Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy" discussion

I'll vouch for the quality of the books that Green Ronin puts out. Most of their stuff is roleplaying games, but they have put out other non-fiction books as well. Maybe I'm a little biased, as I've known both the publisher and his wife (Chris Pramas and Nicole Lindroos) for quite a few years, but they have a fantastic track record of top notch books.

Great news! Been waiting for this kind of film-book for a long time...

Jack wrote: "I wanted to let the group know about a new compendium about the history of S&S films - Cinema and Sorcery: The Comprehensive Guide to Fantasy Film.

The book is already out in Kindle format ($9.9..."

Just placed an order for a hardcopy. This interview with the authors persuaded me with the quote:

Basically I wanted to take an item or a creature or a character from each one of the films and generically stat it so that you could actually lift something right out of the film and put it into your game. So if you’re playing D&D you could grab the magic carpet, for example, from the original Thief of Bagdad. So there’s information on its size, how it works, where it originally comes from.

So, is the book as good as expected?

Jack wrote: "Periklis wrote: "Jack wrote: "It's comprehensive and detailed, and if you are looking for an encyclopedia of S&S films, it's a good resource. That being said, I was bored with it for that very reason. I don't game, so a good bit of the attempts to tie a character or object to a D&D equivalent was lost on me. It was advertised as a guide, but it's a bit too "inside baseball" for me. If you are a gamer, maybe you'll appreciate it more.

I was also puzzled at the lack of photos and illustrations. No movie posters, actor stills, nothing at all. It would have added a lot to the book.."

As I've just started reading my copy, I'm afraid I'll have to agree with you Jack..
The "D&D equivalent" leaves much more to be desired. The writing also seems to be quite uneven. A bit too much fanboy-ish at places while attempting to be authoritative at others. A few trivia sections also feel quite tiring. The lack of pictures I can stomach, given the lobby card and poster quotes at the margin of each chapter. That said, I really glad the book is out there and will probably support a next volume if it is ever published...