Sean Fannon has done an admirable job in writing a book that easily introduces role-playing games (RPGs) to someone who knows nothing of that strange but wonderful sub-culture, but is curious to know more. Fannon's style is readable and entertaining, balancing tons of useful information with bits of whimsy (the editor's constant "berating" of Fannon in the footnotes for Fannon's endless use of puns is especially funny). You get the history of RPGs, the general outline of how they are played, how to find other gamers, etc. And as a special bonus, you get the art of John Kovalic (of DORK TOWER fame) throughout the book. The only quibbles I have are that the book is not well edited; paragraphs run together sometimes, and some of the "bordered" text runs outside the borders. Also, old gamers will find much of this info redundant, having lived through it all before. In all, though, this is an excellent book for new gamers.