Press Start to Play

By: Daniel H. Wilson - editor, John Joseph Adams - editor

Narrated by: A.T. Chandler, Tanya Eby, Jesse Einstein, Emily Beresford

It's dangerous to go alone! Take this. You are standing in a room filled with books, faced with a difficult decision. Suddenly, one with a distinctive cover catches your eye. It is a groundbreaking anthology of short stories from award-winning writers and game-industry titans who have embarked on a quest to explore what happens when video games and science fiction collide.

From text-based adventures to first-person shooters, dungeon crawlers to horror games, these 26 stories play with our notion of what video games can be - and what they can become - in smart and singular ways. With a foreword from Ernest Cline, best-selling author of Ready Player One, Press Start to Play includes work from: Daniel H. Wilson, Charles Yu, Hiroshi Sakurazaka, S. R. Mastrantone, Charlie Jane Anders, Holly Black, Seanan McGuire, Django Wexler, Nicole Feldringer, Chris Avellone, David Barr Kirtley, T. C. Boyle, Marc Laidlaw, Robin Wasserman, Micky Neilson, Cory Doctorow, Jessica Barber, Chris Kluwe, Marguerite K. Bennett, Rhianna Pratchett, Austin Grossman, Yoon Ha Lee, Ken Liu, Catherynne M. Valente, Andy Weir, and Hugh Howey. Your inventory includes keys, a cell phone, and a wallet. What would you like to do?

©2015 Daniel H. Wilson and John Joseph Adams (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

A Satisfying Sampling of Gaming-Inspired Fiction

It was a great selection of stories running the gamut of game-inspired sci-fi AND fantasy.

A few gems amongst the trash

I enjoyed about a third of the stories in this book, but the other two thirds almost ruined the experience for me. Far too many of them felt incomplete, as if they were simple writing exercises not meant to be published, or else were first chapters of a longer tale. Many ended abruptly, as if the author forgot to finish them before sending them to the publisher. Additionally, I was a bit underwhelmed by Jesse Einstein’s performance. He mispronounced words just frequently enough that it made me wince every time it happened. On the whole, the book could have done with stringer editorial revision and a more discerning eye as to which pieces to accept and which to reject.

Disappointment from Big Names

Some great stories, a few (Boyle, Wexler, Mastrantone), but not from Howey, Weir, Wilson or Pratchett.

Some great, some bad

I liked some of the stories a lot, but others were incredibly boring and ended strangely. Some of the narrators should have been replaced, as they sounded liked they were reading a briefing.

A couple with potential

Great authors, throw away stories. A couple are decent, but most either tease you with a cool idea but fail on execution, or are just outright uninteresting or too awkward.