I think it's truly remarkable that a book like this is written and published in Finland. I think that in this book Mikko Saari presents an clear alternative to computer games and traditional boardgames commonly played in Finland. The book is written for laymen but it's fairly useful for a gamer too. Well I have to say that Mikko's internet page www.lautapelaaja.net is far more useful than this book for me.

The Author

I appreciate Mikko's point of view in boardgames and before a purchase of a boardgame I usually check his opinion of the game if it's available. As a member of the Suomen lautapeliseura (The National Boardgame Association) and due to the fact that Mikko Saari has the best site about boardgames in Finnish, I am quite certain that he is the foremost authority of boardgames in Finland. Therefore he is the right person to write a book about the hobby.

The Book

The core of the book is about boardgames. He presents more than 150 reviews of contemporary games. Even though I like the symbols presenting different games the different games aren't categorized properly. I think the authors should have read Pelien Kirja (Book of Games(traditional)) before publishing this. The Pelien Kirja book is so much more useful because all of the games are clearly categorized. If you'd like to play a brainbender game that is a multiplayer game and taking moderate amount of time you can easily find it. But using Uudet Lautapelit it's fairly impossible to find fast what kind of game you'd want to play. It has just alphabetical index in the back. It's not enough.

Although the style of book is clear, it's not as impressive looking as it should. Again the Pelien Kirja (PK) is a lot more beautiful. It's pleasure to read PK because it has very artistic multicolor pictures. Uudet Lautapelit (UL) resembles computer game books with it's appearance. Well the main issue is the content not the pictures, right?

Conclusion

The reviews are very useful and provide a good view to the hobby. The text is remarkably well written. There is a lot of insight and Mikko clearly shows the love that he has to this great hobby. I sincerely hope that this book will be a bestseller or atleast financially profitable. I'd like to see more books in Finnish about the hobby. It looks that boardgames have a great future ahead in Finland. Slowly but surely the hobby conquers the world!

Financially profitable, perhaps, but a best seller - well, let's just say that there are so few copies printed that even if all sell, it still won't register on charts. Nonfiction books on even somewhat popular topics like this just aren't something that sells, at all, unless the author is famous or something like that happens.

But I'm glad you enjoyed the book. There aren't enough pictures in the book and it would've been nice to have colour, but that's a price issue and the book is darn expensive already.