SPI on AD&D: Mostly Pig Lips

The Dragon #22 (Feb, 1979) contains Gary Gygax's famous "SPI on AD&D" article — a scornful response to Strategy & Tactics' unfavorable review of the AD&D Players Handbook. While the details of Gary's response are comparatively well known (or at least easy to find), the original review is not. What follows is a transcription of that original review:

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (TSR Games, PO Box 756, Lake Geneva, WI, 53147; $9.95). A Players Handbook, compiling all sorts of information for the D&D crowd. Hardbound (it resembles one of those Golden Wonder Books I used to get stuck with when I was a kid), this is a method to get you to buy what you already have (unless you don't have it, in which case it's not a bad idea). Sort of like the middle ages of rock, when they would put out an album of "Willy One-Book's Greatest Hits". Now you already have everything on the album, in one form or another; but you wouldn't be caught dead without the new item. Same goes for this book. Now it's not that I don't think D&D is a worthwhile pastime; most certainly, it is. A great deal of it is quite clever; then again, most of it is a mound of pig lips. Alas, I know I will be branded a pariah for this outburst. Suffice to say, D&Ders will drool mightily over this. So will Gary G's accountant. Written (rather than grace it with the word designed) by Gary Gygax. One further word: D&D has managed to avoid the great pitfall of role-playing games — rampant silliness. For that it deserves much credit; it is faithful to itself.
—Rich Berg

From Strategy & Tactics 71, p 20.