Customer Reviews

Game Night

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

... or just maybe that was a nitemare. ;-)

Anyway, this book is hilarious. Each "character" is a deity of sorts, who is running a stereotypical gamer archetype. If you have played in many games, you'll recognize every one of these, and be able to set your own name or experiences to that PC-archetype. And then there's the DM- constantly annoyed by the cluelessness of his players, but not without faults of his own. You'll know him too. Or maybe you'll see yourself in one of them.....

As has been said, it's a little Terry Pratchett-like, but it comes to a rather unsatisfactory end.

Still, if you are a RPGer- or even just hang out with RPGers- read this book.

Going into this, I had already read some of Critical Miss. While it does not help understand what is going on, it is a wonderful way to tell if you would like this author or not.

Now to brass tacks: I loved this book. Believe it or not, I actually come off as The Jester when I roleplay, always making wisecracks and never really taking the game seriously. The characters were easy to identify with (well, minus The Lady, as the GM's girlfriend/boyfriend is usually a bigger danger and annoyance than the GM) and the plot moved along quickly, with four idiots, one girl, and a belaguered GM. I would say Discworld would be a close comparison to this-- Early Discworld, not the later stuff about the Night Watch.

And now for the bad part-- the ending was not even okay. I did not enjoy it, and was left with a kind of "*shrug* well, that's it, I suppose" feeling. But, if you can get past that, this really is a joy to read.

I thought that this was a good book; not too complex, but with an interesting plot and some very funny comic sequences. I was disappointed in the ending (which I won't spoil here), but throughout I could see the Terry Pratchett influence, which was, I think, completely missed in the ending. (Pratchett has the amazing talent of wrapping up neatly and beautifully all the loose ends of the plot, but Nexus just dropped them. I think he was trying for a deeper point, but unfortunatly I didn't get it, or find it worth getting.) Overall, however, I was glad to have read it for the fun bits throughout.

If you have ever been a gamer; if you ever sat through late night D&D games, you will relate to the characters in this book and laugh throughout the entire thing. Hilarious!

When I read "Game Night" I kept snickering and laughing out loud. So much so that my husband was nipping at the bit to have a go at the novel. Once in hand, he laughed out loud even more than I... and at one point he was laughing so hard he was crying, literally tears streaming down his face, gasping for air. To me, that's a hellava compliment to the author's skill as a comedic writer.

I'm not a role player, and still really enjoyed this book. One of the things I like about this book is that there's more to it than meets the eyes. If one is willing to go "there," there is a good deal of metaphysical ponderings to be considered throughout. I also became particular fond of the author's portrayal of the gods in this story as fallible, cocktail swilling deities with insecurities. Love that!

I'm not too bothered by how it ends; it's a reflection of life itself, if not reminiscent of the stereotypical French film. Considering all the possible endings, I thought it was a rather bold move on the author's part. Considering the players and their personalities, it seems like a rather fitting ending.

I had high hopes when I picked up Game Night, but while it was entertaining at times the book as a whole just didn't work for me the way I thought it would going into it. Ironically, I think it was the very thing which drew me to it that I came not to enjoy as much; the interaction of those at the table. They were meant to be generalizations, that I understood, but everyone became too much of a generalization. There was no climax and little character development, as the story took a back seat to telling the next gaming table joke.

Very, very funny and uncomfortably accurate gaming table jokes, but still I think I was hoping there to be more than that. For just gaming jokes, I can find them easily on the Internet or just remember stories from my past. If you're looking for a book that passes the time and are a gamer, this is a good one. But for those that have never rolled the bones or those looking for something with substance, I'd suggest looking elsewhere.

Long and short - very enjoyable. Five friends have read it, five friends have liked it.

The thing I like best is that his writing is lean; there is no fat, only entertainment. Too often do I run across useless words/scenes. He knows what the book is, he knows what the story is, and he sticks with it.

The archetypes presented are not revolutionary by any stretch, but what is unique is how Nexus pulls it all together. His take on these standards is what sets this apart.

You won't be disappointed.

The name Jonny Nexus should need little introduction to fans of RPG-related humour. His website, Critical Miss, the Magazine for Dysfunctional Roleplayers ( http://www.criticalmiss.com/ ) is well known, and well regarded.

Dysfunctional Roleplayers? I have roleplayed with some of the finest minds on the planet, including several famous professional game designers. I used to believe that there were really high-end gaming groups out there, where gaming had been elevated to an art-form, and no-one laughed at fart jokes or killed kobolds for fun. I know now that though that may be true, such groups are so rare as to be almost non-existent. The truth is, we're almost all dysfunctional. Even those guys who you would expect to only ever play games written by Forge fans, and only ever play fully rounded characters in a Method Acting style, probably also sometimes roll up a fighter and kick some arse in a bad fantasy setting ripped off from Conan and Lord of the Rings. So this novel -- the story of the Gods themselves, and their dysfunctional roleplaying game group -- should appeal to almost all gamers.

Game Night is Mr Nexus's first full-length novel. From a "Style" perspective, that does show -- there are occasional typos, spelling and grammar errors, and stylistic oddities, which have brough the Style score down a little. That said, I am a picky, picky bastard when it comes to this kind of thing, and the errors in this book didn't irritate me THAT much more than the errors in most mainstream published novels, or seem that much more prevalent, either. Style is raised by the understated but excellent cover art by Jon Hodgson.

The content is generally very good. I'm not going to go into detail about the story, partly to avoid spoilers, partly because you can read more, including downloading the whole of the book's first chapter, at Mr Nexus's website:

http://www.jonnynexus.com/gamenight/

The premise, though, is that the Gods of a typically mish-mashed and half-arsed fantasy game setting are meeting in the Heavens to play an RPG run by the Allfather. They each generate characters within the game; said characters are physically embodied, in the form of mortals within the fantasy setting the Gods rule over. This allows for some excellent viewpoint switches between the players and their characters, without making either viewpoint appear to be unreal, as it might if the book were about a real-world gaming group and their characters -- a neat touch.

As a general rule, I don't find fantasy humour especially amusing. I will enjoy around 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 Terry Pratchett books, say, and find the rest to be humdrum at best. I recognise this may make me unusual in gamer circles.

Game Night is different, because almost all the jokes stem from dysfunctional gaming, which to me makes them funnier. Much as with Pratchett, there is a decent story going on just below the surface of the gags, too. You won't necessarily identify with the characters, but you have almost certainly gamed with some of the archetypes in this book.

You probably won't enjoy this if you're not a gamer (although you probably wouldn't be reading rpg.net if you weren't). You don't have to be a hardcore gamer to find it funny, though; I persuaded my wife to read it (she is one of the "I will play RPGs because my family & friends enjoy them; they are OK as long as I don't have to read any rulebooks" brigade, but she's also much more of a Pratchett fan than I am). She enjoyed it a lot, but found the middle section a little hard-going.

I think that is my estimation, too. I actually read it quite rapidly, and found it very enjoyable, but the jokes started to wear a little thin around the middle. That said, this is a book that's worth finishing, because the final few punchlines are unexpected and hilarious, nailing a few of the running gags and throwing several brand new ones at you.

In summary, if you find the first chapter funny, and you liked Critical Miss, buy Game Night. You will almost certainly laugh out loud, many times, and there are a few thought-provoking points made by Nexus too. Perhaps my favourite one, which combines a continually thought-provoking quality with some of the best humour in the book, is the ongoing despair of the GM (in this case, the Allfather) at the players' callousness, stupidity, distractedness, and general playerishness. He gets particularly wound up when (as occurs several times, with especial hilarity) they convince him that something shouldn't have happened the way he said it did, and he has to roll back time and have it happen differently.

There were parts that made me laugh, but the book is slow going and it really is the most horrible gaming session ever.

The novel is a very amusing parody of pen and paper roleplaying games. The characters are a variety of (slightly exagerated) player types, and many of the situations in the novel will make you laugh out loud if you ever played a roleplaying game such as D&D - and remind you of a similar scene you experienced.