There are plenty of worthwhile non-fiction books on videogames, and even novels featuring games: Scarlett Thomas' Bright Young Things, for instance, charts a character's psychological breakdown via a mammoth FFVII session. But a new novel self-published for Kindle, described by its publisher as “the voice of the Videogame Generation,” aims to be the first major game-centric work of fiction.
Oscar Velikovsky is the author of AM SO AS – A Meaningless Sequence Of Arbitrary Symbols. The book follows the story of... Oscar Velikovsky, a budding game designer, who hooks up with design legend Godfrey Velikovsky, whose name is symbolic because the novel is about how game designers are God, and then there's a time paradox and Oscar has to kill Godfrey who is also Oscar and the middle of the book is a primer on game design? The book features contributions from designers including Ernest Adams (EA/Bullfrog) and Noah Falstein (Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis).
Above: An illustration from the novel, whose purpose is anyone's guess
AM SO AS is published by game writer Joe Velikovsky, who calls the book “a classic” and “deeply deep,” comparing it to The Great Gatsby or On The Road. Velikovsky's imprint also publishes original works by people with very similar names to famous authors, suggesting rather strongly that this whole thing is a great big self-aggrandizing put-on... but if anyone deserves a good trolling, it's the world of Kindle self-publishing, right? AM SO AS is $2. Are you going to give it a go?
May 17, 2011
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The Top 7... Classic books that would make amazing games
Like you'd read them otherwise
‘F**k you,’ said Madden, and five other true tales of gaming history from new book
Harold Goldberg’s book is filled with game development anecdotes worth sharing
