Alternate-reality games have been all the rage for the past few years as marketers have found ways to merge fiction, reality and advertising in vast multimedia campaigns. From HALO 3 to LOST, these things seem to be everywhere, and this is the kernel from which Walter Jon Williams sprouts his latest.
Following in the footsteps of other cyberpunk pioneers by verging into the whole “the present has become science fiction” meme that I don’t quite agree with, THIS IS NOT A GAME begins with our spunky geek-chick protagonist, Dagmar, recovering from a job in Jakarta when all hell breaks loose and chaos envelops the city.
While her billionaire employer tries to get a mercenary team to extract her, she realizes that she can harness the hive mind of her ARG players to find a way out, and the result is spooky and effective. The players aren’t sure if it’s a game or not, and as they discuss solutions on digital message boards, Dagmer has to cope with the situation that’s extremely analog.
After the opening setpiece, THIS IS NOT A GAME becomes a very different book: a mashup of a corporate thriller, murder mystery and Douglas Coupland’s MICROSERFS. We’re introduced to Dagmar’s small circle of best buddies (who met playing AD&D in college, natch), classified by their various degrees of geekdom. A mystery is introduced, and Dagmar, enlightened by her Jakarta adventure, realizes that the distributed computing power of the ARG players is the perfect tool for clue gathering.
The few characters introduced are interesting and well fleshed-out, but compared with the riveting opening setpiece, it’s hard to not feel a bit cheated by the slower pace of the novel’s later chapters. Williams is a great writer, and he definitely shows more breadth of characterization and motivations than his previous efforts, but the more-measured pace of the majority of the book is a letdown from the marauding riots of Jakarta.
But Williams shouldn’t care about expectations. His job is to write books that are as good as he can write them. This is the story he wanted to tell, and for what it is, he’s done an excellent job. He doesn’t owe anyone a certain number of cyborgs or dystopian futures per book, so if readers demand these things to be satisfied with his work, there are other things to read. For a good book that explores the nature of distributed human computing and the frail nature of ego among the powerful, this is a solid addtion to Williams’ repertoire. —Ryun Patterson
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• IMPLIED SPACES by Walter Jon Williams
Related posts:
- A Shot in the Dark / Shell Game
- Head Game
- Martin’s fantasy series becomes online game
- Burn Notice: The End Game
- The Chess Artist: Genius, Obsession, and the World’s Oldest Game
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Your review has made me think of this as targeted for Young Adults. Is it?
I don’t think so.