Ross E. Lockhart
Humans play games. It’s one of our defining features.
This is the thesis of Johan Huizinga’s 1938 book of theories on play and games, “Homo ludens” (which roughly translates to “playing man”). Gaming dates to antiquity, from Knucklebones – a predecessor of dice games originally played with the talus bones of hooved animals (c. 5000 BCE) – to the Ancient Egyptian board game Senet (c. 3100 BCE) to Mesoamerican ballgames (c. 1650 BCE) up to today.
We enjoy play. And play informs our humanity.
Wargames develop in Prussia in the early 19th century with the development of Kriegsspiel – initially a tool for military leaders to learn battlefield tactics – but soon becoming a source of recreation, particularly once author H. G. Wells publishes his “Little Wars,” a collection of rules for toy soldiers in 1913. Board games experience a golden age in the 1880s with the rise of mass production, leading to the publication of such stalwarts as Monopoly in 1935 and Candy Land in 1949.
In the early 1970s, what game historian Jon Petersen calls an “Elusive Shift” occurred, and in 1974 wargamers E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson created and published the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Sometime thereafter, the mechanics, statistics and ideas of D&D and other RPGs become incorporated into a new type of game – video games. Experience points, skill points and hit points would become an integral part of a player’s gaming experience in games including Rogue (1980), Wizardry (1981) and Ultima (1981), and would soon cross the ocean in Japanese RPGS like Sword & Sorcery (1983) and Final Fantasy (1987).
Eventually, literature and RPGs would begin to cross paths.
Andre Norton’s novel “Quag Keep” (1978) was based on the author’s experiences playing D&D. “The Warlock of Firetop Mountain,” a Fighting Fantasy gamebook that combined Choose Your Own Adventure-style storytelling with RPG statistics, would be published in 1982. Official D&D tie-in novels would be released throughout the 1980s and ’90s, including the popular Dragonlance books by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis beginning in 1983. Ryo Mizuno would begin publishing his “Record of Lodoss War,” a serialized recounting of his own D&D campaign in Japan’s Comptiq magazine in 1986, which would lead to manga and anime adaptations as well as the RPG Sword World.
By the early 2010s, Russian fantasy novels and online publications such as “Clan Dominance: The Sleepless Ones” (2012) by Dem Mikhailov would begin to incorporate RPG statistics and in-game progression into their narratives, and the term LitRPG would be coined in 2013 to refer to this new form of storytelling.
Today, LitRPG is largely a self-publishing market in the United States, with works published through venues like Royal Road and Amazon’s Kindle and Audible programs. But that’s starting to change as larger publishers take notice. In 2024, Ace Books picked up Matt Dinniman’s popular “Dungeon Crawler Carl” series for publication in hardcover, and more LitRPG is on its way.
Have you played any good books lately?
If you are a fan of such publications, or now have your curiosity piqued, you’ll want to know that on from 1-3 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 12, J. J. Walsh, the San Francisco-based author of the LitRPG novel “Lazarus’ Kool-Aid” will be visiting the Word Horde Emporium of the Weird & Fantastic for a meet-and-greet signing. Come on by and chat him up about LitRPG, pop-culture references – and be ready to discuss whether-or-not the universe is a simulation.
The Word Horde Emporium will also be vending at Petaluma Pride at the fairgrounds on National Coming Out Day, Saturday, Oct. 11. We’ll be there from 12–5 p.m., and we hope to see you there, too.
Also coming up, the Word Witches Book Club will be meeting at the Word Horde Emporium to discuss “The Annual Migration of Clouds” by Premee Mohamed. That’s at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 16.
Meanwhile, since we’re talking about book-themed events, Copperfield’s will be hosting Jean Schulz and Jamy Wheless in support of the book “Andy: A Dog’s Tale,” adapted from the made-in-Petaluma short film promoting the work of Canine Companions. That will be at 3 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 17.
Also at Copperfield’s, you’ll have a chance to meet John Freeman, author of “California Rewritten: A Journey Through the Golden State’s New Literature” at 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 17.
With all of those events now carefully registered on your calendar, here’s what Petaluma readers have been picking up at local bookstores.
Copperfield’s Adult Fiction and Non-Fiction
1. ‘Read This to Get Smarter: About Race, Class, Gender, Disability and More’ by Imani Blair – A guide to becoming an informed, compassionate and socially conscious person. We could sure use more of those.
2. ‘In the Time of the Butterflies’ by Julia Alvarez – This 1994 historical novel fictionalizes the story of the Mirabal sisters, a trio of political activists known as Las Mariposas (the Butterflies), who opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo and were assassinated by the regime in 1960.
3. ‘Project Hail Mary’ by Andy Weir – From the bestselling author of “The Martian,” this thriller follows a science teacher who is sent into the deep space to try and save the world. A film adaptation starring Ryan Gosling and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller will be released in 2026.
4. ‘Modern HERstory: Stories of Women and Nonbinary People Rewriting History’ by Imani Blair – A collection of more than 50 capsule biographies celebrating women, girls and nonbinary people who fought to change their world.
5. ‘The Grateful Dead by Jim Marshall: Photos and Stories from the Formative Years, 1966–1977’ by Jim Marshall, Amelia Davis and David Gans – Jim Marshall (1936-2010) is considered to be one of the great rock ‘n’ roll photographers. This collection documents his time embedded with the Grateful Dead and San Francisco’s counterculture scene in the 1960s and ’70s.
Copperfield’s Kids and Young Adults
1. ‘The First Rule of Climate Club’ by Carrie Firestone – An eight grader is inspired to start a podcast and become a climate activist as she rallies her friends to get involved in their local community.
2. ‘The Wild Robot’ by Peter Brown – Illustrated middle-grade novel about Roz, a robot, who must learn to survive on a remote island by adapting to her surroundings and emulating the behaviors of the island’s animal inhabitants.
3. ‘Frog and Toad Storybook Favorites’ by Arnold Lobel – Iconic best friends Frog and Toad have been inspiring children to read in these humorous yet poignant stories for more than fifty years. Whether flying kites, cleaning house or baking cookies, Lobel’s amphibious duo were the epitome of cottagecore long before cottagecore had a name.
4. ‘Time for School, Little Blue Truck’ by Alice Schertle – When Little Blue Truck meets a school bus along the road, he ponders what life as school bus might be. But alas, he is just a little blue truck.
5. ‘We Were Liars’ by E. Lockhart – A taut psychological YA thriller about a group of friends on a private island struggling through a legacy of dark secrets.
Hot Books at the Word Horde Emporium
1. ‘Shadow Zone’ by Barbara Cottrell – The third book in Cottrell’s Lovecraftian-by-way-of-Agatha-Christie series “Shadows of Miskatonic” finds Ellen Logan and Andrew Carter investigating the strange goings-on near Miskatonic University. What begins with unusual activity in a graveyard, weird paintings – and a mysterious creature stalking an Arkham retirement home – leads to a house that defies physics … and beyond. A reference-filled, spooky roller-coaster ride of a book.
2. ‘This Inevitable Ruin’ (Dungeon Crawler Carl #7) by Matt Dinniman – Carl, Princess Donut, Katia and their allies have arrived at the ninth floor of the alien megadungeon built on the ruins of Earth. Here, they lead an army in the Faction Wars, taking on nine armies led by rich and powerful aliens from throughout the galaxy. This time, the Crawlers have an advantage – the AI has turned off the traditional protections, and aliens killed in the battles will die in real life. Will our heroes survive?
3. ‘Alchemized’ by SenLinYu – A sweeping dark romantasy debut set in a war-ravaged world of necromancers and alchemists. An enemies-to-lovers romance featuring morally gray (very dark gray) characters. This novel began its life as “Manacled,” an extremely popular work of fan fiction originally published at An Archive of Our Own.
4. ‘The Annual Migration of Clouds’ by Premee Mohamed – Set in a future wracked by climate disasters and invasive, parasitic fungi, a young woman is given an opportunity to leave the relative stability of her community of survivors to attend a faraway university. Can Reid leave her mother and responsibilities behind? A character-driven hopepunk novella.
5. ‘Zomromcom’ by Olivia Dade – If a grumpy/sunshine romance about a plus-sized woman in her 30s, her hunky, sword-wielding vampire neighbor, and a zombie outbreak filled with banter, Millennial humor and quirkiness galore sounds like your kind of read, then this is the book for you.
Originally Published: October 5, 2025 at 5:01 PM PDT