Press Start to Play

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

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

Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

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 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.

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.

Waste of money!

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

No one. This book was a total bust from beginning to end. Most of the stories are preachy and pretentious. Some started off decent but went to hell fast. Others started off so bad, it was painful to listen to. I was on a road trip so I thought that a collection of short stories was a good idea... boy was I wrong. This was the first bad book I've downloaded on audible but man, this was a stinker.

Would you ever listen to anything by Daniel H. Wilson - editor and John Joseph Adams - editor again?

no

Which scene was your favorite?

The one about the video game where the person is in the desert.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Not a single one... this really was a complete waste of time and money.

Any additional comments?

Don't waste your time.

Hard to Rate

Some of the stories were outstanding, but many were boring or had weak endings. I had to skip a few stories because the topics were so lame.

A Satisfying Sampling of Gaming-Inspired Fiction

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