Lucky wander boy

» http://luckywanderboy.com/

^ Lucky wander boy by D.B. Weiss is a new novel about videogames. I pre-ordered it at the bookstore and I picked it up today. I just read the beginning and so far it's very enjoyable and I can tell I am going to like it. It's well written and easy to read. It talks about videogames and hobbies in a way that I think most people here would relate to (and probably in a way that most other people would think was quite strange!).

So far it kind of reminds me of Fever pitch by Nick Hornby. That book is about a guy who is obsessed with football (soccer) and I really enjoyed it because it really spoke to me and dealt with subject matter that you don't often see in popular entertainment.

Anyway, I only just started but so far I recommend this book and I am wondering if anyone else picked it up.

My kind of book.

Someone else should buy this book. It's about videogames dammit. :p

Unfortunately, video games have ruined my attention span. Unless the book is ten pages long, I'll probably lose interest and start playing Metroid Prime.

I finished this book this afternoon.... Meh.. it was so-so. There were some things that I liked about it, but they were kinda few and far between. I enjoyed the various videogame details and trivia that are littered throughout the book. I knew most of them though - so they were not terribly interesting. I think the average videogame enthusiast would have known most of them... and I think the average non-fan would have found them rather uninteresting. So I am not sure who it was supposed to appeal to.

Furthermore... I am not sure how to put this, but I don't think the main character would be popular among other videogame fans. if he joined a forum like TNL he'd surely be the "Opa-Opa" of the group. :p

One of the biggest problem with the book was that the main character was not sympathetic at all. I love videogames - I love old videogames - but I could care less about the main character even tho' I shared his main passion. As the book went on I cared about him less and less too. I guess I didn't really care much about anything that was going to happen. The plot wore even more thin, especially as the charm of the videogame bits wore off. The only thing that kept me reading the book was mild curiosity.

The biggest problem was that the book was poorly written. The back cover of the book says that this was the author's first book. Well, it was obvious. The book is filled with cliché-ridden characterisations, predictable and rather insipid narrative.. and just a very general malaise. The book had little flow. It was far too apparent that the author was trying too hard to be clever, or, hell, be an author... so the book just comes off as quite badly written. It's not hard to read or anything.. just very meh, very unintelligent. The guy's a hack.

In spite of the bitching it was not as bad as I am making it out to be though. It's was thoroughly avarage. I didn't have any strong dislike while reading the book or I would have stopped reading. It was just so-so.. kinda meh. The book really seemed to lose the plot towards the end too. So, while a decent ending may have saved it, it pretty much just echoed the rest of the bleh.

My recommendation is to avoid the book. It's not that bad and it does have something nice going for it, with the nostalgia and the general theme of the book. It just does not live up to the promise of the concept. It's a shame really... I'd really like to see a real writer take a shot of writing a novel dealing with videogames and do the subject justice, sort of like how Nick Hornby did a brilliant job with my other interests - football (Fever Pitch) and music (High Fidelity).

Ah well.

I think I'll give this book a read despite your warning. Y'know, to figure out what I shouldn't do.