Explore/Create: My Life in Pursuit of New Frontiers, Hidden Worlds, and the Creative Spark

by Richard Garriott, David Fisher

An inventor, adventurer, entrepreneur, collector, and entertainer, and son of legendary scientist-astronaut Owen Garriott, Richard Garriott de Cayeux has been behind some of the most exciting undertakings of our time. A legendary pioneer of the online gaming industry—and a member of every gaming Hall of Fame—Garriott invented the multi-player online game, and coined the term “Avatar” to describe an individual’s online character.

A lifelong adventurer and member of the Explorers Club, Garriott has used the fortune he amassed from the gaming business to embark on a number of thrilling expeditions. He has plumbed the depths of the Atlantic ocean to see the remains of the Titanic, hunted for meteorites in Antarctica, and in 2008 became one of the first private citizens to be launched into space. Richard has been one of the foremost pioneers of the private space industry, investing his time and energy into making space travel more accessible.

In this fascinating memoir, Garriott invites readers on the great adventure that is his life. Yet his is no ordinary autobiography; throughout, Garriott engages readers with interactive activities and challenges them with “secret codes” for his games. An audacious genius with an insatiable curiosity and an irrepressible playfulness, Garriott takes readers on an unforgettable intellectual experience that is enlightening, adventurous, and fun.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Adventure, Business, Games, Science

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 10, 2017

Reviews

[ahn mur · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very readable! And very interesting! Not that this is a well-written book (it's not). Just that Garriott himself is an exceptionally interesting person who has lived a particularly interesting life. Don't get me wrong, I very much recommend reading Explore/Create! But I must admit I am disappointed. Given the raw material, the co-authors could have done so much more!
But I loved:
-Getting some insight into the mind of Garriott, from his commitment to extravagantly inventive party experiences (good god how I'd love to attend one, and how I'm so inspired to host one!) to the care with which he crafted the languages for his game universes.
-The importance of going outside of your field for inspiration, no matter what you do but ESPECIALLY if you're doing creative work.
-How Dungeons and Dragons influenced (i.e. directly inspired) his games. I wish I'd experienced that generation but D&D was never really part of my life. Thanks to this and Stranger Things, I'm getting a better sense of how much of an impact D&D had.
-Geocaching! I was into this pre-smart phone era and would like to get back into it now.
-Easter eggs and follow-up links throughout the book, challenges to the reader

[Russell Libonati · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a pretty good book if you want to read about the kind of life you WISH you had. Richard Garriott comes across a bit arrogant in the book, but maybe it's hard to write about going into outer space and to the deepest part of the ocean without coming across a bit arrogant. Still it is undeniably interesting and there is a lot of cool stuff in the book especially if you are a bit of a geek.

You do have to realize that it was autobiographical, so the viewpoint is a bit skewed. I remember listening along to the hurdles NASA posed when he bought his way onto the ISS, thinking what jerks they were being until I remembered that there was one of only 300 astronauts with PhDs, who went through a rigorous vetting process and harsh training that weren't going into outer space because some guy was able to pay $20M to take one of their seats.

I listened to this on audio from audible and one thing I have to say about the book was that the reader was not very good. I do not say this lightly because I have an immense amount of respect for the readers of these books and this is only the second time I would say that. He had virtually not emotion in his voice as he went through some pretty thrilling pages.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has been on my TBR for ages after my Dad lent me his copy of the book. Richard Garriott is someone I really admire, having grown up playing the Ultima games (particularly VII Parts I and II). They are still the standard by which I set all other games for their lore, world building and vivid, 'living' NPCs. His life is incredible and he is a fantastic storyteller. Not only is he a legend in the video game industry, Richard has also been to the Titanic, spent 2 weeks on the International Space Station, and has been to the North and South Poles. An incredible story with lots of great lessons for others along the way around creativity, entrepreneurship, working with others and management.

This quote from the start particularly stuck with me:
"Admittedly, I've had my fair share of lucky breaks. But I do buy into the adage that luck is the intersection of preparation and opportunity. Opportunities parade past us all the time. The key is that you must be paying attention to see them, you must be willing to take risks, you must expose yourself to the possibility of massive failure - and you must believe in what you are doing so much that you do it anyway."

[Ian Rajczi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard is truly the personification of the Dos Equis most interesting man in the world. Delightfully funny, vulnerable, and lots to learn, I couldn’t put this book down.

[Harry Harman]

I was lucky to be the son of a scientist and explorer—my father was a NASA astronaut

the adage that luck is the intersection of preparation and opportunity.

computer games and commercial spaceflight. On the surface, these two areas would seem to have nothing to do with one another. But both are about exploring new frontiers, creatively envisioning ways to go places no one has before.

it was pointed out that the Titanic lies in international waters and an American court did not have the jurisdiction to dictate what anyone could or could not do at the site.

1977 University of Oklahoma for seven weeks to study geometry, statistics, and computer programming. I learned to play Dungeons & Dragons. D&D is a role-playing game.

reading The Lord of the Rings

I took everything apart—and most of the time I was able to put them back together. I was considered the scourge of the family in anything electrical or mechanical. Anything that came into the house with motors, gears, or switches in it became my victim.

the little 1½-volt slot car motors were insufficient. I needed more power. “I need more power” is not a statement that most parents like to hear.

The only place we knew with computers was NASA, and with my father being an astronaut we had strong connections there, so we solicited the support of one of the space agency’s prime contractors, Lockheed-Martin. They allowed us to use their computer room

Most of their computers ran Fortran, an early programming language that relied on punch cards.

Some of them were written in an exotic text called assembly language, and sometimes they were in a version of BASIC. But there wasn’t even a universal BASIC. Bill Gates, for example, wrote his own BASIC that was put on an Apple.

My father was an upper-atmosphere physicist who studied wave propagation and communication with satellites in the ionosphere. Radio waves normally can only communicate with something within their line of sight, which is why we have relay towers across the country. But under certain conditions it is also possible to bounce radio waves off the ionosphere to communicate with people over the horizon. Before computers existed it was difficult to determine precisely what frequency to use when transmitting and at what angle the antenna should be focused. That early generation of NASA scientists literally used slide rules to make those calculations, but it was largely guesswork. I wondered how—not if, but how—I could do that on a computer. And with a great deal of guidance and advice from my father on the physics involved, I wrote a program that solved that problem. It took the prevailing ionospheric conditions into consideration and showed graphically where the radio waves would go.

My junior year project was called “Radio Wave Propagation with Computer Analysis.” That same approach could solve a variety of problems, including underwater sonography and a technique in which people looked for oil and other deposits by setting off explosions and tracking how sound waves bounced off rock formations. That also became my senior year project and it won a lot of awards, including fourth place in an international competition.

While it couldn’t handle a business spreadsheet, it could be used to balance a simple checkbook. Manufacturers were boasting that eventually you would be able to use it to open and close your garage door. That we were able to sell any of them at $3,000 a pop was amazing.

The real benefit of working at ComputerLand was that I had access to an Apple II, and I was able to write my games on it.

I would estimate that at the time, there were probably fewer than a couple of dozen people anywhere in the world creating computer games, and not one of us could have imagined we were creating an industry that in less than three decades would become the largest and most successful entertainment industry in history, that a game would gross more in a few weeks than the most successful movie in history had earned in decades.

California Pacific’s version of Akalabeth was priced at $34, of which I received $5; and they sold thirty thousand copies. I had earned $150,000, more than twice my father’s yearly salary as an astronaut.

I had to grow into my success

That $150,000 return on a $200 investment was phenomenally high; every game since then has had a much lower return on its investment.

meteorites is evenly distributed across the earth. On average there is at least one visibly sized meteor lying on the ground per every kilometer on earth.

there are two environments on earth in which meteorites may still be found in abundance. One is in desert regions like the Sahara, where people search for them with ultralight airplanes or large magnetometers. While they can be quickly buried by the shifting sands, the desert winds may expose them months or years later. The other region, arguably the best place on earth to find meteorites, is Antarctica.

There is only one private company arranging tours throughout the interior of Antarctica: Adventure Networks International, founded by my business partner Mike McDowell.

Antarctica some of the natural laws we take for granted just don’t apply. Antarctica is literally silent. It is a silence so profound that when the wind stops blowing there is nothing to be heard. There are no insects in Antarctica.

In our normal environment we all know, for example, the size of objects like cars and telephone poles, and we know that as we get farther away from them they become smaller in our field of vision. In Antarctica there are no cars or telephone poles or other man-made objects of any kind. There is nothing to use as a basis for size comparison.

Antarctica is larger than North America, but it is the least populated place on the surface of the earth.

It is an environment in which every decision you make can have an impact on your survival. Like space, it is unforgiving. We were equipped with the most technologically advanced safety gear and still had to be extremely cautious.

We made it to the South Pole and along the way found over forty meteorites, ranging from the size of a raisin to the size of a Ping-Pong ball. Initially, meteorites look no different from black rocks

Unlike in the movies, piranha, I learned, will not generally attack unprovoked.

vacuum-tube TV to watch Muhammad Ali’s fights. It didn’t interest me. When I became an adult I liked it even less, considering it a blood sport that often exploited economically disadvantaged young men. I watched the promoters making a bunch of money, but it was rare that a fighter walked away from the sport uninjured and financially secure.

I used to think boxing was a pretty simple sport; two guys stand toe to toe beating the hell out of each other until one guy can’t take it anymore and falls down and the other person wins. Well, that was wrong. Boxing is very much like fencing; it is very difficult to hit someone who knows how not to get hit.

For Robert, it was all about shareholder return and return on capital.

If the leader comes in late and departs early, that becomes the way the rest of the company operates.

As I wasn’t being paid a salary, but only earned an income after a game was published and successful, I felt like I was clearly doing enough to create the next best-selling game.

I’ve always believed that creativity can’t be produced on demand. Sometimes the spark is there and sometimes it’s not.

unimpeded

I learned how to run a business in an industry that was changing drastically every month.

“Occasionally wrong, but never in doubt,”

In less than six months, the IBM PC became the dominant machine in the market; everything else, including the Apple II, was suddenly irrelevant.

Those half-completed games were essentially valueless, forcing us to start from scratch without any employees who knew how to program on the IBM PC; it used a completely different language that was not easy to learn. We would have to retrain our existing staff and/or hire new people. Robert calculated it would cost at least $2 million to finish the games, which was almost $2 million more than we had in the bank at the time.

When you make a mistake like this, you can either take your loss or you can double down.

The odds of success were relatively slim. In the video game industry about 90 percent of games fail. The logical decision was to close the company.

I’ve long wondered about is, when we finally make contact with other civilizations, how will they communicate with us? It’s possible their language will have a symbolic representation

language and writing is the foundation of a society

In school, the Runic script I had learned from Tolkien proved to be very important. It was at least part of the reason I was a B or C student rather than failing many courses. Because no one else could read my Runic, including my teachers, I could write down anything I wanted and keep it in plain view. Before an exam I simply would write all the information I might need, in Runic, on the cover of that subject’s folder and when I came into class I would drop the folder down on my desk or on the floor where I could easily see it.

I discovered the key to the creation of my next language—a book entitled Semantography/Blissymbolics by Charles Bliss. Blissymbolics is universal pictographic writing system that enables people to communicate with mentally handicapped children.

what we in the gaming industry call “min-maxing” the game: players were spending the minimum time and effort to reach the maximum reward, victory. They didn’t care very much about the story, only about advancing.

I think much of the Old Testament dogma is no longer relevant. How could I proclaim that people should not eat pork if I believed that law had been made specifically to protect people from diseases common at that time but that were no longer a threat?

I wanted people playing my games to believe their character accurately reflected their own feelings and beliefs. At that time the concept of a gaming “avatar” did not yet exist. I learned about avatars while doing research on philosophy and virtue; Hindus use the word to describe the physical manifestation of an earthly belief or philosophy. When Hindu gods manifest on earth, they take the form of the god’s avatar. I thought, This is the player’s manifestation in my world, the world of Britannia. For a time I actually owned the trademark on the word, but it became so common so quickly that it was impossible to protect.

Quest of the Avatar was published in 1985 it was very successful, with sales surpassing all previous Ultimas.

we used to joke that if we really wanted to, we probably could make a pretty darn good religion. As we all know, there is a lot of money to be made in the business of selling belief systems. The reason we didn’t is because I consider it immoral. The entire concept of creating a fictional philosophy based on positive virtues in order to gain power and notoriety, and make a lot of money, is reprehensible to me.

My goal each time I design a new game is to create a world that requires only the smallest suspension of disbelief for the player to believe it is real.

Before D&D the only games I knew were board games like Monopoly in which players follow a strict set of rules, and the only way to win is to follow the instructions. If you draw a Go Directly to Jail card, you have to go directly to jail. You can’t plead for a lesser penalty, you can’t hire a great lawyer, you must go directly to jail.

While initially D&D did have a rulebook, the rules mostly were storytelling guidelines. And most players ignored them.

Growing up in Houston, just outside the front gates of NASA, I thought most everybody’s father went into space.

Austin, Texas. The slogan proudly used by people who live there is “Keep Austin Weird,”

You Imagine” were replaced by the web address magicatthemanor.com. When the invitation was put in a freezer, that phrase disappeared and the poem “magically” reappeared. It was printed with a special ink called FriXion, which is normally sold as erasable ink.

I have a problem, for instance, with people who claim to be able to speak with animals and dead relatives. This is a very well-known, easily learned technique known as cold reading. It’s “magic” being used to exploit deep emotions and, too often, to steal money, and obviously is unscrupulous.

Our servers couldn’t handle it. This is commonly referred to as “the m-squared problem.”

Buyers for the largest game retailers like GameStop, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart didn’t have the time to meet with a hundred different game makers to review their games and decide how to fill their limited shelf space. They were interested in speaking only to the industry leaders, the top four or five publishers who controlled a large percentage of the market.

in order to compete, we just had to get bigger. We either had to gang up with several other small companies to become a single larger entity

We tried to knit together a consortium of smaller companies, which we then planned to take public. “Taking it public” was always a pretty enticing phrase.

The reality is that EA earns most of its revenue with terrific games like Madden Football. Every year they publish a new edition, which reflects the changes in the NFL. They don’t have to create much that’s new—they just tweak their football game engine and update the rosters. The rules of football change slowly. At the deadline they wrap it up and release it. The audience is presold.

at age thirteen, when our NASA doctor told me that because of my eyesight I would not qualify to become an astronaut. I wondered who had made this NASA doctor the gatekeeper to outer space?

NASA was not an entrepreneurial program, it was established to be a space-research program.

Singularity University —part university, part start-up accelerator

He was the person capable of transforming Peter’s concept into real dollars.

Three months later Roscosmos informed us the cost for an individual to be launched into space to live on the International Space Station for two weeks was exactly what we had guessed, $20 million.

[Daiya Hashimoto · Rating 3 out of 5]

One day, Lord British, his title in the game, exercising his privilege of invisible mode, was silently observing what game players were doing in the virtual world of Ultima Online he made. He came to a river and saw a fisherman sitting on the bank fishing. Then, a heavy-armed adventurer returning triumphantly from the dungeon passed by the fisherman.

When fighter became sympathetic with the fisherman with no arms and offered him his redundant weapons, the fisherman promptly declined the offer and said: “No, no, you ruffian. I come out here in the morning and I set my line and catch my fish. In the afternoon I take my fish into town and sell them to the villagers for a modest profit, and with the profit I go to the pub and enjoy my drinks and food with my dear friends and we share the stories of the day. This is the life I lead, that is the life I like, so be gone, warmonger. ”

Richard was happy hearing this conversation. He was content with the unique world he had designed. He was really able to realize that he succeeded in making the alternative world in which players could freely choose their ownlives. Different from other games, players don't have to fight with monsters.

He was born as a son of an astronaut and brought up in a facility of NASA with national top scientists. He produced legendary games, ULTIMA series in his early years and became a billionaire. However he was not good at business management, he retired in early forties. Recently he has invested in what he was interested in like polar expeditions, space travels, haunting attractions, exploring the next themes.

To his mind, rules are not to be obeyed, but able to change arbitrarily. He confessed that he was not able to go to the office in the morning. As Ultima became a big hit and the employees were busy making the sequel, they were confused with their elusive president, but he didn't care about it at all. He continued this work style. It took very long time to realize that he found management wasn’t his cup of tea. His strong concentration on only what he was really interested in had to be the driving force to produce the legendary games.

He looks excited speaking about the 1970's computer founding period, Ultima's big success, struggles in business, a rally with Ultima Online, failure games, his retirement from games, space travel and pole exploration, and what he is doing now. This book is dangerous book, infecting us with creativity.

[Ricardo Sousa · Rating 5 out of 5]

9/10

What a life… and what a ride!

You may not be interested in everything this book has to offer. You may not be interested in many of the things this book has to offer. But I’ll be damned if you don’t engage with it deeply multiple times throughout the journey!

From chasing meteorites in Antarctica to a D&D frenzy with multiple games in parallel, from visiting the remains of the Titanic to the art of creating a brand new language for video game, from hiper-realistic haunted houses to flying into outer space - this book has something for everyone!

Yes, it is not the most well-written or well-edited book you will read. Not even close. And yes, ego does kick-in here and there. The fair rating all things considered would probably be 4 stars. But to hell with that - this book is an absolute trip!!!

Ideal for explorers at heart (and Ultima fans I guess), but highly recommended for everyone else too!

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this. I did. But..

This book is exactly as out of touch and pompous as you'd expect a born-to-privilege billionaire to be. I fully acknowledge that it would be impossible for Mr. Garriott to describe going to space, having lunch on the deck of the Titanic, going to space, meeting celebrities, going to space, dropping multiple six figure sums on dinner with celebrities (and did I mention buying a private ticket to space? ) in a humble way, but he might have toned down a tad that it was due to how awesome and creative he is instead of a huge bank account that made it all happen. "Truthfully, how many people have to hire stuntmen and animal wranglers for their own wedding?" (page 126) .. Uhh.. how many people can do that, Richard? Does this mean you're super cool and creative? Or does it just simply mean you have more money? Less back patting, please.


I'm pretty sure he couldn't describe what he ate for breakfast this morning without somehow mentioning his trip to space. It's on every page. We get it. You went to space.


3 stars for the portion that talks about my favorite game of all time, Ultima Online. It's not an exaggeration to say it changed my life in very big ways. I enjoyed the stories that talked about it and the history of all Ultima games. I appreciated the insight behind the world that gave me the most immersive internet magic I've ever felt along with life-long friendships and even poignant exes. Those chapters were fun to read, except for when they also somehow managed to talk about buying a ticket to space.

[James Abreu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book after already having completed Master's of Doom, and Sid Meier's Memoir, and I can confidently say that this book belongs in that collection of great books on game developers. I'll admit that Garriott's book, of all three, is much less about games and game making and more about the adventures of his life. However, Garriott is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a fantastic story teller, and I was at the edge of my seat for most of the book.

When I studied music history in college, it wasn't really about the process classic composers used to produce great works of art, it was about their lives and all the chaos and order that surrounded it to produce the kind of person passionate enough to give us the masterpieces we have today. In that sense, I think this book does Garriott justice, for he would not have made such fascinating and entertaining games if he wasn't already such an interesting person.

His pursuits and stories reminds us that ultimately when we reach out and touch the world, the ideas and inspiration is enough to keep a passionate game developer such as Garriott primed with fascinating ideas for his games. And thank goodness for that!

[Pete · Rating 3 out of 5]

Explore / Create: My Life at the Extremes (2017) by Richard Garriott is an autobiography of the creator of the Ultima Series and founder of Origin Systems, Richard Garriott. Garriott is an amazing guy who created incredible games, threw fantastic parties and got himself into space. His father was also an astronaut.

Given Garriott's remarkable achievements the book is a disappointment, it reads more like a series of blog posts than a book. Despite that, for anyone who played Ultima games or knows of Garriott's remarkable life it's of value.

Garriott writes about how playing D & D from an early age had such an impact on how he wanted to create games. He writes about how he geocaches, how he built adventure rides in his own home, his adventures in space and in the depths of the ocean. He's certainly led an incredible life.

The book, however, doesn't flow and feels cobbled together. Like Garriott had so much stuff he wanted to write about but couldn't assemble in a coherent way. Still, for anyone curious about the man behind the games and his life it's worth a read.

[Josh Kanownik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. There are interesting stories here, but I didn't get as much on what shaped him or motivated him as I would get out of a biography. I also feel like a biography would have expanded on certain parts of his history more. There are glimpses of what could have been in the Ultima Online stories. Even those though were ultimately unsatisfying for me. Hard to recommend for general audiences or based on the topics covered (exploration, business and video game development). Easy to recommend if you are really interested in the man himself. It is an easy read and there are some great nuggets in the different stories he tells.

There are two things I wish I knew before I read this book. Garriott's father was an astronaut and his brother handled the business side of their original video game company. I don't say those things to diminish Richard's accomplishments. It is to point out that in an autobiography you don't get a lot of exploration into how those two interacted with and influenced Richard's life. It is hard to learn from or generalize those specific experiences without them.

[Ilya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just realized I didn't write a review for this beautiful and a quite dramatic story.
Yes, it's not a regular "knowledge transfer" book where the author goes into his insights and experiences. Richard is a great storyteller, and you see that thru his journey as well as thru his writing itself.

I was able to reflect on my own life while reading it. Reconsider some worldviews and learned a ton about the gaming industry as well as private space flights pioneering.
Now, I'm playing computer games with my kids a bit more, helping them navigate around a wide selection of games (I wish I had such privilege in my childhood 😬) by curating their tastes, reading reviews together and just discussing our preferences.

I would read that book again at some point, yeah, that's one of *those* books.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Breezy, entertaining and informative read by one of Austin's more notable residents, Richard Garriott. Inspiring tales from his professional and personal life abound in this book, ranging from early video game development to modern day space exploration. He's obviously a highly intelligent being who has achieved much professional success and personal wealth (including that "massive Austin house on the hill" a.k.a. Britannia Manor), but the best takeaway from this fun memoir is the insight into his driving motivations: an endless curiosity coupled with a boundless desire for adventure and experience.

[Dr Wang Jenn Chyuan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A glimpse into a different and very fascinating world. His life gives him the constant sparks of creativity and an astronaut's view of life and an aquanaut's depth of knowledge and the distance he takes through Amazon to make things happen. His budding interests were nurtured through the closely knitted community of scientists, adventurers, engineers and entrepreneurs before entering the cutthroat world of corporate America.
Finally, he always maintain an almost childlike interest and facination with both science and fantasy and even Stephen Hawkins and the lengths he goes through to achieve them. These are revealing through his ideas and gaming concepts. Facinating. To read again book.

[Emanuele Vaccari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Garriott is a very peculiar human being: he went to space, into the Titanic carcass and also impacted millions of lives by inventing the MMORPG genre, at least the modern concept of it.

This books talks about these and other things from a personal perspective: it's not a "biography" but its entertaining and inspiring. I'm not giving it 5 stars because i finished the book wondering how many more stories Mr. Garriott could pack in it :). Still would recommend to anyone that looks for amazing stories of amazing people.

P.S. Took me a while to read it because it was a "bedside book" and i didn't read often before sleeping!

[Jody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Garriott is a really interesting guy who has had an eventful life. Explore/Create is a great overview of his accomplishments and achievements, plus is a fascinating look at his creation process when it came to the Ultima series. While the book says you can read it in any order, I do think going straight through is the best method of reading this book. The exploration and creation chapters feed off each other in a way that shows that exploration and creation are two adjacent facets of the same die.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating and approachable

This book is a memoir and a master class in life. While he did have a variety of opportunities that many of us haven't, but part of the opportunities he has had just required thinking creatively and deciding to take the risk. Aside from the normal tales and life lesson, this also has a lot of invitations to interact through social media, typically Twitter. So read, learn, maybe message the author.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Garriott did it again!! Explore/Create did a wonderful job of keeping pace, telling a childhood story of growing up in an Astronaut neighborhood, the beginnings of an incredible software startup which leads to travels beyond the atmosphere. There is at least one story that is partially repeated, however the first instance is more of a lead than an actual story itself, other then that this is a great read and I would recommend this book to anyone.

[Brandon Hafeli · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of an inspirational than an autobiography. Garriott is definitely a fascinating person, and he's not afraid to tell you so. His has been a charmed life, as he tells it -- everything turns out great, and for the most part quite easily. I think I'd be more interested in an outside view of his life.

[Vegasblt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not like most books I have read. You can literally pick it up and read a chapter and it is a full story to itself. This is a wonderful collection of real life stories that can inspire and young and old. I have bought this to give as gifts for some young readers in hope of inspiring them to live life to the fullest.

[Michel Sabbagh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Subject Appeal: 5/5.
Research Depth: 4/5.
Research Breadth: 5/5.
Narrative Flow: 4/5.

Verdict: 5/5. Like Garriott's mind, his book reads like an exercise in wanderlust, a heartfelt call to embracing the unknown.

[NotAWiz4rd · Rating 5 out of 5]

A solid 4.5 stars.
The only reason I don't give a full five stars is that the writing could have been better at points, and the chronology of events was sometimes a bit confusing.
But overall it was a great book.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

The origin of virtual worlds and a personal experience of actual spaceflight. Richard's offers to reach out to him via social media after finishing the book really add to the sense of engagement following

[Camille Kraus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this book in the giveaway! I found a ton of inspiration from this book. I was thoroughly entertained and began to think about what I aspire to achieve in life.

[Christopher Tallon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super cool book. It starts with RG recounting the time he got stuck under the Titanic in a submarine. I mean, who else has stories like that. And that's just the first few pages!

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating history of the Ultima series and other seminal games. It is marred by some slightly ableist language in the chapter about Stephen Hawking.

[Jon-Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. It is full of amazing stories and offers insight into a fabulous collection of ideas and worlds. Richard Garriott is one of my idols, and this book reinforces this for me.

[Jordi Valeri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Founder of online gaming, space traveller

[Jeff Maughan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like this book was written by Lord British and not Richard Garriott.

Ironically I got a better feel for Richard Garriott in the Contato biography than this work. The books complement each other and together paint a nice picture of this amazing creator.

[Stile Teckel · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I was very interested in receiving it, I also was worried that I would find it somewhat boring. Not due to lack of being well written or good content but rather as someone who has been following Richard Garriott at some level or another most of my life, I was worried it would all be old news to me.

Quite the contrary, there were only a couple sections of the book that feel this way to me. Areas that I had heard stories about from Richard or seen on Youtube had new insights and revelations. To my astonishment, I even learned about a few of Richard’s adventures in life I had not known of. I attribute this to the fact that as a public personality, time alone in private with him is rare. So topics tend to be the ones that the majority of the public pull from him.

This book allows for a format in which Richard gets to share adventures that may not be as popular, but I find none the less intriguing.

While he certainly offers some advice here and there, it is more narrative and story driven. Recounting major stories, turning points, and adventures in his life with some commentary. I personally, was then able to draw some corollary’s in my own life and learn from his experience.

Being done this way led to a fun story that at many times completely engaged me, drew me in, and made me feel like I was living it a bit. Not in the way a good Fiction Novel would, but well enough to help me feel the experiences he describes.

David Fisher did a fantastic job overall in capturing the nuances of Richards personality in person, in print. I have had the honor to engage with Richard face to face on occasion and many times as I read this book I could easily hear him telling me the story!

There can be a lot of reasons someone may be interested in this book. Hoping to gain some insight or wisdom from a creative individual perhaps. You may be a fan or follow of one area of his life such as video game or space travel and are looking for things specific to that. Maybe you just find him and his stories fun or exciting.

For me, it is a combination of all these things and many others, which put this book was on my wish list. Whichever reason you are considering purchasing it for, do yourself a favor and get on the preorder list. It’s not lengthy which for some will be positive. For myself, that was the only negative.

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The above is the primary part of a review I did of this book on my website. For the entire thing please visit: http://www.thecaverns.net/Wordpress/t...