Reviews for Pools: Good Ideas

The average rating for Pools: Good Ideas based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-07-30 00:00:00 Efstratios Perentes Loved this book. Learned a few things myself, and I highly recommend it to anyone interesting in the incredible subculture simmering just below the surface of the "real world". I'm pretty much a "lifer" in the Society for Creative Anachronism. Thirty years to date. I've seen the SCA featured in countless news clips, interviews, newspaper articles, etc, and quite a few of them were unkind, misinformed, disrespectful, or just plain embarrassing. O'Donnell gets to know the scene, gets to know the culture, immerses himself in the world, and writes what I would call an accurate, respectful book on the world that is the SCA. It wasn't cheap to buy. I picked it up quite some time ago, and maybe with the indie publishing upsurge, it's a little less expensive, I don't know. I didn't mind paying the price because I respect what this man did for us and I wanted to support him. If you're in the SCA, it's a must read. Support the man. If you're not, but considering coming out to see what's going on with those weirdos in the park, or even if you're just curious, give it a read. You'll have fun going along on the adventure, I promise.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-01-03 00:00:00 Jayson Cruzada Short version: Not bad for a long magazine article, not great for a book. Long version: I wouldn't call this so much a history as an expose, a nice journalistic paddle in the shallows of what the SCA is. Every so often, O'Donnell seems to hedge in the hopes of not offending SCA folk, which can be frustrating, if understandable. Further frustration sets in when you read about a particularly interesting aspect of the Society about which O'Donnell only has superficial things to say. Certainly don't expect to hear as much about fighting as about people. Perhaps the most satisfying thing is getting the back-story on Valharic, currently King of Atlantia and soon to become the Duke he dreams of being in O'Donnell's book.