Masters of Doom

Masters of Doom for about the 100th time. It's such an engaging read about the rise of id Software.

I loved MoD! The audio book read by Will Wheaton is also pretty good.

Masters of Doom is quite good about John Carmack and the creation of id Software.

This was a great book (especially audible). And I’m not even a gamer.

The history of technology is something that's better covered in trade publications, magazines and biographies, rather than textbooks and academic journals. Here's what I'd recommend: - Losing the Signal (Blackberry, 1990s-2013) - Founders at Work (dotcom era) - Masters of Doom ('90s PC video game market/graphics)

It's quite old and so doesn't include the rise of the Internet and subsequent innovations but, Accidental Empires is pretty good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_Empires Where Wizards Stay Up Late - on the creation of the Internet The Soul of a New Machine - On computing in the 70's and 80's The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison - On the rise of Oracle (also has the best title) Masters of Doom - A history of id Software What The Dormouse Said - How the 60's counterculture influenced computing The New New Thing - Follows Jim Clark around while he creates SGI, Netscape, etc...

This was a great book. And the audiobook was superb. And I'm not even a gamer. I recommend it all the time.

Masters of Doom. It’s the story of two renowned game developers, John Karmack and John Romero, and how they built id Software, the video game company that profoundly changed PC gaming and graphics. I was writing software for enterprise / consulting companies at the time (early phase of my career). This book opened my eyes to the crazy/wonderful/scary world of ‘startups’, the idea that people can bring their passion into writing software and start a business or movement. I joined a startup (nothing to do gaming) and never looked back.

I read Masters of Doom and I really like it, I don't know why but after a couple of pages I wanna rush to the computer and write some code. Sometimes Silicon Valley (tv) generates the same reaction on me.

Great question, I will come back to see what ideas people have. Thanks for the Turing book suggestion too. I have read lots of non-fiction books about programmers and engineers that have been very inspiring, they're just not technical: "Masters of Doom", "Blood, Sweat, and Pixels", "Coders at Work", "The Idea Factory", "The Soul of a New Machine", "Dealers of Lightning"...

Wil Wheaton reads Masters of Doom, almost worth it for his impressions alone. “Sid Meier’s Memoir” is great along the same genre.

Biographies of developers or successful/failed projects are great to listen to I.e. Masters of Doom and the like.

As far as reading for entertainment as opposed to reading to learn, this is one of the best books I've ever read. Very inspiring.

Here's a book more people should know about: Masters of Doom. Awesome read.

Masters of Doom is so damn good

Yes! 1. Masters of Doom 2. Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution

• The Revolt of the Public: No book has done a better job of describing the current moment in history • Masters of Doom: Reminded me what it means to care about work and have fun doing it • Team of Rivals: A remarkable work of history and portrait of a man • The Undercover Economist • Fooled by Randomness • The Prize

Masters of Doom is such a fun, good book. I ended up power reading a few summers ago. If you grew up playing Doom, and all the other shareware games like Hexen, Heretic, etc... reading about Id Software's start and history is more interesting than I ever thought it would be. Another book that drew me in was "Blood, Sweat, and Pixels". It's a collection of short-ish game creation stories packaged into a book. Really candid interviews and writing.

> Masters of DOOM: A homage from a fanboy meant for other fanboys. It definitely has its bits of brilliance but it is still a chore to finish. Can I recommend the audiobook? For what it's worth I found Masters of DOOM to be great. Mostly because the writing style _really_ does a good job of communicating the personalities of the people involved. I'm not a video game guy, in fact I've never played DOOM, but I still enjoyed it start to finish.

> Masters of Doom No likable "characters" in that one. Fun reading about the era though.

In no particular order. Empires of Light, by Jonnes. Titan, by Chernow. The Wright Brothers, by McCullough. His Excellency, by Ellis. The Wizard of Menlo Park, by Stross. I Invented the Modern Age, by Snow. Dealers of Lightning, by Hiltzik. Margin of Safety, by Klarman. Masters of Doom, by Kushner. Andrew Carnegie, by Nasaw. Infidel, by Hirsi Ali. Buffett, by Lowenstein. Where Wizards Stay Up Late, by Hafner. Shoe Dog, by Knight. The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Rhodes.

Some books that I recently read and enjoyed: Non-fiction a) Sapiens (Yuval Noah Harari) b) Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon (Kim Zetter) c) Hackers: Heroes of the computer revolution (Steven Levy) d) Masters of Doom (David Kushner) Fiction: e) The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Leo Tolstoy) f) Ready Player One (Ernest Cline)

Masters of Doom. Great book about John Carmack and id software.

Masters of Doom may well be the only book I've finished this year. I'm currently reading a few novels and The Snowball (Buffet's bio) but it is a slow process because of the overwhelming amount of time I spend reading news, technical resources, comics, and short stories. I cannot recommend Masters of Doom highly enough to anyone on this website. It's about the rise of Id games and the technological and cultural breakthroughs they made in the industry. Kushner expertly weaves a tale about video games, programming and entrepreneurship in a way that few can. His attention to detail is masterful -- not simply an overabundance of detail, but detail in all the places it belongs. I really felt like I was there with the two great Johns, just as invested in the future of Id as they were.

Hackers & Masters of Doom are two of my favourite books. And I'm not even really a gamer.

This may be because I have always admired John Carmack, and because I love video games - although I am drawn to all kind of different book genres, but "Masters of Doom" had a profound effect on me. I read it every few months, and I have gifted it to family and friends, and most of them loved it as well. It’s not the writing, nor the story per se that stand out, it’s not just about how it beautiful highlights and highs and the lows of the Johns’s symbiotic relationship and their accomplishments, it’s not even about how their skills, strengths and weaknesses play into their success and failures (which I am sure is typical of most co-founders stories). It’s about empowering the reader to believe that everything’s possible, and how smart, hard-working people can build technologies that affect the lives of many. This book works wonders for when I am going through burn-outs, or I am not motivated enough to pursue a problem or a project. When I am done reading the book, I am excited and eager to get back into the game. I can’t recommend it enough.

My full list of books, including reviews, is here: https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2015 From that list, my favorite ones were: The Four Steps to the Epiphany: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/827338560 Made to Stick: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/897777811 How to Measure Anything: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/698402984 The Non-Designer's Design Book: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1170518622 Masters of Doom: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/899580915 The Martian: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1136330196 The Mistborn Trilogy: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1388373037

Meditations - Marcus Aurelius -- A fine classic I enjoyed. Might count, might not, since it finished in March but was going on before. I loved Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality - Eliezer Yudkowsky - http://hpmor.com/ Loved Masters of Doom - David Kushner I liked Worm - Wildbow - https://parahumans.wordpress.com/table-of-contents/ -- but it falls short of overall greatness and I don't think it's worth its 22-average-books length if I were to go back in time and decide on rereading... Learn to Play Go: A Master's Guide to the Ultimate Game (Volume I) - Janice Kim -- I've been learning Go and thought this book was particularly excellent for beginners. There are at least 4 other books I'm close to finishing and I might get one done before the end of the month... Volume 2 of the above Go series, Mythical Man-Month, A handbook of traditional living, or The Waking Dream.

Masters of Doom - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of_Doom And it's being an extremely fun read so far.

I just finished Masters Of Doom (http://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed-Cultu... (http://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed-Culture-ebook/dp/B000FBFNL0)). I read it almost non-stop. I highly recommand it to anyone who has gone through the early days of ID Software games Wolf3D / Doom.

I have to name two in a tie: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, and Masters of Doom by David Kushner. Both Jobs and John Carmack have been huge sources of inspiration since I've read these books, and in very different ways. And that effect has lasted long since I finished the books, which is rare.

-Stumbling on Happiness -Free Software, Free Society -Masters of Doom (not finished, just started reading it, great so far)

I found the book "The definitive book of body language: How to read others's thoughts by their gestures" by Allan and Barbara Pease to be a great read. The greatest show on Earth - Richard Dawkins was an excellent read. Surely you're joking Mr Feynman by Richard p.Feynman was terrific read by a very small bit can considerred offensive or at the least dated in its outlook but if you can get past that its great! I recently finished a book on ID called "Masters of doom" by David Kushner which I rather enjoyed as well. I also love reading about crackers from the (mostly) 80's and I can recommend. Cuckoo Egg by Cliff Stoll Masters of deception We are anonymous - Inside the hacker world of lulzsec, anonymous and the global cyber insurgency by Parmy Olson I loved "Underground Hacking Madness and the obsession on the electronic frontier" once I got past the first 2 or 3 chapters (also it was researched by Julian Assange before wikileak and has a chapter about his hacking) An Ebook copy can be found on the authors website http://www.underground-book.net/download.php3 Ghost in the wire Kevin Mitnick

+ Hacker Ethic by Steven Levy + Masters of Doom by David Kushner + The Millionaire Mind by Dr. Thomas Stanley + The Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham + The Essays of Warren Buffet by Lawrence Cunningham + Buffet by Roger Lowenstein + The Knack by Norm Brodsky + Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar by Thomas Cathcart, Daniel Klein + The Return of the Great Depression by Vox Day + Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman + Road to Serfdom by Hayek + Iacocca:An Autobiography by Lee Iacocca

Here's a few I've really liked that have a broader subject matter than only what you asked for. I figure that if you like to read you'd like these books. --- NON-FICTION --- Darkness Visible A Mathemematician's Apology Omnivore's Dilemma Fermat's Enigma The Code Book Born to Run Judgement of Paris Siddhartha Killing Pablo The Victorian Internet Lone Survivor I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman Papillon Into Thin Air Born on a Blue Day Touching the Void Got Fight The Conquest of Happiness --- FICTION --- Switch Bitch Lost Horizon The Cuckoo's Egg The Simlarillion The Time Traveler's Wife The Alchemist The Count of Monte Cristo A Canticle for Leibowitz Neverwhere My Uncle Oswald Stories of Your Life and Others Invisible Cities Life of Pi Atlas Shrugged --- WALL STREET / FINANCE --- When Genius Failed Liar's Poker Buffett (Lowenstein) Bull! Black-Scholes and Beyond (textbook) Fixed Income Securities (textbook) The Road to Serfdom The Smartest Guys in the Room Fortune's Formula The Fourth Turning Inside the House of Money --- ENTREPRENEURSHIP / COMPUTERS (non-textbook) --- Masters of Doom It's Not About the Bike Dot. Bomb Founders at Work The PayPal Wars…

In general, "Revolution in the Valley" about the making of the Macintosh. You cen feel the excitement of the team, and it goes into some fun technical details on how they created a GUI while everyone else outside research labs was still text-based. For game programmers, "Masters of Doom" and "Dungeons and Dreamers". Both have a real human perspective on the people and companies they cover; they made me feel like regular humans, not gods, made games.

Masters of Doom

Off the top of my head: - Soul of a New Machine - The Cuckoo's Egg - Revolution in the Valley - Fire in the Valley - Compilers by Sethi, Ullman, Aho - Masters of Doom - iWoz - Steve Jobs & the NeXT Big Thing - Crypto - Code - The Man Who Loved Only Numbers - The Man Who Knew Infinity - ANSI Common LISP Most of the books above are recommended because once reading them you will have an uncontrollable urge to immediately create something brilliant. You will not be able to stop yourself. -m

designing the obvious - a common sense approach to web application design by Robert Hoekman Jr The New New Thing Masters of Doom (story of id software, great story) Smart Start-ups: How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Profit by Starting Online Communities steven levy's Hackers and crypto also for the history.