I think
I’ve said before that when you ‘purchase’ free books from Amazon for your
Kindle, it’s often a hit or miss. Normally I find free books are pretty
average, some are appalling and a few select few are actually good and
enjoyable. The Game, by Terry Schott,
was one that was actually really enjoyable, and I basically read it in a day
(save for a few chapters the night before).
We first
meet Zack when he wakes up in a white room, with white walls, ceiling, and
lights. He vaguely remembers the feeling of being an old man, but when he
speaks and looks at himself, he is much much younger. Zack has been just been
in the Game, a virtual reality that kids up to the age of 18 can participate
in, as they unknowingly play an avatar, or virtual person inside a complex computer system. When you are put into the game, you are born into a family, and live your
entire life, birth to death, and are watched by all the people at home on the planet Tygon. The virtual reality world is called Earth, and the better you do in the
Game, the more credits you can earn, the more times you can buy in to play
another Game when you come out. Zack is
ranked 2nd in Tygon, and for his last play, he plans to get to
number one.
With
chapters that follow Zack’s life inside the Game, his Patron and his team on
the outside following Zack’s every move and ensuring he is on track with his
life, millions of adoring fans in Tygon watching his life on screen, an old
flame, guardian figures inside the game, and someone out to get him, The Game is a great read for a free book.
I really liked some characters, and disliked others, as it should be, I enjoyed that the book was
spread over the course of Zack’s avatar life, and that the perspective was
split between characters.
Having said
that, I think that there were too
many character-chapter splits, and it got a little confusing at times. It would
have nicer to see just one or two perspectives inside the Game, and one on the
outside of the Game. But as it was, there were a lot more than that. It, at
times, made it a bit confusing. At the beginning of most of the chapters there
was an excerpt from a Game related book that explained some aspects of how the
Game worked, and also had some interview sections from previous players etc, so
it was really handy to have the information without having a character just
spit it all out. A big thing that annoyed me though, was the editing. There
wasn't much of it. There were speech marks that were the wrong way round,
commas in random places, and the indentations of paragraphs were too small, and
it was little hard to read at points. But those things are nothing a good edit
can’t fix.
Overall I
really enjoyed this book. It was a nice short dystopian read, at only 283
pages, and the story clipped along at a good rate. There are a few more books
in this series, and though you have to purchase them, they aren’t expensive, so
I think I might read the next one.
