Skip's Reviews > Pinball: A Graphic History of the Silver Ball

I was disappointed by this book, which told the long history of pinball -- from SoHo down to Brighton, he must have played them all. I think the reasons for my disappointment are two fold: first, trying to explain something that is just pure fun gets lost in words and images. You got to play to understand the enjoyment. Second, there were too many images on each page so that details were sacrificed. A larger or longer book would have helped. Trying to explain creativity is also a chore, and this seemed to manifest itself only in the last eight pages or so when finally the images exploded off the page. The history is a bit dry, and the industry was overrun by video games, which then moved into homes killing arcades and most of the pinball manufacturers. Sadly, pinball machines remain an oddity, found mostly in sports bars and collector game rooms these days.