Fulminata reviewed Gamesmaster by Flint Dille
Review of 'Gamesmaster' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
Flint Dille was involved in some of the hottest of geek properties in the 80s, and this is his biography from those years. The main geek properties he had some connection to were GI Joe, Dungeons & Dragons, and The Transformers.
The narrative tends to jump around a bit throughout the book. While things move generally forwards in time, there’s a lot of bouncing back and forth that sometimes makes it difficult to know in just what order things happened.
I’m also not sure just how reliable a narrator the author is. He admits more than once to totally forgetting things that fans brought up as he was writing the book. He also claims that he tends to forget the bad stuff, and just remember the good stuff.
There’s also some problematic content, specifically concerning Kasey Kasem and his leaving the Transformers over a racist stereotype of an Arab man. …
Flint Dille was involved in some of the hottest of geek properties in the 80s, and this is his biography from those years. The main geek properties he had some connection to were GI Joe, Dungeons & Dragons, and The Transformers.
The narrative tends to jump around a bit throughout the book. While things move generally forwards in time, there’s a lot of bouncing back and forth that sometimes makes it difficult to know in just what order things happened.
I’m also not sure just how reliable a narrator the author is. He admits more than once to totally forgetting things that fans brought up as he was writing the book. He also claims that he tends to forget the bad stuff, and just remember the good stuff.
There’s also some problematic content, specifically concerning Kasey Kasem and his leaving the Transformers over a racist stereotype of an Arab man. The author implies that there was no intentional racism, but has this to say: “we didn’t know, nor honestly care, that Abdul was an Arab name and not a Libyan name.” It’s one thing to not realize you’re being racist, and it’s another thing entirely to not care that you’re being racist.
Even before this section, which is in the latter part of the book, I’d been struggling to work my way through. I just can’t recommend it.