourglass pupils first, with Weis coming up with his backstory afterwards). But the standout essay by far was by
Jody Lynn Nye, who reveals here that she was dating Brian Blume, yes
that Brian Blume in the late 70s, and got an early-insider's view of TSR. It was shocking to read how she was paid $1 per page to type up Gary Gygax's handwritten manuscript for the AD&D 1E
Player's Handbook (for which she wasn't credited in the book).
(Interestingly, she paints one of the rosiest pictures with regard to being a woman in the early gaming scene.)
Unfortunately, these standouts are surrounded by a lot of other essays that don't rise nearly as high. Aforementioned personal anecdotes are a lot of what's here, largely with regard to how each author discovered some aspect of gaming, which as I noted before, make for decent stories but inform us of nothing beyond that writer's personal history. They're not bad, just bland, offering no new appreciations for any aspect of hobby gaming.
I'll close off with an anecdote of my own that I think summarizes my feelings toward this book: I picked this up during a recent sale at Noble Knight Games, where it was one of the items that they had priced down to $0.01 in an effort to unload from their shelves. After having digested what's here, I'd say I got a deal...but only a modest one.
