Reviews and Comments

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a really well written novel. Telling a story of 2 childhood friends, Sam and Sadie, reuniting to develop games together, which eventually launches them into a world of fame, business and opportunities but also hatred, dilemmas and rivalry. The character development of these two, their family and their friends is really superb, it's definitely one of the strongest aspects. There are a lot of references to games of the era and gaming culture in general. The only thing that didn't quite meet my expectations is how the actual process of developing games is a bit unrealistic and often just glossed over. While the first game that the duo makes is explained in detail, the next games just mostly happen in the background while the drama takes the stage, which for me feels like a missed opportunity, even though a typical reader might not be interested in that aspect.

"Free as in freedom" is a great book telling the story of Richard Stallman and the early days of the free software movement. Although quite dated by now it's still informative and insightful. Being based on interviews, talks and articles in the era of the early Internet it shows a few different perspectives on the issues of copyright, software licensing and also the private life and works of Richard Stallman and other notable people that worked with him. My only gripe with the book is that the author doesn't always fully understand the technical aspects of software and copyright he's writing about as he's clearly an outsider to the topic (this was largely corrected by Stallman himself in the 2.0 version, but he also modified the book in other ways giving explanations, comments etc). The book is strangely quite harsh and also slanderous at times, but overall it's a solid piece of historical work.