Official Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: Coloring Album by E. Gary GygaxMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the one that started it all for me. Before I ran into a copy of The Hobbit, before I discovered Saberhagen's Berserker series, before I even read my first Conan book ( but not before I "read" The Savage Sword of Conan or Mechanismo), The Official Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Coloring Album captured my imagination and launched me into countless wasted hours of AD&D punctuated by some good reading of actual books. I owe my teenager-hood to this book. It was my Book of Genesis for eight years, age 10-18, and beyond. This book, in effect, changed my life forever and made it richer.
In hindsight, it is pedantic, sterilized, and cliched. Dumb, really, though the line illustrations remain among some of the best in gaming history, so far as I'm concerned. To a ten-year old mind, it was dazzling. I was hypnotized and still, 36 years later, have not completely recovered. This book might have been my first love.
I still don't know what happened to my original copy, but I would kill for that thing again (despite the colored drawings - or maybe because of them?). I would kill many, many things for it, mostly undead and extraplanar beings, but still . . . if you are between me and a copy of this, get out of the way. You have been warned! What a man will do for love . . .
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Addendum: Witness the wonder as I receive a copy of this book from my oldest son in the mail. 36 years ago I first spotted this in a bookstore in Minnesota. I've never been the same since.
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