🤖🖥️🕹️ The God Game (2020) 🕹️🖥️🤖 - Book Review

MY REVIEW

Hardcover: 464 pages

Publisher: St. Martin's Press (January 7, 2020)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1250306140

ISBN-13: 978-1250306142

“They call themselves the Vindicators. Targeted by bullies and pressured by parents, these geeks and gamers rule the computer lab at Turner High School. Wealthy bad boy Peter makes and breaks rules. Vanhi is a punk bassist at odds with her heritage. Kenny's creativity is stifled by a religious home life. Insecure and temperamental, Alex is an outcast among the outcasts. And Charlie, the leader they all depend on, is reeling from the death of his mother, consumed with reckless fury.

They each receive an invitation to play The God Game. Created by dark-web coders and maintained by underground hackers, the video game is controlled by a mysterious artificial intelligence that believes it is God. Obey the almighty A.I. and be rewarded. Defiance is punished. Through their phone screens and high-tech glasses, Charlie and his friends see and interact with a fantasy world superimposed over reality. The quests they undertake on behalf of "God" seem harmless at first, but soon the tasks have them questioning and sacrificing their own morality.

High school tormentors get their comeuppance. Parents and teachers are exposed as hypocrites. And the Vindicators' behavior becomes more selfish and self-destructive as they compete against one another for prizes each believes will rescue them from their adolescent existence. But everything they do is being recorded. Hooded and masked thugs are stalking and attacking them. "God" threatens to expose their secrets if they attempt to quit the game. And losing the game means losing their lives.

You don't play the Game. The Game plays you ....”

Thank you in advance to St. Martin’s Press for a complimentary Advanced Reader’s/Reading Copy (ARC). A positive review was not requested or required. All words within are my own.

[The God Game - Danny Tobey]

Since there were other books I had to read and review (and some were far too good to wait) – this got pushed down on the list.

I decided that since I had a quick “lull” in between books – I’d read this one. The cover was attention grabbing and the premise was kind of interesting. I also wanted to get it out of the way before the holidays. It’s not a “holly jolly” read if you catch my meaning.

It’s been awhile since I’ve had to add “trigger” warnings to a book review. This is one such book though.

* Foul and/or Questionable Language (the “f” word is used quite a bit)

* Nazi Reference

* Sex Acts & Violence

* Drug Addiction & Usage

* Domestic Violence (some might even see “child abuse” in certain areas)

* Political References

* Religious References (the book is called “The God Game”)

* Potential Anti-Religious Sentiments (depending on your point of view)

* Blood Sacrifice

While I like to challenge myself outside of my “favorite/comfortable reading genre”. This was a bit too FAR out of my comfort zone. And, this is a review I sat on until after the holidays.

Prior to requesting this through the publisher’s social media campaign, I didn’t read any reviews and was actually looking forward to this book, especially based on the back cover blurb.

“When they accomplish a mission, the game rewards them with expensive tech, revenge on high-school tormentors, and cash flowing from ATMs …

But then the threatening messages start. Worship me. Obey me. Complete a mission, however cruel, or the game reveals their secrets and crushes their dreams.”

It sounded like a terrific read. After all, who wouldn’t want tech gadgets and revenge on high school tormentors? It sounded interesting.

I try not to let reviews truly influence me, and at the time of the request – I was a bit busy with something else.

As I was drafting this review, I decided to go over to Goodreads to see what everyone was saying. I wanted to compare what I was feeling to what others had experienced. Some readers noted that they thought the novel didn’t know what it was trying to be as it was more of a compilation of genres:

* Young Adult (16+)

* Suspense/Thriller

* Sci-Fi (Science Fiction)

* Fantasy

This high-tech thriller is very much computer oriented and some technical language is present. Some people might have issues with the terminology used in this story. I had some difficulty but read on. I’m not exactly computer illiterate, but definitely not part of the “coding” guild either.

It’s hard to review a book like this, so I’m going to go for “GOOD” vs “BAD” highlights.

What is the book about?

From the “blurb” of the book, I was intrigued. An invitation to play a video game with G.O.D – or an A.I (artificial intelligence) that thinks it is GOD. Winning means that dreams come true; losing means you die.

Charlie and his friends are rewarded for their loyalty and their game play. Goldz is “good” currency, BLAXX are bad. But, there are no real rules to play by. Good deeds are often left up to moral ambiguity. The players must WORSHIP the game, do the task – cruel or not – or pay a consequence.

GOOD PARTS:

* The cover stands out. At least the ARC did. It looks like a scene from a video game, circa mid-1980’s.  It has an over-powering presence on its own and draws attention to it. It definitely cannot be missed.

* Chapter lengths are very short. No more than 15 pages, some are one (1) page in length. This makes for easy reading.

* Chapter length also makes for moving the story along quite rapidly, almost at a break-neck pace.

* For the length (the ARC is 449 pages), I read 358 pages in one sitting, finished it in a second sitting

* The story did keep me interested with its non-stop pace

* An interesting and alternate take on the internet, social media, and virtual reality

* The lack of a person behind the whole “GOD” game. This is also one of the bad parts.

* The ending was a shocking surprise and fiendishly clever (this again, is both good and bad)

BAD PARTS:

* The major issue: the characters! I couldn’t stand any of them. There was borderline cruelty, back-handed bullying, selfishness – the list can be exhaustingly endless. It shouldn’t have been surprising since it involved high school kids.  

I honestly didn’t have much sympathy for them and only read to see what was going to happen to them and what the “reveal” was for the story. They were cliché 1980’s teenagers in a technological horror movie. I expected some depth, but each one was almost like a caricature of a bad cliché.

1.) Charlie Lake – he was too “wishy-washy”. He alternately wanted to leave the game, but kept running back to it. While he did a few “good” deeds, one regarding Alex; most of the time; it seemed Charlie just wanted to benefit himself, even when it came to a girl. An extremely bright young man; now troubled after his mother’s death. Has a rocky relationship with his father who is trying to reinvent his life. Charlie is almost past the point of redemption.

2.) Peter Quine – his smugness and almost narcissistic attitude made him the least likeable, which is probably what the author had intended. After his mother abandoned him and his father – the stereotypical, former “fat” kid transformed himself, but was distant from everyone.

3.) Alex Dinh – abused by his father and had deeper mental issues. And, while he should’ve been a sympathetic character, the delivery was wrong. Played into the typical “stereo-type” bad kid (but uses the mental illness more as an excuse), uses scenes of violence to escape his own, wants to harm others.

4.) Vanhi Patel (only girl in the group) – focused on getting into Harvard and thinks nothing of climbing into the game despite Charlie’s own warning to her. Couldn’t own up to her mistakes, and tried to change things to make herself look better.

5.) Kenny Baker – the only “sort of” likeable character. He had more of a religious upbringing amongst his peers. But, despite his background – he was just as unlikeable.

Their parents and the other adults, although minor, didn’t elicit much sympathy either. I don’t know if I should’ve been cheering for someone or detesting everyone.

* The book itself. It just didn’t work. Delivery/execution or writing pace – I don’t know. It’s hard to blame the writing pace when you read over 350+ pages in one sitting. I’m leaning more to delivery/execution. There was too much going on, and too many characters to keep track of. It was hard to place them and their relation to the story.

[First Day Reading Progress]

* The money flowing from the ATM was actually done in a 1984 Knight Rider episode – K.I.T.T. vs. K.A.R.R by way of KARR rewarding a character (John) for assisting him and promising to make all of John’s “dreams come true” for John’s assistance. This was either a nod to that or bit of a rip-off of it. I haven’t quite narrowed it down.

* What was the purpose of the story? What is this book trying to tell us, give us, or make us feel? I know that I felt rather disappointed in the book and myself for even requesting it. It seemed like there was absolutely no point or message from it.

* Who was controlling this game? What did they want? What was the “endgame”? Someone had to have created it, programmed it, and had a purpose behind it.

* The political undertones. After reading some of the reviews, I feel like I’m not the only one who didn’t understand the purpose of them. I don’t know if the writer was trying to slip in their own political preferences or what. While the election was a divisible event, the political tones didn’t seem to mesh with the story.

* The religion aspect. Was this an anti-religion book? Was this trying to denigrate religion? Is this supposed to be a religious book about trying to draw people closer to God who doesn’t necessarily give us what we want, but what we need. Being there to comfort and guide us, rather than to remove the issue? This is one situation that I guess is left up to each reader.

* It portrays social media and the internet as negative in treating them as a social standing and entitlement rather than a communicative tool.

* The ending was as unrealistic as the execution of the story. It seemed almost cliché.

Overall Take:

This novel can leave the reader with feelings of hopelessness and despair as there is nothing redeeming about this book. There was little to no redemption for the characters just more or less coming to terms with the consequences of their actions.

It was hard not to DNF it because it was so fast-paced. But, at the same time that was a problem – it just kept going with seemingly no end in sight.

Had I not gotten the complimentary ARC, I would’ve likely borrowed it from the library if I had nothing else to read. Otherwise, this isn’t something I’d prefer to read again.

As far as recommending it – I’ll leave that up to the person reading the review. 

2 ⭐⭐/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐– Goodreads (“It was Okay”)

2 ⭐⭐/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐– Bookbub (“Disappointing”)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Danny Tobey is a fifth-generation Texan. He went to Harvard College, Yale Law School, and UT Southwestern medical school. Harvard gave Danny the Edward Eager prize “for the best creative writing”. He wrote and edited the Harvard Lampoon and was anthologized in The Best of the Harvard Lampoon: 140 Years of American Humor. Danny's first novel, the sci-fi fantasy thriller The Faculty Club, came out from Simon & Schuster. Danny is a noted expert on Artificial Intelligence. He presented at the first ever AI, Ethics, & Society Conference sponsored by Google and IBM. His academic writing has appeared in Law360, the National Law Journal, the Association of Corporate Counsel, and the 2018 Proceedings of the Association for the Advancement of AI. In 2019, Danny received a Burton Award from the Library of Congress for his legal writing on AI. As a lawyer, he represents numerous AI companies.