I haven't seen anything here, but some of the old-school boards are buzzing about Jon Peterson's new book Playing at the World. In a nutshell, it's a 700-page monster of a tome that traces the creation of D&D from its roots in wargames and miniatures rules to the creation of the role-playing game in 1974.
Of particular interest to folks here:
The book has quite a few pages discussing the evolution of Swords & Sorcery literature; essentially talking about Appendix N and its relation to the game.
There are several instances where D&D gets bad reviews from folks who are unhappy at having to buy funky dice. While the original boxed set is mostly d6-based, Supplement I Greyhawk clearly pushes unusual dice into the spotlight with things like d8 HD for fighters and unusual dice damage. Essentially, many of the complaints from 1974-75 about OD&D could be word-for-word about DCC in 2012.
There's a lot to this book, and so far it's a pretty amazing read. When I started playing OD&D I had no idea about the behind-the-scenes stuff and it's pretty cool to read about it.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC Minister of Propaganda; Deputized 6/8/11 (over 11 years of SPAM bustin'!)
DCC RPG playtester 2011, DCC Lankhmar trivia contest winner 2015; OD&D player since 1975
"The worthy GM never purposely kills players' PCs, He presents opportunities for the rash and unthinking players to do that all on their own."
-- Gary Gygax
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!"
-- Dave Arneson
"Misinterpreting the rules is a shared memory for many of us"
-- Joseph Goodman
