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    MetaGame
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    MetaGame
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    MetaGame
    Audiobook13 hours

    MetaGame

    Written by Sam Landstrom

    Narrated by Paul Michael Garcia

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Speculative science fiction at its finest, MetaGame by Sam Landstrom is a 'future gamers' field guide and a philosophical cyberpunk adventure. In this original and disturbingly irreverent prospective world, gaming is more than a diversion-and gamers are, literally, in it for life. The OverSoul, an enigmatic, unifying force, offers winners points that add up to currency. Reigning champs are given the gift of immortality-while losers are condemned to aging and death. D_Light is one of the best players in his Family and will do anything to win, even if it means committing murder. When he's invited to a MetaGame-an exclusive, high-stakes competition-he jumps at the chance. But after the first quest, D_Light's overly ambitious ways brand him a renegade. With a warped sense of freewill that is needed to prevail, D_Light must either kill someone he's grown to love-or lose everything.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateNov 20, 2012
    ISBN9781469200767
    Unavailable
    MetaGame

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    Reviews for MetaGame

    3.5/5

    67 ratings8 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Interesting concept of a future where most humans are a part of a vast gaming system. All work (and play, of course) involves being a part of virtual games. The top scorers' reward is immortality.
    • 2/5
      DNF @ page 230. Starts off with an interesting setup - a society where everything is a game. You get game-points for doing your everyday job and for name-dropping products, but there are also other games to participate in where you can become a star - a bit like real-world social media "influencers" becoming "celebrities" in their niches because lackluste teenagers "like" them. Anyway, the first quarter is an entertaining setup but it just doesn't go anywhere, just jumps to the next quest/task/event. Might work better for someone who is a gamer but I got bored.
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed this novel much more than expected, and a great deal more than Hunger Games. The premise here is plausible and the speculative elements are all too sound, especially given current technology and cyber-social trends. Metaphors reaches into humanity with a cool eye and exposes the heart.

      As cerebral as all that sounds, the plot moves, action abounds, and the notion of true love is explored. What more could you want? Great novel, especially for a debut. Landstrom reminds me of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson -- satisfying and challenging reads, all.
    • 3/5
      Sam Landstrom creates an interesting future where the entire concept of humanity as we know it is morphed into a multibillion person computer game. Normal day-to-day functions such as child raising and law enforcement are transformed into "grinder games" where players are jacked into the network and earn points based on their performance. Players belong to great houses (read Guilds) where status is determined by your point totals. It is in this world where a group is called to play a Meta-Game. A true honor where the stakes are high, but if a team is victorious they will be handsomely rewarded by the Game.The premise was great, but the delivery was so-so. The biggest issue I had with the novel is that every character name is actually their online handle. Unfortunately, the main character is named D_Light and his name is referenced several thousand times throughout the story. Is a poor choice of character name enough to impact a books rating. In my case, yes. Between the naming issue and other inconsistencies in the story I have a hard time recommending this one.
    • 3/5
      So is a book where "Life is the Game", our hero "must kill someone he's grown to love" and is named D_Light worth reading? Is this just another improbable, game-obsessed society? A recap of Logan's Run with this villainous computer possessing the boring, generic name Oversoul? I have to admit I wasn't looking forward to it that much and was rather bored with the opening two chapters where we get a recap of D_Light's killing of a woman when a game rule allowing legal killing of players is in effect. However, with the opening epigraph of the third chapter, my interest picked up, and the book held it until the end. Landstrom does pull off something new - creating a credible society that harnesses the addictive properties of video games for all sorts of productive tasks. It's a world realistic in its odd mix of horror and utopian possibilities with some satire thrown in. Mind chips enable person to person telepathy of a sort as well as communication directly with Oversoul. The overlay of artificial video game style sight and sounds (with a few smells) onto the real world is believeable and well handled as the questing characters prowl through a Warcraft-type game called NeverWorld. Cute robots styled as animals follow people around in their role as firewalls to prevent hacking of their owner's mind chips. Genetic engineering has developed various "products" - beings with no legal rights because they don't meet the threshold of 96.3% commonality with regular human DNA. A lot of this material is provided in one of my favorite infodump techniques - quoting future documents. In between info dumps, Landstrom provides some humor as D_Light puts the moves on the mysterious Lily. She is a "demon", a product without an owner, on the lam. Landstrom gives us some pretty good action sequences as products and demons square off. I think the book had a bit of a weak ending when our characters, engaged in the Metagame played by this world's aristocrats in a real, not virtual, setting, end up at the retreat of one Dr. Monsa who we've frequently heard from in those quotes. The pacing drags a bit here as characters take a break to talk around the dinner table, and D_Light mopes over what to do about the death sentence hanging over Lily. The story doesn't drag because of Dr. Monsa's technical discussions on the mechanics of this world but because of the interaction of the questing characters. Paradoxically, the final burst of action in the book seems a bit hurried. Still, Landstrom pulls off a surprise ending, one fairly novel for a plot featuring persecuted lovers. This doesn't follow the trajectory of other lovers against tyranny as in Fahrenheit 451, Nineteen Eighty-Four, or the previously mentioned Logan's Run. (Partly that's because it is not at all clear this is a dystopia.) And that end is realistically provided for in the nature of this world. So, in short, an interesting, effectively rationalized premise dramatically compromised by a weak opening and hurried ending. This is a self-published book but don't let that put you off. As my rating reflects, it was of average enjoyability for me. Wasn't sorry I read it but, in the end, I can't say it's even a particularly good novel. Just not bad. The production values are high. I didn't notice any typos which is usually not the case in modern books from established commercial publishers. And I thought the cover art by the author's niece was simple yet attractive.
    • 4/5
      D_Light is a player of games, and a good one. He spends most of his time “jacked in” to one game or another, amassing points and building up his status. This is important, as a player’s points dictate where he/she lives, what they wear, what food they eat, etc, etc (ie they are the currency of the society he lives in). Everybody is playing Games at one level or another.D_Light is moderately successful; he is climbing up the rankings. But there is a price to pay – in order to manage his moods and keep his performance at a peak he finds himself taking more and more drugs, he suffers from feelings of guilt, and he is lonely. Being invited to take part in a MetaGame seems like the opportunity of a lifetime; a MetaGame is a real game (ie not virtual) and therefore comes with a risk of actual injury or even death to the individuals taking part; not surprisingly it is played for high stakes.However, as the Metagame progresses, D_Light finds that his risk-taking approach has backfired and taken him outside of the rules of the Game. As he struggles to come to terms with this, the game itself starts to shift. Without wanting to give away spoilers, all I can say is that he is forced to choose between winning the Game (by the rules) or risking everything to change the Game itself.I enjoyed this book a lot. It’s not great literature, but there is a good story line which it is well developed, and (for me at least) the pace was about right – a bit slow at the start, but great once it got going. The characters are a bit stereotypical, but they were real enough to hold my attention and make me want to know what would happen to them. The best aspect (I thought) is the culture / society in which the events play out, which is imaginative and well described. I liked the little “excerpts” that appeared at the start of many of the chapters, which set the scene, give some back story, and generally provide clues to help you work out what is going on.There were one or two nice little vignettes; I particularly liked the scene where the clean-up operator gets to work. The cleaning operation is a Game; he gets points for keeping his ’bots optimally employed (not idle, but not too busy), he has to anticipate where and when dirt will appear and gets points based on how quickly he gets to it, etc. How neat is that! If only I could motivate my staff like this!!!The worst aspect of this book (and the reason it doesn’t get 5 stars) is the writing. The start is pretty weak – honestly, a scene describing a young man puking in the shower is not my idea of an innovative and attention grabbing start to a book!Secondly, the dialogue is just terrible; the politest word I can find to describe it, especially in the early chapters, is “naff”. It did occur to me later on that Landstrom is trying to put across D_Light as a nerd who doesn’t know how to hold a sensible conversation with a pretty girl, but I have to say, it doesn’t work – it just comes across as incompetent writing.Thirdly, chapter 2 is positively dire; it is overlong for the point the author wants to put across, it isn’t really relevant to the story, and it’s very badly written. If this hadn’t been a Vine book I would have given up at this point – and I’m very glad I didn’t, because I enjoyed the rest of the book.Overall a 3 to 4 star read if you enjoy sci-fi/fantasy, and can persevere past the early chapters.
    • 3/5
      I expect free and almost-free (under $1) books on Amazon to be pretty chancy propositions—my usual supposition being that they are self-published because no publisher wants them. I was pleasantly surprised by this.Humanity almost wiped itself out with irresponsible science, wars, etc. and is now governed by a not-quite-all-powerful artificial intelligence that truly does seem to want what is best for the human race. Of course, what is best for the race as a whole isn’t always best for individuals and morality isn’t always the primary criterion in decisions. The result was a fast-paced action story that had some interesting perspectives on consensual reality, bio- and nano-technology, and gaming.It’s not an “Oh, wow!” book. The characters lacked depth, seeming to run along on software rather than true human feelings. I found this particularly true in the ending, which seemed lifeless somehow.I also feel that this book is going to make a lot more sense to past or present gamers. If a reader has no clue as to what an MMORPG is, a lot of this book is going to seem rather weird. That’s not a criticism of the reader; there’s just an implicit assumption in this story that the audience “gets” this stuff and I think it's going to be a hurdle for those who don't.There was a lot of review criticism about all the typos. I read a second draft and, while I still spotted a couple, it is not distracting.A very quick read, decent ideas, lower scores on the actual writing—I can see something good coming from Landstrom someday but this was only OK.
    • 5/5
      This is an amazing book! I picked it up because the kindle version was $.80 on amazon and was really happily surprised, couldn't put it down. The world Landstrom creates is a wonderful insight into the possibilities of gaming, social networking, and futuristic politics. The ideas are fresh and the plot is fast and rivetting.