Ken's book on Sierra

[Rudy]

Breaking news today. Ken Williams revealed he's writing a book about Sierra On-Line, focusing primarily on how Sierra became the gaming giant and how it ultimately came to its demise. He's been working on it for a few months and is currently around 250 pages. He expects the writing part to be completed in 2 or 3 months for a total of roughly 500 pages.
He wants the book to reveal things that are not yet common knowledge, not so much focusing on games, but rather on the corporate history and technological development of Sierra as a gaming pioneer.

I don't know about you, but I can't wait to read it!

[Tawmis]

This should be good.

I am wondering if he's going to include some dialogue/insight from others, or if this is pure his view (I don't mind either way).

[Rath Darkblade]

I wonder if it will come out in Australia. I hope so!

[Tawmis]

I wonder if it will come out in Australia. I hope so!

I wouldn't be surprised if he goes for self publishing, like through Amazon or something, just to get it out there and not try to find a publisher, etc.

Who knows, there may already be a publisher lined up, who wants this from Ken.

[Tawmis]

Update from Ken Williams.

Greetings Sierra Alums! After 25 years of sulking about Sierra’s destruction I’m finally working on a book about the rise and fall of Sierra. The book is mostly written, although my plan is to send 50 printed draft copies to various ex employees of Sierra and solicit feedback, from which I’ll add content (and, delete content).

Before you get excited (or frightened) about what I may have said, I should say that the book is written at a high-level overview level. Very few names of individuals appear in the book. It’s more of an autobiography. It discusses the strategies that made Sierra and the behind-the-scenes crap that brought sierra down.

As a side note, I just read a great book about Sierra, by Shawn Mills. I think it was called “The Sierra Adventure” and I have no idea how to get copies or when it will be released to the public (Shawn leaked me a copy). But, it is kind of the opposite of my book and in many ways probably more interesting to many Sierra ex-employees. It has a lot of trench-level behind the scenes blow by blow on various games we produced. There was lots of inside info that I didn’t know. If you find a copy, it is recommended reading.

Anyway .. back to my book.

If you are an ex Sierra employee, and want to pre-screen my book, email me your physical address (to ken@kensblog.com) Say a sentence or two about what you did at Sierra. I’ll pick 50 people to send copies to for comment. I’m mostly looking for people who were in a position to have a fairly broad perspective on events at the company. My memories of things are not great and I’m hoping that people can save me from embarrassing myself by screwing up dates or giving bad information. Apologies to people who don’t make the 50 copy cut, and I need to do another edit pass on the book before printing, so ...don’t expect anything until September.

Writing the book has had me reliving the Sierra adventure, and thinking about all the awesome things we did. It’s still tough for me to think about or talk about those days. I will never understand how such a great company could have been so brutally destroyed. It is a tragedy of epic proportions.

Stay safe everyone! These are some crazy times!

-Ken W

[goatmeal]

Just received Shawn Mills' "The Sierra Adventure" book in PDF & EPUB format, soon to be followed by soft- and hard-cover releases. With all of the praise it's received, especially from former Sierra employees, I can't to wait to read it!



For those who may not know, Shawn Mills is one-half of the Infamous Adventures / Infamous Quests duo. Among their Sierra-style games are:

• King's Quest 3 VGA (fan remake / IA)
• Space Quest 2 VGA (fan remake / IA)

• Quest For Infamy (IQ)
• Order Of The Thorne: The King's Challenge (IQ)

In the works:
• Quest For Infamy: Roehm To Ruin (IQ)
• Order Of The Thorne: Fortress Of Fire (IQ)

[Tawmis]

Ken Williams cracks me up...

Just finished writing the first pass at the book. 300 Pages. Now starts the editing. Lots of editing... It still feels like I'm on track to have some draft copies by early September. After I get feedback I'll do another round or two of editing with a goal of finishing by November.

I took a quick break from the editing to think about what the book cover might look like. Here's my first effort. Once I get something I like I'll turn it over to an artist to do something prettier...

Grin. I'm a little worried it will be TOO interesting. I'm making an edit pass now to look for all the things I probably shouldn't have said. I'm about 2/3rds through the book. It appears that if I remove all of the things I shouldn't have said, the book will dwindle from 300 pages to 1 paragraph. Darn!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/npfnwv29rdm9a ... 4.MOV?dl=0

Untitled.mp4

Video from Ken's Dropbox

(3.47 MiB) Downloaded 468 times

[Tawmis]

From Ken Williams -

FYI - I sent out the review copies of my book. It is 99% finished and should arrive, to the 50 people here who sent me their addresses, during the first week of September. I'll give people a week or two to give feedback, and then release it probably in October.
And .. to get notified when my book is released, you can go to this site: www.kensbook.com (most of you were there, so .. you already know all it covers!)

[Tawmis]

MUCH better cover than his rough draft cover.

[OmerMor]

... and the cover's changed again:

[Tawmis]

I like the font with the one with the Sierra mountain - but I like the image of the new cover better.

[goatmeal]

New Ken Williams Interview:

#SEPTANDY - The Ken Williams Interview! Tandy, Sierra, his new book, and more!

[DeadPoolX]

Ken's book is out and available on Lulu.com right now in print (there's no hard cover edition, so trade paperback is the only option) and digital versions, such as EPUB and PDF, and Amazon.com (but not Amazon.ca or presumably other countries' versions of Amazon) has both the print version and whatever the Kindle uses.

Maia and I ordered the trade paperback from Lulu.com and when calculating the price in Canadian dollars, including tax, and ground shipping (we wanted it trackable given how unreliable shipping services can be when going from one country to another) it came out to a total of $67.23 CAD.

That's not including anything like customs fees, which seem to be generated at random as sometimes we get hit with customs fees and other times we don't. Neither the price nor the declared value of items seem to matter, so I can only assume that packages are randomly inspected (or that some customs officers are too lazy to bother at times).

[Semi-Happy Partygoer]

Wow, I somehow missed this news. I look forward to reading both of them.

[Tawmis]

I read Ken's book. Pretty good. There was only one chapter that went a little off for me, but the rest was an interesting read.

Amazing to also learn (no surprise, really) - but just how strong (mentally) and "stubborn" (for lack of a better word) Roberta was!

Although, it's also made me want to read this other book that gets mentioned quite a few times, called "Hackers" which apparently speaks to Sierra's "Party Days."