Book review: Swordfighting, for Writers, Game Designers, and Martial Artists

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"This book is a collection of essays and articles, about half of which have been adapted from Guy’s successful blog, at guywindsor.com, the rest have never been published before."

http://guywindsor.net/blog/books/swordfighting-the-book/#sthash.5lezJdED.dpuf

Just a quick review of this book. Firstly I should say I'm a big fan of Guy Windsor. I read his Swordsman's Companion back in the day and since then I've kept up to date with his blog. I am, at the moment, very interested in reading general thoughts on the Art of swordsmanship so when he released this I was quite excited. I also found it quite interesting how you would explain the Art concisely to a complete lay person who perhaps isn't interested in wielding a sword but just wants to understand how it works. Great stuff I thought.

Now, I don't think the book does that or that Guy was really making much of an effort with this book. It really is just a loosely strung together collection of his online material and I very much got the impression that this was a book written for the sake of using that online material to generate income, i.e. a book that could be sold. I think I highlighted about three pages as noteworthy to come back to, which is unusual for any book I read on martial arts. I also think if I was a writer or game designer I wouldn't really have got much out of it either. On the flip side at $9.99 I hardly feel like I've wasted my money. The concept is good and perhaps it will stimulate someone to do it better?

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