The Game: The Game Is Life, Book 1

The Game is a fantastic, witty, fast-paced must-read every single day. I highly recommend reading it, because not only does it widen your perspective on life but it simply makes you think. And we all know that in a world full of those idiots who run red lights, thinking is just about a virtue.But.I can go all day on and on about how great and creative this book is. Don't get me wrong here. I'll say it in advance, too. There still are issues. There still are idiots. There are the Sunday-slow-driver idiots, too. You can't escape them, especially with this book. All those idiots and all their idiotic thoughts are amplified. Highly. In. This. Book.So: warning.The main character, Zach. He's a famous guy. "The Game" is what made him famous. It's a stimulation of a completely different planet and universe designed to teach kids. It's the system that replaced teachers and schools almost completely. You send 'em in with no memory and when they get back from seemingly living and dying thinking that was their life they're supposedly smarter about life. Pretty unique, however The Game has revolutionized the Real World and not just in teaching kids. All currency is based off of it (Credits). Losing the game? You're losing your very life and luxuries. Winning, like Zach? You're famous, have sponsors and TV shows off of you and your fake lives in the Real World.You'd assume once you're rich, you're rich forever. Nope. Zach has (HAD) a girlfriend who went in and the supercomputer of the game killed her in baby form (there was a 0.2% chance). Instantaneously she went into poverty and couldn't even afford going into the Fake World as a plant. She went from top 10,000 rankings to no one. She was never heard of again.But so far that hasn't happened to Zach, the lucky guy. His sponsor (called Patron) is the very guy that oversaw the making of The Game. He is Brandon, who also is rich (it never ends, does it?). But supposedly even though he was like, the executive director, he really can't control the Fake World anymore.. the world he calls Sylvia. She can talk to him. In a supercomputer way. And she is an AI and nothing more...supposedly.Zach is nearing the end of his childhood, and soon will not be allowed to go back in The Game. Everyone is excited. The Most Searched Guy is going for a last play. Will he try to end number 1 or keep it safe and stay as rich as he is? No one knows.But more disturbing things are coming up. Zach's old girlfriend is given a free play. One free play. Out of all the people, billions of them. On the anniversary of The Game that person is given a free play.No one can figure it out. Coincidence? You'll find out, reader.The old girlfriend also mysteriously doesn't have many Credits, yet she has a ton of expensive power-ups for her play. The play may make her famous again, or may simply be wasted and kick her back into a governmental camp. How did she get those Credits??She didn't. Sylvia did.All of a sudden, things start happening on December 21, 2012. Zach learns how to make a religion. His girlfriend becomes his girlfriend. And both worlds they live in will never be the same.THE REVIEW:I love this book. All the characters are well-developed and the storyline suits them perfectly. Everything about the settings, the everything, flows flawlessly together. However..There are a few spelling and grammatical errors on the Kindle Fire edition. Nothing big, only like a missed period or something. Not distracting or the sort, there was only like three I spotted. Because this book is relatively long, I can believe they were mistakes.Dialogue gets a little awkward at times. In the beginning, I had trouble believing mature people could talk like that. Of course, they live in a completely different universe though. They have different cultures and the sort, so maybe I was expecting too much.Or was I? Nothing in the Real World seemed too different, really. You have very minor technological advances, a population obsessed with watching Real people live Fake lives, and nothing different. They're just..people. That's where I was disappointed. Where's the culture? Did anything appear weird about the Fake World to Real people? Anything?There was nothing at all.Altogether, I absolutely love this book. There's no inappropriate content for children at all, everyone would in fact love it. It's not too long at all, highly engaging, and MAKES YOU THINK. How often does a book do that? Where you put the book down, grab a Kindle, and look up information? If you feel like you need to put your mind on something new and fun and time-using like a book, read this one. It has all you need and and want, and more.The Game is Life but Life is Not The Game.

This is a really well thought out story. I really liked it, and -had to- immediately start book 2. Fair warning- there's a cliffhanger (Which isn't such a spoiler, given that there are 4 published books as of this review).I know, I know, the whole world-as-game/dream thing is kind of meh, but this.... Oh, this was VERY well done. I found the story interesting and engaging right from the beginning, I appreciated the characterization, and I began to really root for the two main characters. I was sad for them when a very bad thing happened - that means the author did their job of making me care about our heroes.If I had to describe this book using other stories, I'd say its The Matrix plus Hunger Games-ish. I was impressed with the way the author combined explaining the way the world(s) work with some backstory and the events happening now. There wasn't a lot of "I'm a new author and I don't know how to explain the stuff underneath the action" type of passages. I thought the foreshadowing was handled well.Something that irked me, and yet I completely understand and support its inclusion, are the constant little mysteries. Nameless yet detailed good and bad (or both?) guys, hints at the world beyond the surface, characters doing things for reasons that seem suspect or unexplained...argh! It's maddening, and a tease, and eventually things get explained. It really keeps the tension and the interest high.I didn't find any glaring format or grammar errors in book 1 - either I'm un-observant, was carried away by the story, or they've been fixed. Book 2, at 85% complete, has several instances where sentences run together or the next words continue a few line spaces down from where it should - not story killers, but they exist.Overall - get this book, it's reallllllly good.

This is Tome 1 of the “The Game is Life” series. It’s a Sci-Fi that takes place in a fictional planet that is exactly like the Earth but isn’t the Earth…On that planet, there’s no school. They replaced it with a virtual reality game and every child has to play that game until they reach a certain age or until they failed out of the game.Everything on that planet turns around that virtual reality game. Like, people are obsessed with it! For example, there’s no sports anymore on the planet, they watch the sports the children play inside the game! Or the music they listen to, comes from superstars inside the game!And there’s superstar players too!!! Those superstars players can make millions just by playing the virtual game and are adored by everyone!Of course, like in every book, everything is not perfect! But I won’t tell you what happens!This is a very good book, I highly recommend it ;)Sorry for my English, I’m French-Canadian…

Intéressant, prenant, bien écrit... j'adore !! Je recommande vivement !

Awesome

It was so good! I enjoyed every moment of the story. I found it Intriguing, thought provoking, laced with drama and suspense. For me it was filled with wonderment; a fun way to view life from inside a game. It would be great if there was a virtual reality game, just like in the book. I'm headed for the next book in the series... :)

Terry Schott has put together a series of remarkable books. Clearly he hasthe literary skills of a juggler who can keep a great many plates in the air.Unlike many e-books of this genre, there are a minimum of typos andmissing words (not even enough to bother a grammar pedant like me), andeach book is satisfyingly full length. Each successive book develops thethemes of previous ones: with so many aspects of the simulated realityhypothesis to examine, I imagine (if Terry Schott wanted to) he could carryon exploring this rich vein of speculation for as long as his avatar hasbreath. Sadly it seems that the series, if not the subject, is not infinite. Ashame, as I'd happily keep on buying his 'Game' books if they continued tobe as bold and as well constructed as these.But, as with much science fiction, here's the deal: you come to thesebooks with an open mind, and you find that your mind expands still further.Or you read them with a head full of rigid preconceptions, and yourexperience is disturbing enough for you to ditch the experience at the firstbook. You then spend time debunking it, saying that the science doesn'tadd up, and your intellectual citadel is comfortably reinforced, with betterand stronger walls. And you'll remain trapped inside them. These aremost definitely not books for those who want an authorised version ofreality, or who clings to intellectual respectability: they are books for the curious,the boldly-going ones: all those of us for whom reality has neverseemed... quite real.It's not an easy thing, being open-minded. Taking on the hypothesis of asimulated universe: following this wherever it leads; noticing how everythingis at once changed, and yet nothing is different... It's a big adventure - andlike the best adventures, you have to start out empty-handed. I wouldsuggest you put aside the idea that the central premise is fiction (unlessyou're comfortable with the idea that everything is fiction) and allow theGame to sweep you into another reality. The universe, after all, is made ofideas.These books are quite complex - even convoluted - and patience andattention are needed for their interwoven themes to develop. I didsometimes I feel I should have a small diagram to hand, showing thehierarchy of simulations. The fact that names keep changing is alsosomething to struggle with, but it's best not to get bogged down in minordetails or balk at the odd anomaly. Just let the whole saga unfold, and ifthe writer does his job well (and I think he does) everything more or lessgets ironed out. Reality always has a few loose ends blowing aroundanyway: that's how you know it's a simulation.Being open-minded means embracing new ways of looking at life: shakethe kaleidoscope and it's still the same apparatus but a whole new pictureappears. With the simulation hypothesis, things start to add up, but inways they never did before. Thus - religion. Thus - reincarnation. Thus - acollective consciousness. Thus - particle entanglement. And so on. Onceyou accept the premise, the implications of a simulated reality are, literally,infinite.Speaking personally, I'm entirely comfortable with the possibility i might beexisting within a simulated universe - perhaps one of many nested others.I'm fine, too, with the idea that i am a simulation myself: a true fraction ofthe whole. In fact, i find it reassuring that we might be living in anintentional world - though i diverge from the conclusions (including those inthis book) that the intention is for our 'world' to provide entertainment to itsprogrammers, or to be a scientific study. I think any beings advancedenough to create this world (and others) in such astonishing and perfectdetail, are likely to have an agenda way beyond anything we, as its humblesimulants, can comprehend.Meanwhile, we can but speculate. And one thing's for sure: if ourprogrammers hadn't meant the human species to start questioning thenature of our existence, we wouldn't be questioning it.