I finally finished reading Shantaram last night, it was quite a treat to read. The 933 page tome was quite daunting at first but Gregory David Roberts (the author) seems to have the stuff to make you glued to the book for hours on end. I should admit one thing though, when i first picked up the book i assumed it was complete fact and that no part of it was fabricated, but a few google searches told me that it was in fact 'a novel describing real life behind a facade of fiction'. There is a term for such a thing i found out - roman a clef.

This did reduce my enthusiasm about reading the book a little but still the story itself was riveting enough for me to finish the damn thing ! Well i guess there is fiction in every fact and fact in every fiction hehe seems like one of those one liners that karla(one of the characters in the book) says. So i guess the process of including some or a lot of fact in a work of fiction does give it a sort of credibility i think. The Da Vinci Code is a prime example of such a work, Dan Brown does that in all of his novels. He sprinkles the text with a lot of details about the place or object that the protagonist is in or is looking at. Actually in a description of the louvre (the art museum in France) he actually describes the place wrong but it still seems credible because of the way he puts it !

Anyways found this really cool place to read about the blood, sweat and tears that are shed during game development http://www.gamespot.com/features/btg/

the ones on the half life games are particularly awesome. You could also read about the demise of ION storm, the makers of Daikatana or the rise of Maxis, creators of such memorable titles as SIMcity. the SIMS, SIMant etc