It’s a book review!
I honestly planned on spending my day catching up on some homework and getting some work done on that article I’m supposed to be writing for Adventure Gamers. Instead, however, I ended up voraciously devouring my recently-acquired copy of Leopold McGinnis’ Game Quest. I’m sure it goes without saying that given the fact that I couldn’t put down this book no matter how hard I tried to do so, it is absolutely imperative that every single one of you reading this blog goes out and buys their very own copy. [1] (The sooner you do so, the more likely it is that you’ll be able to take advantage of the launch discount!)
And now, the obligatory review. Game Quest (in case you didn’t already click on the link I kindly supplied above) is a novel not-so-subtlely based on the true story of Sierra On-Line and the death of adventure games. Although I’m more of a LucasArts fangirl and admittedly haven’t played very many Sierra games, the fact that the book was even about adventure games at all plus the added bonus of it being written by a witty fellow Canadian was enough to get me to buy it. Furthermore, being independently published, I got to feel all special about supporting underground arts and that sort of thing.
The start of the book was, admittedly, a bit “meh”. Not a bad “meh”, but more of an it’s-all-right-but-not-spectacular “meh”. Most parts, I found quite funny, particularly the names of many of the characters and organizations that parody their real-life counterparts (Will and Kendra Roberts, Madre Games Entertainment, Swarthy Victor, Dan Destroyem, Heather Hüterguns, and so on) and the subplot involving an unscrupulous coffee chain that bore a striking resemblence to Starbucks. Others are somewhat crude, especially those involving pervy eleven-year-old boys and immature hax0rz in chatrooms, [2] and I should probably stress that this is definitely not a book to be read by young children, given its various PG-13 situations.
However, as I kept reading the book, it got better. Exponentially better, I daresay, hence my stating earlier that I couldn’t put it down. I don’t know how to say this without resorting to cheesy cliches, but the story rose above and beyond my expectations. The characters became people I cared about, [3] and the theme of independence and innovation versus marketing and pandering to what is “cool” rang hauntingly true to the struggles I face in my own life. I can honestly say that upon finishing this book, I’m prouder than ever to be as involved as I am in independent game development.
Still, as always, my measly words couldn’t possibly do this novel justice. Just go buy it and read it already. Yes, that goes for those of you who aren’t adventure game fans as well, because this isn’t just a book about adventure games. It’s a book about being creative and staying true to yourself. And plus, you’ll get to support an independent writer who’s being creative and true to himself in the process. 
- ‘Course, you could just read the sample chapters posted on the website, but quite frankly, they don’t do the book any justice. For one thing, reading large chunks of text on a computer screen will probably hurt your eyes after awhile. For another thing, all the quotation marks on the website seem to be replaced by question marks, and that’s just plain irritating. And finally, only about two thirds of the book are available online. ↩
- Thank God they didn’t actually type in 1337 or use “u” instead of “you” in any of those chatroom scenes, though! ↩
- Kendra Roberts, in particular, reminded me of what I’d imagine a 39-year-old version of myself to be like. And she had a text parser interface in her brain, to boot! ↩
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BLEARGH: A Holiday Greeting
Hello…i’m one of a few people who volunteered to help proofread the Game Quest manuscript. I hear what you’re saying about not being able to put the book down, but it’s pretty amazing that you got through all 500 pages in one day!! I thought speed reading was a lost art?
What can I say? Speed reading is easy when you just can’t wait to see what happens at the end. Although now that I think about it, I kind of wish I’d slowed down on my reading, because I’ve started getting that nostalgic feeling that comes after you finish a book and wish there was more of it because the characters feel like old friends and you don’t want to leave them just yet.
For the record, though, I didn’t actually read the entire book in one afternoon. I did, however, read the majority of the book in one afternoon; at least 75% of it to be exact. But I could have read the book in a day if I’d started it on a Saturday rather than on a Thursday night amidst university and homework assignments, so there.
Well, there’s always The Red Fez to read! But at your speed you’ll be done in 5 minutes!
BTW, Pat’s largely responsible for the low number of spelling errors in Game Quest. I’m a terribly sloppy speller, incapable of catching my own mistakes. Believe me, he went through my ‘final’ draft and found something on almost every page. I’m a sad, sad man. But a happy man (and one who doesn’t look like an idiot…for the most part) thanks to Pat.
Have you checked out the ‘bloopers’ section of the http://www.gamequestnovel.com website yet? It’s got some funny unintentional errors that I, thankfully, removed from the book before publication. Plus, it’s got old-school copyright protection, which I think is fun…
Anyway, I know I said it before, but THANKS SO MUCH for the great review! It really helps me out and it’s just plain awesome to hear that someone likes your book.
I saw those bloopers, actually. Hilarous! Your entire “bonus features” section is absolutely brilliant, come to think of it.
I started taking a peek at The Red Fez, actually. I’m liking the film noir-influenced atmosphere so far, considering that Grim Fandango’s one of my favourite games and Casablanca’s one of my favourite movies. (I got to see it in a theatre a few months ago, actually; isn’t that awesome or what?)
Glad you like the bonus materials section. Mostly I created it becuase, as an independent author, I need as much ‘marketing ammo’ I can get my hands on to promote the book. As I’ve said before, people are really reluctant to try the book. Everyone I’ve managed to convince to read it has really liked it, but CONVINCING them to try it is SO hard. I think you’ve got a lot of guts and a real sense of adventure for buying my book. I’m really glad you liked it. I wish everyone had that sense of adventure. I should totally make ‘real life adventurer’ medals to hand out to people who live life like an adventure game. Maybe someday.
Anyway, the bloopers bit evolved mostly out of finding out that Canada Post wanted to charge $10 to mail the book! That’s more than it costs it physically produce! I pretty much crapped myself when I found that out. So I had to create something that wouldn’t cost any more money to ship, but would make it worth it for readers to still order the book.
Yeah, Grim Fandango and Casablanca are awesome. I’m not sure The Red Fez is as good as those, but I hope it comes close! That’s pretty cool you saw Casablanca in the theatre. I recently went and saw a bunch of Harold Lloyd (like buster keaton, except his estate jealously guards the movie rights so it’s almost impossible to see the movies) in a threatre. That was pretty cool.
[...] McGinnis, author of Game Quest and friend of yours truly, has recently written a new novella called Bad Attitude. Being the huge [...]