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You, by Austin Grossman
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"A razor-sharp comedy and a smart meditation on the nature of gaming." --Boston Globe
When Russell joins Black Arts games, brainchild of two visionary designers who were once his closest friends, he reunites with an eccentric crew of nerds hacking the frontiers of both technology and entertainment. In part, he's finally given up chasing the conventional path that has always seemed just out of reach. But mostly, he needs to know what happened to Simon, his strangest and most gifted friend, who died under mysterious circumstances soon after Black Arts' breakout hit.
As the company's revolutionary next-gen game is threatened by a software glitch, Russell finds himself in a race to save his job, Black Arts' legacy, and the people he has grown to care about. The deeper Russell digs, the more dangerous the glitch appears--and soon, Russell comes to realize there's much more is at stake than just one software company's bottom line.
- Sales Rank: #797089 in Books
- Published on: 2014-04-08
- Released on: 2014-04-08
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.25" h x 1.25" w x 5.50" l, .80 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 400 pages
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of the Month, April 2013: In Austin Grossman's You, Russell joins Black Arts, a mid-tier developer at risk of closing its doors if their next title isn't a hit. At the center of the company is WAFFLE, a brilliant game engine designed by Russell's late childhood friend Simon, whose mysterious death haunts Russell and his friends. When an unsquashable, game-breaking bug is discovered in WAFFLE, Russell quickly learns that it may be a deliberate feature programmed in by Simon. Or better put, there is literally a ghost in the machine.
You draws upon Grossman's experience as a game developer in the '90s, providing a frank and often funny portrait of a maturing video game industry (the depiction of E3, a large trade conference, is particularly delightful). But You isn't just for nostalgic gamers: beneath the techno-mystery is a story about friendship imbued with heart and compassion, a soul that surfaces like a secret glitch from the depths of its code. --Kevin Nguyen
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Grossman, author of the delightful Soon I Will Be Invincible (2007), here draws on his own experience as a video-game designer to take us behind the scenes at Black Arts Games, a (fictional) video-game company poised to release a new version of one of its biggest hits. Russell, a new hire at the company (but an old friend of the company’s founders), is thrown in at the deep end when a software bug is discovered that threatens to sink the new game. To find the source of the bug, Russell explores the history of the company, its founders, and his complicated relationships with them. Although it’s structured as a mystery—Russell tries to track down the source of the bug the way a detective might pursue an unknown perp—the book is really a celebration of video games and their creators. It’s full of terminology and dialogue that might seem like another language to the uninitiated reader (we do pick it up as we go along), but, mostly, due to his boundless enthusiasm for his story, Grossman never makes readers feel uninformed or left out in the cold. He invites us into the world of video games, introduces us to the people whose lives revolve around them, and makes us feel right at home. This is only Grossman’s second novel, but, given the strength of this and his first book, we can only await his next offering with keen anticipation. --David Pitt
Review
"A razor-sharp comedy ... a smart meditation on the nature of gaming. Grossman, who has designed video games, brings experience but more importantly abundant affection to describing this world--the welcome recognition of the one Dungeon and Dragons enthusiast for another, the surreal happiness that comes from mastery, the semi-ironic clinging to juvenile aesthetics."―Boston Globe
"Some of the most startling, acute writing on video games yet essayed."―Tom Bissell, Harper's
"You confirms Grossman's status as a major talent. Grossman isn't just chronicling the rise and fall of a company, or of a character, or even an industry. Rather, he uses YOU as a tool to prise open the mystical center of what art is, what games are, what fun is, and how they all mix together. A novel that both uplifts and entertains, and reframes the world we live in and the things we do in it. Easily one of the best books I've read this year."―Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing
"Combines videogames, advanced technology, and suspense into one crazy pageturner."―Kansas City Star
"A celebration of videogames and their creators."―Booklist, starred review
Most helpful customer reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
An interesting history of Video Games, with unsatisfying ending
By Amazon Customer
This is one of those books I was really looking forward to. I saw Austin Grossman at New York Comic Con in 2012 and became really excited to read this one. "Soon, I will be Invincible" was really good, so my hopes where high and all in all the book delivers.
In the heart of this book is a fantastic mystery that you really want to know how it is solved but this is where the book falls apart. The ending is quick and anti-climatic. I feel that some questions remain to be answered. Maybe it's one of those books that I need to read again to make sure I did not miss out on a key part, but all in all, it's lackluster ending just ends up hurting the book.
17 of 21 people found the following review helpful.
Sophisticated and Moving
By Jessica Hammer
I've read plenty of novels about young men and women discovering that they have an writerly calling. (Though I didn't know until recently that it's called a kuntzlerroman!) As a passionate reader, these novels are always a bit strange for me. Although I'm glad people feel the calling to write, I don't dream of being a writer. I want other people to write wonderful things for me to read! So when I read about people becoming fully themselves by becoming writers, I feel both curious and alienated at the same time.
You, though, is my kuntzlerroman. A young man learns to understand himself through games. He learns to make sense of the world through design. He learns to build relationships through play. If the main character were a woman, you could be talking about me.
What's most impressive about the novel is that it makes the romance of games come to life, without falling into the trap of romanticizing gamerliness. Yes, Grossman writes about the game industry with an insider's insight, but he uses it to scathe rather than soothe. (For example, I cackled wildly over Pro Skater Endoria.) Our hero, Russell, is not a "gamer," nor does he become one over the course of the novel. Rather, he uses games in the way that other kuntzlerroman protagonists use books, or art, or music. Games become a tool for confrontation with the self and reconciliation with the world.
This is not a novel that will pander to you. It's a smart and sophisticated book, and Grossman doesn't hold your hand. The story jumps between past and present, between hard-edged realism and lyrical fantasy; it explores some of the great game design debates of the past thirty years; the protagonist works through his own history alongside the history of games in a psychologically astute way. That said, I think the book is accessible to anyone who comes to it with an open mind and an open heart. You can enjoy it on many levels, from "Will Black Arts Games survive?" to "How do games reframe our sense of our lives as interactive experiences?"
As you can probably tell, I highly recommend this book. If you've ever been moved or changed by an experience you've had in a game, this is a must-read.
29 of 38 people found the following review helpful.
Gone Gaming, Read at Your Own Risk
By Nickolas X. P. Sharps
REVIEW SUMMARY: Provides an interesting look behind the scenes of video game development, not such a strong story.
MY RATING: 2 stars
SYNOPSIS: After years of drifting through post-college life Russell joins Black Arts, a video game developer founded by friends of his from high school. He is unexpectedly thrust into a leadership role and forced to solve the mystery behind a bug that could ruin the new game and have more far-reaching consequences besides...
PROS: Written by someone with experience in the field, gives a sense of appreciation for things largely taken for granted in video games.
CONS: Nostalgia is expected to carry much of the book, very little conflict, uninteresting and shallow characters, confusing format and perspective shifts.
BOTTOM LINE: There is probably enough decent material here to fill a movie, definitely not enough to float a 400 page novel. There's too much nostalgia and not enough substance.
You get a package in the mail from SF Signal. You rip it open, it's Christmas in May! Inside is a hardbound copy of Austin Grossman's latest novel, a fictional look inside the world of professional game makers. You're excited to begin reading it. You haven't read Austin's Soon I Will Be Invincible but it sits on your overflowing shelf. You've seen some great review for Austin's latest, comparing it to Ernest Clines's Ready Player One and Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club. You have read (and loved) The Magicians and The Magician King, books written by Austin's brother Lev Grossman. You are anxious to begin and so you curl up on the hideous burnt orange couch in the living room and start reading.
From early on you develop a personal connection with the book. The story is set in 1998 with flashbacks to the 80's, and you were too young to actually own any of the nostalgia being hurled at you. Your generation cut its teeth on gaming consoles like the Play Station and the Nintendo 64. You've never even touched a Commodore 64, let alone played a game stored on a floppy disk. Still - you understand where Russell, the narrator, is coming from. In recent years your interest in video games has flagged considerably. The X-Box 360 spends more time running Netflix Instant Queue than generating gamescapes. It wasn't always this way and so the rose-tinted glasses come on and you share in the magic of first discovery.
Russell reminds you of the tension that comes with starting a job way over your head, the wandering that comes with post-adolescence, the desire to escape from tedium and build a world with endless possibilities. Russell isn't the most compelling of protagonists but that's okay (at first) because maybe, just maybe, he's meant as a stand in - one of those voiceless heroes that game developers love to use because it "allows players to pour themselves into the mold." For a time you are mesmerized by the dedication it takes to build a game. You always knew it had to be extensive work, you watched G4 frequently and you still visit IGN and Kotaku for gamer news, but you never imagined the sheer level of mind-numbing commitment. You begin to develop an appreciation for all the tiny details you never even considered as Russell simultaneously plays every Black Arts game and works to design his own addition the line. You marvel at the early technology and the things it could accomplish. You are absorbed by the section of the novel set at a computer camp for kids. It is easily the best part of the novel.
But things begin to drag from there. You are confused by the perspective switches, from Russell's first person to the video game's second person. You understand the purpose behind them but it breaks up the flow. Much about the novel seems designed specifically to break the flow. The formatting is also awkward, switching perspectives at the drop of a hat, for long or short periods of time, occasionally italicized but more often not. Russell explains things about Darren and Simon, the original Black Arts founders, that it seems unlikely that he would know. You read about Russell designing games, and Russell playing games, and Russell playing games (but from your perspective), and you read Russell's flashbacks and his encounters with the four video game archetypes in the real (fictional) world. These last bits bother you the most perhaps, because they seem superfluous. You suppose this is where some reviewers got the Fight Club angle and that bothers you as well.
Surely the novel makes for an interesting look behind the scenes of video game development but should you want to read that you could always pick up a nonfiction book. The games of Black Arts are somewhat interesting enough and you can see Austin Grossman's own experience with real world game writing present in each. The games themselves are pretty archetypal, and if the book succeeds at anything it is making you want to put down the novel and play the real world equivalents. When you read a novel you expect some sort of conflict, but what conflict is there to be found here? There's a mystery bug that is wreaking havoc in the game world, in all of the Black Arts game worlds. Russell decides that the only way to solve the mystery is to play each Black Arts game from start to finish, in chronological order. If there's a logic behind this it is purely narrative. So essentially, you're reading about a guy playing a game, wondering why you don't go play a game yourself.
The mystery of the game bug has limited real (fictional) world consequences. There's a chance that the bug could send Black Arts out of business or cause Y2K or some such, but no weight is ever given to the crisis and so the stakes never rise beyond "beating the game" essentially. The mystery (if it can really be called a mystery) is eventually solved and the conclusion is anticlimactic to the extreme. There is no fanfare to herald the solution, nor any excitement over the release of the new game. There is no development from any of the characters, nor in the form of their relationships. The book just sort of ends and you are just happy you can now write the review and start something new.
You know that there are those who will enjoy the book. You suspect that these will be hardcore gamers or, more likely, those with rose-tinted lenses. You are disappointed, but at least the novel didn't devolve into a terrorist laden techno-thriller like Neal Stephenson's REAMDE.
Nick Sharps
SF Signal
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