I won this book on Goodreads. I have not won a book since.
If I was only going to get one book, I really wish it hadn’t been this one.
Full disclosure: I don’t play video games. I’m pretty sure that my most extensive experience in the world of pixelated shooting and driving stuff has come from Mario Kart. I invented ways to die in that game that I’m not sure had ever been found before. I also watched a season of “The Guild.” So I’m willing to admit that my impression of this book may not have been as well-rounded as another reader’s.
Gard Skinner’s Game Slaves had a pretty cool premise that suffered from writing oversights, exhaustive self-reference, and indecisiveness. The idea is that Phoenix, our narrator, and his team of soldiers spend their lives in the employ of a video game manufacturer. They’re artificial intelligence created to be the antagonists of every violent video game in the world. Despite their inorganic beginnings, Phoenix and the rest have formed attachments to each other and generally enjoy their jobs of destroying their human opponents until they are, eventually, blown up or shot or whatever themselves. Then they reset, are given a new game and set of identities to play, and are sent out again.
We get the sense that it’s a decent career, if a little repetitive, until the lovely and woefully idealistic Dakota joins Phoenix’s team of AIs. Dakota, in the grand tradition that has launched a thousand-thousand sci-fi heroes to look for answers, thinks to question the grand authority that has created them. Basically, Dakota doesn’t believe that she is actually artificial.
One interesting point: I’m pretty sure that Skinner referenced actual video games in this book. For example, in one scene, Phoenix and his crew spend some time racing another player who exhibits deadly aim with banana peels used to trip the other players up. That, at least, sounded like something I knew. But I may or may not have also noticed Call of Duty references. (Or maybe Halo. What’s the difference?) I assume that many of the games that were given detailed synopses were based on contemporary video games, but I lack the knowledge to identify most of them.
The book takes a predictable Matrix-like turn for the worse and spends entirely too much time getting there. Again, I’m not a huge fan of video games, so the time spent detailing Phoenix’s crew’s efforts to win random game scenarios seemed fairly pointless to me. While the games did establish that Phoenix is the leader and Dakota is the wildcard of the team (a pretty obvious conclusion based on, I don’t know, the back cover?), those scenes could have been cut down significantly in order to get to the real meat of the plot much faster.
Unfortunately, these game scenarios are the best-detailed parts of the book. I was unable to picture the scenery and even the characters clearly for much of the novel- a situation that wasn’t really helped by a significant shift in image for all of our main characters about 60% of the way through- but I did see the video games clearly. The thought put into the “costuming” and weaponry here was excellent. It was when the characters headed into real life that things started to get tricky.
***Possible spoilers***
Finally, I had a serious problem with the final 10% of the book. I’ve heard people talk about alternate ending in video games and the disappointments associated with getting the wrong one. I really hope that Skinner’s attempt to end this book in every possible way and then go back and change his mind one more time was an homage to that aspect of video gaming. Otherwise, there is absolutely no way to justify the character discrepancies, complications, and general confusion of ending the book, re-ending the book, going back to fix the ending of the book, and then deciding that it was actually all just a dream. In another draft of this book, maybe two or three of the endings would have been omitted. Frankly, that would have been best.
If I was only going to get one book, I really wish it hadn’t been this one.
Full disclosure: I don’t play video games. I’m pretty sure that my most extensive experience in the world of pixelated shooting and driving stuff has come from Mario Kart. I invented ways to die in that game that I’m not sure had ever been found before. I also watched a season of “The Guild.” So I’m willing to admit that my impression of this book may not have been as well-rounded as another reader’s.
Gard Skinner’s Game Slaves had a pretty cool premise that suffered from writing oversights, exhaustive self-reference, and indecisiveness. The idea is that Phoenix, our narrator, and his team of soldiers spend their lives in the employ of a video game manufacturer. They’re artificial intelligence created to be the antagonists of every violent video game in the world. Despite their inorganic beginnings, Phoenix and the rest have formed attachments to each other and generally enjoy their jobs of destroying their human opponents until they are, eventually, blown up or shot or whatever themselves. Then they reset, are given a new game and set of identities to play, and are sent out again.
We get the sense that it’s a decent career, if a little repetitive, until the lovely and woefully idealistic Dakota joins Phoenix’s team of AIs. Dakota, in the grand tradition that has launched a thousand-thousand sci-fi heroes to look for answers, thinks to question the grand authority that has created them. Basically, Dakota doesn’t believe that she is actually artificial.
One interesting point: I’m pretty sure that Skinner referenced actual video games in this book. For example, in one scene, Phoenix and his crew spend some time racing another player who exhibits deadly aim with banana peels used to trip the other players up. That, at least, sounded like something I knew. But I may or may not have also noticed Call of Duty references. (Or maybe Halo. What’s the difference?) I assume that many of the games that were given detailed synopses were based on contemporary video games, but I lack the knowledge to identify most of them.
The book takes a predictable Matrix-like turn for the worse and spends entirely too much time getting there. Again, I’m not a huge fan of video games, so the time spent detailing Phoenix’s crew’s efforts to win random game scenarios seemed fairly pointless to me. While the games did establish that Phoenix is the leader and Dakota is the wildcard of the team (a pretty obvious conclusion based on, I don’t know, the back cover?), those scenes could have been cut down significantly in order to get to the real meat of the plot much faster.
Unfortunately, these game scenarios are the best-detailed parts of the book. I was unable to picture the scenery and even the characters clearly for much of the novel- a situation that wasn’t really helped by a significant shift in image for all of our main characters about 60% of the way through- but I did see the video games clearly. The thought put into the “costuming” and weaponry here was excellent. It was when the characters headed into real life that things started to get tricky.
***Possible spoilers***
Finally, I had a serious problem with the final 10% of the book. I’ve heard people talk about alternate ending in video games and the disappointments associated with getting the wrong one. I really hope that Skinner’s attempt to end this book in every possible way and then go back and change his mind one more time was an homage to that aspect of video gaming. Otherwise, there is absolutely no way to justify the character discrepancies, complications, and general confusion of ending the book, re-ending the book, going back to fix the ending of the book, and then deciding that it was actually all just a dream. In another draft of this book, maybe two or three of the endings would have been omitted. Frankly, that would have been best.