Review: Gamers

Gamers
Gamers, Book 1

Author: Thomas K. Carpenter
Pages: 324
Publisher: Createspace
Source: Author for review

Description from Goodreads:
Two points for brushing your teeth. Ten points for keeping your room tidy. Seventy-two points for the Bioeconomic Game Design pop quiz on the ride to school in your personal FunCar. Another thirty for making every hurdle in gym class.

Life is a game, unless you're not the one winning.

Gabby DeCorte, top student and reality-hacker extraordinaire, has been doing whatever it takes to keep her best friend, Zaela, from falling behind in LifeGame. Zaela has gifts of artistry that amaze Gabby, but none of those skills translate in LifeGame and with final exams coming up, they can't afford to waste a single minute. But when a mysterious group called the Frags contacts Gabby claiming to know what really happens to the losers of LifeGame, she must choose between winning and what she believes in.

First Sentence: "The green sky loomed over the high school track like a bowl of pea soup upended."

Review:

Gamers is one of two self-pubs I have on my list to read for Dystopian February. Though I'm generally skeptical of self-published books, Thomas K. Carpenter sent me a real review request, one where he'd looked up my name and read some of my work. I appreciate when the requesters have done their due diligence before contacting me, and his book actually fit within the broad swath of genres I enjoy, which happens surprisingly rarely.

Like a few other dystopian novels I've read, Gamers considers a society where life is like a video game, the average person a mere player moving about in an artificial reality. The construct is a fascinating one, which is no doubt the reason it's proved so popular with authors. What's cool about it, though, is that, even though I've read at least four books which used this basic premise, they all have been able to do unique things with it, because the landscape and functioning of the gaming world can vary so widely.

The gamers get points for everything they do, from taking tests to personal hygiene to leisure activities. These points add up to a Life Score, a number which determines your ranking and whether the person will be able to attend college. This is LifeGame, where people walk around collecting points like Mario collects little gold coins from his car in MarioKart.

What's really cool about Gamers are the layers of gaming. From within LifeGame, the players can enter another game. It makes me wonder where real life actually begins. There's a sort of Inception-like quality to it, in that there's no way to say where the game ends. Every aspect of your life can be peered into and affected by a hacker or coder. It's a really scary thought.

The first half of Gamers reads like a science fiction novel, setting up the world and establishing how LifeGame works. Once that's done, you learn the inevitable dark underbelly of the world. At about the midway point, there's a sort of genre change when, from within LifeGame, Gabby and the other students enter a game as their final test to determine whether they will get into college. The game has the feel of a high fantasy video game. I found both parts entertaining, and fast-paced.

The characters never really grabbed me, and do not develop all that much over the course of the novel. I do appreciate, though, the complex relationships between Zaela, Gabby, and Avony. They could have been a bit more deftly-handled, but I like that they're not black and white, and none of the girls is demonized or placed on a pedestal. No one in Gamers comes off as utterly perfect, which is a nice change from so many idealized YA heroines.

So far as the editing goes, I do think Gamers could benefit from a bit more editing. I noticed several errors, but they weren't on every page by any mean. The strangest errors were misspellings with double letters, like scrapping instead of scraping, chaffed instead of chafed, and gripped instead of griped.

Gamers is a quick, enjoyable, fast-paced dystopian read. I think it is best-suited perhaps for a younger teen, even middle grade, audience or for more reluctant readers. As of 2/12/13, the Kindle edition is free temporarily on Amazon, on sale from $5.99, so if you're curious there's no better time!

Rating: 3/5

Favorite Quote: "'Next time could you kill some errant chefs or something? I'm hungry and all, but this jerky is awful. I think I almost prefer a stick to it.'"

Zee Deveel - Incubus

Erebos

Author: Ursula Poznanski
Pages: 434 
ARC Acquired from: Annick Press via NetGalley

Brief Summary:
Nick begins to worry when his friend Colin starts acting strangely. Then other people at his school begin acting this way too: talking to people they wouldn't usually give the time of day, passing around mysterious little packages, and skipping school and basketball practice. No one will tell him what's up, which is seriously frustrating. Finally, someone chooses him as the recipient of a package, and he discovers that the disc inside contains a computer game called Erebos. Quickly, the game starts taking over his life, just as he's watched it do to other people. Eventually, through the gamer haze, he begins to suspect that this game may have an evil plan

Review:
In Soviet Russia, game plays you. Okay, so this novel is set in Britain, not the Soviet Union, but I couldn't resist the joke. Because this game really does play you. For those of you who are frustrated by a friend or loved one who neglects you for video games, be grateful that they don't have this one. This is one computer parents really should be afraid of their kids playing.

It's funny reading this book, because I know that I would probably have accepted the disk (assuming someone tried to give me one anyway, which would have been doubtful in high school), totally without intention of keeping its secrets, out of desperation to know what the heck was going on. Unlike the people in the book, I doubt I would have been sucked in. Likely, because I would have died immediately. I am not skilled at this kind of game. Or, I would have wanted some food or to go to the bathroom, pissing off (punned) the Messenger, the guy in control of the game world.

At first, I wasn't particularly into this book. I considered stopping, but persisted because of the amazing reviews I saw of it. Turns out I'm glad I stuck with it, although this isn't a book I would ever reread. It was still good, and dealt with some really fascinating concepts.

As much as I said that I would not enjoy playing the game, I can still appreciate how freaking cool the game itself is. If you are a gamer and do not desperately wish you could play Erebos, something is wrong with you. Just kidding...mostly. The game has so many possibilities, because of the AI in it. Wow.

The characterization wasn't all that great, at least not in the real world. Nick and Emily, who get the most screen time, never really felt like real people to me. The others, of course, were incredibly one dimensional, like Colin, for example. He and Nick were best friends, but the reader never learns a single good thing about Colin. He's almost the villain of the piece. Actually, the two characters who seem most realistic are Victor and Adrian, who have smaller parts.

On the other hand, everything and everyone in the world of Erebos seems so much more real. This was likely done intentionally. The reason people could not escape from the game, and, often, had mental breakdowns when they couldn't play anymore, was because the artifice felt more real than reality.

So yeah, this was pretty cool. If you have gamer friends who also like to read, they might love this. Present idea!

Rating: 3/5

"You should be careful what you wish for
Cause everyone of us has the devil inside
You should be careful what you wish for
Cause all of what amounts becomes you"

The Egg and I - Seatbelts

Ready Player One

Author: Ernest Cline
Pages: 372
ARC Acquired from: Crown via NetGalley

Brief Summary:
Wade Watts had little to no social life, even when he had to leave his hideout; He's overweight and incredibly nerdy, not exactly the combination to make someone popular. So it should come as no surprise that he jumped at the opportunity to take classes online in OASIS, a simulated world that you can interact in like it's the real world via haptic gloves (or suits) and glasses that show you everything your avatar sees. When the OASIS's creater, Halliday, dies, he left his money to whoever can go on the ultimate scavenger hunt and locate the egg, he has hidden somewhere within his creation. Ready Player One is the story of Parzival's (Wade's avatar) hunt for the egg; it should come as no surprise that he became a gunter (egg hunter).

Review:
One of the main themes of the book, yet again unsurprisingly, is the question of whether life in the OASIS is really living. Cline seems to come down on both sides of the fence there, believing that real connections can be made mentally, stronger than those in the normal world even because the physical part does not get in the way. Still, he frequently has Wade comment on the fact that no one leaves their houses and really interacts with the world anymore, which seems to be seen as a bad thing. Certainly, in a perfect (or even halfway decent world) I do think people should not spend all of their time in an alternate reality; that's not healthy.

However, people really need an escape, because the Earth has pretty much been destroyed. Enter dystopian aspects of the story here. The world sucks. Most people, in America at least, live in trailers. And since they ran out of space for the trailers, they started stacking them in precarious towers. Pretty much everyone's poor, unless they've sold their souls to an evil conglomeration like IOI or were lucky enough to invent something like OASIS. If you are lucky enough to earn some money, you are likely to have it stolen from you by the many predators hanging around the trailers. No wonder people want to live somewhere else; in fact, if Wade gets the money, he wants to build a spaceship and get the hell out of Dodge.

Still, even without everything being a shitstorm outside the aptly named OASIS, I know anyone with a nerdy bone in their body would at least want to be there for a while, because there are planets and planes from every sci fi franchise under the sun. Try to tell me you don't want to ride on the Serenity or visit the planets from Star Wars (with the possible exceptions of Dagobah or Hoth or, well, maybe most of them actually, but I would like to check out the Death Star and Endor)! The fact that people do become obsessed with their alternate realities is no surprise though. Certainly I know a few people who would be all over that, doing quests, visiting the worlds of their favorite games, gunting...they'd never want to leave. Plus, I know I would have loved the chance to miss all of middle school and probably high school too for this online version. Not only would it save me from having to be lonely during my awkward teen years, but it also sounds super freaking cool. I mean, for history class, they can be part of a simulation in which the event they're studying takes place; I bet science was like being a kid in Ms. Frizzle's class! Who wouldn't want to learn that way?

Even better, the whole story is completely chock full of nerdy references, mostly from the 80s, but some more modern things too. This gave me a number of opportunities to nerd out. Ernest Cline clearly loves science fiction, anime, fantasy, as well as family comedies like Family Ties. He also loves Ladyhawke, which there is a debate about the book. I must share my opinion on this matter, which is that it is freaking awesome, especially the soundtrack. Plus, Matthew Broderick was such a sweetie pie when he was little.

So yeah, all nerds, science fictions lovers, dystopia enthusiasts, and video gamers who like to read will definitely want to add this one to the to read list. Personally, I hope to see more equally nerdy fiction from Cline in the future!

Note: Today's song is one that the characters ought to approve of, taken from the soundtrack for Cowboy Bebop.

Ramona - Guster

Scott Pilgrim

Author: Bryan Lee O'Malley
Volumes: 6
Publisher: Oni Press, Inc.

Brief Summary:
Scott Pilgrim is 23 and his life is not going anywhere. If anything, he's regressing, what with dating a high schooler and all (super shady times). He's in a band that's really probably likely not very good, has no job and shares a super crappy and tiny apartment with his gay friend Wallace (pretty much the only smaller and crappier apartment I have seen is the one I lived in last year in Pittsburgh). Scott starts seeing a new girl, Ramona Flowers, everywhere and he wants her real bad, so much so that he kind of forgets he has an awkward high school girlfriend. Oops. Well, he gets Ramona, but there's a price (a bigger one than the awkward breakup with Knives Chau (high schooler): he has to defeat her seven evil exes. Wah wah.

Review:
Most of you are probably familiar with Scott Pilgrim already from the movie that came out last year. I watched it with two of my good friends and it was pretty great. I highly recommend it to delightful, nerdy folk. The movie made me want to try the graphic novels again, which I confess I had not liked initially. My first attempt only made it through the first volume, Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life. I just didn't get why it was funny. Sad, but true. Then the movie made it clear; the jokes are mostly from video games. This is a key thing to know.

With that knowledge in hand, I re-embarked on a journey through the six volumes of Scott Pilgrim's rather intense/forgetful courtship of Ramona Flowers. The series is really funny, although not at all points. I love a lot of the little things thrown in on the side. For example, at one point in the final volume, Wallace Wells says "J'accuse!*" to Scott and the footnote reads "*frenched." This is one of many such awesome things that made me laugh out loud.

The story line never really engaged me that much though. Scott and Ramona really aren't very likable people, so I didn't care too much about the progression of their relationship. I guess I wanted them to win, but mostly just because the 'evil' folks were so obnoxious that I couldn't stand them winning. However, Scott and Ramona are not the only characters, and some of the supporting cast are freaking awesome. My favorites were Wallace Wells and Kim Pine, who are fantastic in totally different ways. I expected to like Knives Chau (who was pretty awesome in the movie version), but she was super lame and whiny and overly into a loser like Scott.

I really loved how realistic the friendships between a lot of the characters felt (not the evil exes stuff, but just the kids hanging around town). They really seemed to interact like aimless people on the edge of adulthood might. I also want to praise this series for not being heteronormative. Both gays and lesbians can be found here. This is a thing I really love to find in fiction, so props to O'Malley.

I highly recommend this. It's a fun, super nerdy read.

"Why'd you have to be so nice?
A wink and a girlish smile
And why'd you have to punch my eye?
That was something
but I still want you to stay
When I was younger and thought of myself
I never dreamed I'd become like this
A snap of your fingers,
and end to the arguments
Anything for you, love"