These days, you can't throw a stick in a bookstore without hitting a gambling book. Poker tournaments are becoming regular sights on network TV, and online poker sites grow more and more popular. And if you watch those TV tourneys, you'll notice one thing: the final table is often filled with guys who look like they might still be in college. David Kushner, author of Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture tells us who those guys are and how they came to be there in a story that should warm the cockles of any true geek's heart.

Johnny Magic and the Card Shark Kids is many things, among them a history of D&D culture and an account of the creation and subsequent pop culture explosion of the game Magic: the Gathering. But first and foremost, it's the story of Jon Finkel, a prototypical uber-geek who harnesses his massive brain to the study of Magic and goes farther than anyone would have believed.

Finkel's story resonates with the reader because we've all been there, to some degree. We've all felt alienated and alone, and a good many of us have turned, like Jon did, to the welcoming arms of SF, fantasy, and D&D. Watching Jon grow and change from a lonely, troubled teen into a successful and happy adult is an uplifting experience, and Kushner does a great job telling his story.

Kushner is equally adept at telling the story of Richard Garfield and the creation of Magic: the Gathering. We get it all, from idea to inception. Plus, Finkel's story is so intertwined with the story of Magic that we end up with a pretty good history of the cultural phenomenon that the game became.

People like Garfield and Finkel leap off the page, as do the more minor characters -- Kushner is adept at capturing their voices and letting them speak to the reader.

Everything about the book works, from story to design. It even includes appendices on the basics of Magic: the Gathering, Blackjack, and Texas Hold 'em. There's an author afterword where Kushner lays out his own geek credentials, and I'm tempted to believe that this is the secret to the book's success: Kushner is one of us. The story rings true not just because it's factual, but because the author really understands his subject. It's Kushner's gift to be able to share that knowledge in a way that makes us all able to understand as well.
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