PARANOIA Y1 Traitor Hangout [Kindle Edition]

WJ MacGuffin (Author), Jim Holloway (Illustrator)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

FOLLOW ALL MANDATES SO ALPHA COMPLEX WILL WORK PECFERTLY.

In Alpha Complex, The Computer's underground city of the future, happy citizens follow all mandates. If they don't, The Computer will be unhappy. This will make the happy citizens unhappy too. Quickly.

THE COMPUTER DID NOT SAY "PECFERTLY." THE COMPUTER ALWAYS SPEAKS FERPECTLY.

Efficiency auditor Clarence-Y enforces mandates - and he knows them all. By owning a secret pet, the mutant lab mouse Ignatius, Clarence has already broken 22 mandates. And it's not even lunch.

ATTENTION: REPLACE ALL USES OF "FERPECTLY" WITH "CREFPETLY." THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

On assignment for Internal Security, Clarence impersonates notorious criminal "Superstar Pirate" and infiltrates four treasonous secret societies in one day. All the mandate violations! They're making his head explode.

No, wait. Heavy weaponry - that's what will explode his head.

TRAITOR HANGOUT
A PARANOIA novel by WJ MacGuffin
(61,000 words - about 250 Kindle pages)

PARANOIA
Light-hearted stories of backstabbing, treachery, and Internal Security "Friendly Tap Justification" forms (to be completed after truncheon use). Based on the bestselling roleplaying game of fear and ignorance in a darkly satirical future, official PARANOIA novels are now available as ebooks from Ultraviolet Books -- and they’re even for your security clearance.

If you were looking for paranormal romance with dreamy dead guys - well, citizen, it sounds like you're off your hormone suppressants. But if you like Douglas Adams and stories of know-it-all rules lawyers put through four kinds of hell (how could you not?), your friend The Computer requires you to enjoy PARANOIA.

PARANOIA NOVELS ARE FUN. OTHER NOVELS ARE NOT FUN. READ PARANOIA.

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 904 KB
• Publisher: Ultraviolet Books (December 22, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B006PCTOOK
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #335,083 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

WJ is a writer, game designer, educator, and father based in Illinois, USA. He has written for the PARANOIA RPG (the edition formally known as XP), including the books WMD, STUFF, and Criminal Histories under the pen name "Bill O'Dea". It came as quite a shock to discover another educator in the US named Bill O'Dea, hence the new name. Since then, he has written for The Laundry RPG (Cubicle 7) and founded his own game company, Happy Bishop Games. He released his first RPG, Triune, to great reviews and poor sales. This is his first but hopefully not last novel. Feel free to contact him ([e-mail]) with your complaints about his penchant for obscure references to The Cannonball Run. Kudos are also welcome, as is pie. He likes pie.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Give it a chance, February 17, 2012

By 

Korben Dallas "The world is just an illusion" (who cares its all just an illusion.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: PARANOIA Y1 Traitor Hangout (Kindle Edition)

MOST IMPORTANTLY if you can do not read the little paragraph giving the plot overview, it gives away the ending to the book, which would have been a lot better for me if I hadn't already read the punch line. Also its a sequel to a short story in "PARANOIA A1 The Computer is Your Friend" or the short story is a prequel. I don't know.

Note: This book follows IntSec more than Troubleshooters. In fact troubleshooters are only mentioned a few times and never shown. Story has two protagonists and a mouse.

For the Non-RPG fan, you will find this to be an entertaining book about mistaken identity and discovery of mistaken identity and then being branded with a new secret identity. Faster read than I expected, and while I didn't get lost I did feel as though there was too much detail. Has a few satisfying twists, but if your a fan of this comedic style you might see them coming.

For the RPG Fan, this book is probably good for a read, though it is not the best franchise novel I read, it is definitely not the worst. It follows the RPG setting pretty well. Has the best examples of conflicting factions and how to tell who is who in a faction.

For those that read Reality Optional, to compare this to Reality Optional is a dis-service. The authors have different views on how Alpha Complex is structured and slightly different senses of humor. What Reality Optional did with conspiracies though, Traitors Hangout does it with Secret Societies.

For the GM looking for some inspiration, this book could help with portraying the Secret Societies, but I would not use it myself as a source material.

3.0 out of 5 stars Perfunctory, very light-hearted piece lacking polish, January 18, 2012

By 

Zild - See all my reviews

This review is from: PARANOIA Y1 Traitor Hangout (Kindle Edition)

If Traitor Hangout were made into a film, Rowan Atkinson would play the protagonist - a Mr Bean type character (Johnny English at least knew what he was trying to do) bumbling out of the frying pan, into the fire, then into the nuclear reactor core, without ever realising the danger he was in and somehow surviving it all. Traitor Hangout even alludes to this extraordinary level of ignorance and luck in a way that appears to be the book poking fun at itself.

Whilst the series aims to revive the style of Philip K. Dick, the series' authors admit this particular piece is furthest from that goal, as more of a Wodehousian offering. Having read the works of neither author, this reviewer will have to settle for likening it to the Red Dwarf novels, albeit lacking the grossly over-proportioned tangents in which they successfully revelled. To clarify, the text is mostly action and dialogue - far more so than the earlier Red Dwarf novels - almost entirely devoid of emotion, visual description, imagery or back-story. Whilst the absence of each of these could be explained and in many ways makes sense given the setting, it results in a far less colourful, engaging piece. Yet somehow Traitor Hangout remains compelling and generally maintains a good pace.

Part way through Traitor Hangout one may become concerned that the novel will try to regurgitate all the major concepts and mainstays of the PARANOIA setting, and in doing so do none of them justice. Thankfully it does not. In fact, there are some very key concepts of the original role playing game that are not even hinted at in Traitor Hangout. Cloning, for example, which alone could easily spawn myriad different sci-fi plots, has been completely disregarded. This is much to the author's credit as it raises the stakes significantly, be it for newcomers or PARANOIA veterans alike.

The book lacks polish in various ways: one to two dozen mistakes ranging from the occasional misspelled word to dialogue that appears to be missing several lines; a lack of distinct voice for most characters - a shame, given that where characters have been given unique voices they have been implemented very well; and above all a general sense that with a stricter publisher the author would have been forced to draw deeper and could have achieved so much more.

Unlike most stories where one generally assumes everything will eventually work out well for the protagonist, anyone with experience of PARANOIA will expect quite the opposite. This gives Traitor Hangout a genuine sense of not knowing how things will turn out, which the book maintains right up until the climax.

Note that Traitor Hangout should not be judged on its first chapter, which does not accurately reflect the style of the rest of the book; give it two chapters. Bizarrely, the first chapter is more entertaining yet simultaneously less compelling.

In summary, if you seek a gritty, emotive, engaging read you should look elsewhere - hopefully to the other books in the series. If you are looking for something humorous, light-hearted and over-the-top, Traitor Hangout should be of interest.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Paranoia Y1 Traitor Hanout, December 26, 2011

By 

Evelyn - See all my reviews

This review is from: PARANOIA Y1 Traitor Hangout (Kindle Edition)

This was wonderful! I highly recommend it. A little crazy but I really enjoyed it. I would tell everyone to buy, buy, buy!!