VG in Fiction: D.B. Weiss' Lucky Wander Boy

Welcome to what I hope will be a continuing feature on this blog: My analysis of how video games and related topics are handled in popular (and unpopular) fiction. I know that, technically, fictional writing about video games isn't journalism, but I believe the way fiction authors deal with the medium gives some insight into how they are perceived by the public at large. Besides, a lot of what is passed of as video game journalism ends up actually being fiction anyway, so what's the difference really? =P



Anyway... Lucky Wander Boy. One word review: Wow!



I can't remember the last time I was so drawn into a story. I went from thinking the main character was a jerk to thinking he was like me to thinking he was what I should be to thinking he was what I shouldn't be until finally I came to realize that he just was and that's all there is to it (This sort of buddhist tautological thinking is one of the book's main themes)



By now those of you who haven't read the book are horribly confused so let's away with the condensed summary: Adam Pennyman is an unfulfilled copywriter at a "new media" company who tries to find meaning in his life by tracking down Lucky Wander Boy, an existentialist game which is un-emulatable and near-impossible to find (it's also fictional, in case you were wondering, as is the grusomely detailed Mortal Kombat clone "Eviscerator"). In an effort to gather data for his "Catalogue of Obsolete Entertainments," Adam searches out information on the game's mythical third stage and it's equally hard-to-reach creator, Araki Itachi. As a rogue's gallery of secondary characters flow in and out of his life with the speed of a Donkey Kong barrel, Adam's obsession with the game leads him to write a script for a non-starter movie version, drive to a classic video game convention in the New Mexico desert and eventually fly out to Japan where the book's climactic scene is replayed through a half-dozen different scenarios, like a video game with a conveniently placed save-point.



The parts of Lucky Wander Boy many gamers will find most interesting are the snippets from the Catalogue in which Adam waxes philosphical about the greater meaning of Donkey Kong, Double Dragon, and other classic arcade games. Some may find these sections pretentious, but I found them refreshing; a new way to look at games in the light of higher film and literary criticism that most game "reviewers" can only dream of. Adam's ruminations on life in the context of video games are likely to resonate with any gamer who has ever considered what Pac-man actually experiences when he travels down those magic tunnels on the sides of the screen.



Weiss uses supplementary Catalogue entries on subjects like geekdom and imaginary games based on Adam's work-a-day life as an interesting literary device; revealing Adam's state-of-mind and personal cosmology without bludgeoning the reader with ponderous "who am I?" monologues. Weiss has a flair for subtelty that lets the reader fill in the blanks with their own experience where necessary to piece together what ends up being a rather complicated protagonist.



But the best thing about this book, from a gamer's point of view, is the way Weiss subsumes the language and culture of the haardcore gamer into a compelling fictional world. Adam speaks the same language of any gamer raised on the blips and bloops of Tempest and Galaxian in dingy arcades where the lights are always off and the no smoking signs are meant to be ignored. Adam's quest to immerse himself in that childhood arcade forever is a goal that any kid at heart can relate to and cheer on, (even through Adam's lapses into the insane, psuedo-religious ceremony involving an Atari 2600, and Intellivision, and the Fibonacci sequence).



Adam's story is the story of an entire generation that didn't want to leave the arcade when their mothers got back from shoe shopping, and didn't know what to do once they left. It should be on the must-read list of every such gamer.