John Romero's Autobiography, Doom Guy, Is Out Next Month

John Romero, the co-creator of Doom and Wolfenstein and one of the originators of the First Person Shooter, is releasing a new autobiography on July 18, aptly titled Doom Guy: Life In First Person. Preorders for the hardcover edition are available for $27.49 at Amazon, or you can pre-purchase the Kindle edition for $12.

According to the book’s description, the autobiography covers Romero’s childhood and early years coding games on Apple II computers, through his decades-long game development career, including the stories of how games like Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein 3D came to be.

Doom Guy sounds like a great read for anyone interested in the early years of id Games, the history of first person shooters, or game development in general. It should also make a great accompaniment to the book Masters of Doom by David Kushner, which chronicles the creative partnership--and eventual schism--between John Romero and John Carmack.

If you’re interested in books on other game industry icons, we also recommend Ask Iwata, which transcribes the late Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata’s “Ask Iwata” interviews with other Nintendo developers. There’s also Control Freak, the autobiography of Unreal Tournament and Gears of War creator Cliff “CliffyB” Bleszinski, and Spelunky by Spelunky creator Derek Yu.