I have all the books mentioned here. two more i'd add to the list: foley and van damm et al (the original "gang of four") and neuman and sproull. the newer and older "graphics bibles" back then. also abrash's 96 cgdc lecture on the quake engine, which i attended. I was about to licence rendermorphics' reality lab for SIMtrek/SIMSpace, when MS bought out the company, and took the product off the market. they spent a year turning it into directx 1.0. in the mean time, I was forced to write my own perspective correct texture mapped poly engine, and yes, i was using dos4g and VESA and borland pascal or watcom C. FYI: gardens was written by a lurker author (NOT gamedev) on compuserv's gamedev forum. one of those guys who'd ask a bunch of questions, then go write a book and make money off the answers we gave him. You'd see that kind of stuff on that forum from time to time, some guy asking some question, next thing you know, he's published a book, or sold his game to paramount or some such thing. it was THE goto forum for game development at the time. very similar to this website in that respect.

Well, it takes more than knowledge to write good books. Christopher Lampton has written a bunch of them, and I enjoyed (still do) the Gardens of Imagination book.

He has a knack for writing.

He is frank about not being 'in the graphics scene'; not every technical writer needs to be in the thick of it.

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He is a much better writer than LaMothe.

But doesn't match Abrash - who is both an excellent writer/story-teller and in in the thick of things.

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FYI: gardens was written by a lurker author (NOT gamedev) on compuserv's gamedev forum. one of those guys who'd ask a bunch of questions, then go write a book and make money off the answers we gave him. You'd see that kind of stuff on that forum from time to time, some guy asking some question, next thing you know, he's published a book, or sold his game to paramount or some such thing. it was THE goto forum for game development at the time. very similar to this website in that respect.

Lampton explicitly sends a warmfelt thanks to you guys on CompuServ in the acknowledments section in the book.

I wouldn't call a person who actively ask questions to be a lurker. And besides: should he have mentioned that he was writing a book?

I'd rather have him research his subject matter than not bothering you people.