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Constellation Games: A Space Opera Soap Opera
First contact isn't all fun and games. Ariel Blum is pushing thirty and doesn't have much to show for it. His computer programming skills are producing nothing but pony-themed video games for little girls. His love life is a slow-motion train wreck, and whenever he tries to make something of his life, he finds himself back on the couch, replaying the games of his youth. Then the aliens show up. Out of the sky comes the Constellation: a swarm of anarchist anthropologists, exploring our seas, cataloguing our plants, editing our wikis, and eating our Twinkies. No one knows how to respond--except for nerds like Ariel who've been reading, role-playing and wargaming first-contact scenarios their entire lives. Ariel sees the aliens' computers, and he knows that wherever there are computers, there are video games. Ariel just wants to start a business translating alien games so they can be played on human computers. But a simple cultural exchange turns up ancient secrets, government conspiracies, and unconventional anthropology techniques that threaten humanity as we know it. If Ariel wants his species to have a future, he's going to have to take the step that nothing on Earth could make him take. He'll have to grow up.
357 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2011
62 people are currently reading
1619 people want to read
About the author
Leonard Richardson
25 books43 followersLeonard Richardson is an expert on RESTful API design, the developer of the popular Python library Beautiful Soup, and a science fiction novelist.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 174 reviews
March 25, 2021
Disclaimer: I'm a friend of the writer, and in fact, read earlier drafts of this before publication.
Richardson has a wicked sense of humor. His protagonist, Ariel, has a sharp tongue, a serious case of self-deprecation, and not a lot of motivation to get off the couch and on with his life. Which means he has a very different spin on first contact that most science fiction characters. This is what alien contact would be like for most of us--a weird backdrop that doesn't keep us from screwing around with our useless business plans, getting a little too drunk at our friends' parties, messing up our relationships, and trying to convince aliens not to pee in the sink.
The book is written in a mishmash of blog entries, fictitious game reviews, IM conversations, emails, and the very occasional real life narration. It gives Richardson a lot of room to play with the lies and half-truths we tell, not only because we have to but because sometimes it makes the story better. It also gives him more than enough room to snark, and snark he does. The characters have distinct voices, each of which have their own senses of humor. (And Tetsuo takes every scene he's in, rolls it up under his arm, and walks away with it.)
I still think the climax is a little bit rushed, but overall, this is a sweet story with a lot of wickedly funny lines. There are also bits of unexpected depth to delight you and remind you that Richardson has a much bigger universe than this living in his head.
The novel was originally serialized, and two Twitter feeds (one for Ariel, one for Tetsuo) ran concurrently. They're worth checking out, although you'll want to be careful not to read ahead on the feed lest you spoil yourself. The feeds themselves are even funnier, freed from the demands of plot to be as loopy and off-the-wall as Richardson could manage.
If you like video games, or aliens, or snarky banter, or just an insightful and surprisingly optimistic cynical take on how we'd actually act if the Federation came knocking on our door, this is your book.
Richardson has a wicked sense of humor. His protagonist, Ariel, has a sharp tongue, a serious case of self-deprecation, and not a lot of motivation to get off the couch and on with his life. Which means he has a very different spin on first contact that most science fiction characters. This is what alien contact would be like for most of us--a weird backdrop that doesn't keep us from screwing around with our useless business plans, getting a little too drunk at our friends' parties, messing up our relationships, and trying to convince aliens not to pee in the sink.
The book is written in a mishmash of blog entries, fictitious game reviews, IM conversations, emails, and the very occasional real life narration. It gives Richardson a lot of room to play with the lies and half-truths we tell, not only because we have to but because sometimes it makes the story better. It also gives him more than enough room to snark, and snark he does. The characters have distinct voices, each of which have their own senses of humor. (And Tetsuo takes every scene he's in, rolls it up under his arm, and walks away with it.)
I still think the climax is a little bit rushed, but overall, this is a sweet story with a lot of wickedly funny lines. There are also bits of unexpected depth to delight you and remind you that Richardson has a much bigger universe than this living in his head.
The novel was originally serialized, and two Twitter feeds (one for Ariel, one for Tetsuo) ran concurrently. They're worth checking out, although you'll want to be careful not to read ahead on the feed lest you spoil yourself. The feeds themselves are even funnier, freed from the demands of plot to be as loopy and off-the-wall as Richardson could manage.
If you like video games, or aliens, or snarky banter, or just an insightful and surprisingly optimistic cynical take on how we'd actually act if the Federation came knocking on our door, this is your book.
July 24, 2016
This is a book that's brilliant enough that I don't always get it, whether because I miss some of the references or because I'm just not thinking at the level of the author. It's the kind of book I want to read again sometime to see what else I can get out of it.
It's true speculative fiction. What I mean by that is that it isn't just another genre sausage, with the same basic shape and contents as all the other sausages in that genre; it actually has a new angle. This is first contact as seen through the eyes of a video game developer and reviewer who attempts to understand the aliens by playing their games.
The Constellation, the peaceful alien civilisation that contacts Earth in 2012, is a post-scarcity anarchy (fans of Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross will know what that is, and probably enjoy this book a lot). They're pleased to discover that Earth is not another of the planets where a civilisation has destroyed itself, leaving only fossils, since this sad fate is more common than the survival scenario. They'd like to keep it that way, but humans are irrational and get upset when the aliens try to help with things like global climate change.
The story is told largely via a series of documents, mostly blog posts, but there are also IM conversations and a few other formats. Some of the short chapters, though, are headed "Real Life" and a date, and since they're written in almost the same style as the blog posts, I did often find myself checking back at the beginning of the chapter I'd just finished to see if it was a blog post (and hence public, or at least circulated to the narrator's friends) or not. That's important, since as the story goes on, the blog posts contain more and more lies for various reasons. Mostly, these have to do with the narrator protecting himself or someone else.
The language has some wonderful moments. Not only the slightly distorted English of the aliens, but some of the narrator's phrases. "He twisted some vowels into balloon animals," for example, as a description of an alien speaking an historical language of his race. (The several alien races, by the way, are referred to by various words that different human groups use to mean "alien"; besides the Aliens, there are Auslanders, Gaijin, Farang....) There are also some lovely moments of commentary on our society. "As if we'd all gotten together and agreed to do whatever it said on signs," the narrator observes when a minor official glares at him for not doing something posted on a sign. There's a strong thread of anti-authoritarianism, if you hadn't already picked that up (also, as one of the aliens observes, the narrator swears a lot).
The references to technology and video games are a mixture of real-life and invented. There's a character called Dana Light who is more or less a Lana Croft, for example, but not exactly. That's helpful for someone like me, who hasn't played a great many video games, because if a lot of the point depended on intricate knowledge of the trivia of popular culture (as in, for example, Ready Player One), I would have enjoyed it a lot less than I did. Instead, it's about the phenomenon of gaming and how it expresses and shapes culture and psychology, and using that as a lens to examine things about culture and psychology.
The editing could have been better. The book deserved for it to be better, in fact. Based on this and on another book I've read from Candlemark & Gleam, the small press that published it, what you get from C&G is developmental editing on your high-concept book, rather than meticulous proofreading and copyediting. What the customer gets is probably pretty much what comes out of the author's word processor. In the case of the other book, that included a lot of homonym errors. In the case of this one, it means a number of what are basically typesetting mistakes (missed words, misspellings, lost quotation marks, one instance of an inconsistent time in a sequence of tweets), plus a few apostrophes missing in phrases like "ten mortgages' worth of signatures" or misplaced in words like "children's". It's a long way from terrible, but I wish it had that extra polish.
Between the less-than-flawless proofreading and the slight unlikeliness of some of the aliens, this isn't a perfect book, but it is an excellent one, funny, thought-provoking, original and possessing a rare depth, and that is why I've given it five stars.
It's true speculative fiction. What I mean by that is that it isn't just another genre sausage, with the same basic shape and contents as all the other sausages in that genre; it actually has a new angle. This is first contact as seen through the eyes of a video game developer and reviewer who attempts to understand the aliens by playing their games.
The Constellation, the peaceful alien civilisation that contacts Earth in 2012, is a post-scarcity anarchy (fans of Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross will know what that is, and probably enjoy this book a lot). They're pleased to discover that Earth is not another of the planets where a civilisation has destroyed itself, leaving only fossils, since this sad fate is more common than the survival scenario. They'd like to keep it that way, but humans are irrational and get upset when the aliens try to help with things like global climate change.
The story is told largely via a series of documents, mostly blog posts, but there are also IM conversations and a few other formats. Some of the short chapters, though, are headed "Real Life" and a date, and since they're written in almost the same style as the blog posts, I did often find myself checking back at the beginning of the chapter I'd just finished to see if it was a blog post (and hence public, or at least circulated to the narrator's friends) or not. That's important, since as the story goes on, the blog posts contain more and more lies for various reasons. Mostly, these have to do with the narrator protecting himself or someone else.
The language has some wonderful moments. Not only the slightly distorted English of the aliens, but some of the narrator's phrases. "He twisted some vowels into balloon animals," for example, as a description of an alien speaking an historical language of his race. (The several alien races, by the way, are referred to by various words that different human groups use to mean "alien"; besides the Aliens, there are Auslanders, Gaijin, Farang....) There are also some lovely moments of commentary on our society. "As if we'd all gotten together and agreed to do whatever it said on signs," the narrator observes when a minor official glares at him for not doing something posted on a sign. There's a strong thread of anti-authoritarianism, if you hadn't already picked that up (also, as one of the aliens observes, the narrator swears a lot).
The references to technology and video games are a mixture of real-life and invented. There's a character called Dana Light who is more or less a Lana Croft, for example, but not exactly. That's helpful for someone like me, who hasn't played a great many video games, because if a lot of the point depended on intricate knowledge of the trivia of popular culture (as in, for example, Ready Player One), I would have enjoyed it a lot less than I did. Instead, it's about the phenomenon of gaming and how it expresses and shapes culture and psychology, and using that as a lens to examine things about culture and psychology.
The editing could have been better. The book deserved for it to be better, in fact. Based on this and on another book I've read from Candlemark & Gleam, the small press that published it, what you get from C&G is developmental editing on your high-concept book, rather than meticulous proofreading and copyediting. What the customer gets is probably pretty much what comes out of the author's word processor. In the case of the other book, that included a lot of homonym errors. In the case of this one, it means a number of what are basically typesetting mistakes (missed words, misspellings, lost quotation marks, one instance of an inconsistent time in a sequence of tweets), plus a few apostrophes missing in phrases like "ten mortgages' worth of signatures" or misplaced in words like "children's". It's a long way from terrible, but I wish it had that extra polish.
Between the less-than-flawless proofreading and the slight unlikeliness of some of the aliens, this isn't a perfect book, but it is an excellent one, funny, thought-provoking, original and possessing a rare depth, and that is why I've given it five stars.
July 31, 2012
The galactic civilization has arrived in Earth orbit. They've turned a big chunk of the moon into a smart-matter space station, and they come in peace. While others see the arrival of the Constellation as a watershed event in the history of humanity, Ariel Blum's greatest ambition is to find out what kind of video games ETs play and write about them on his snarky game-review blog.
The book is lush with science-fictional thought experiments; the entries in the "Constellation Database of Games of a Certain Complexity" alone deliver some fantastic one-off jokes alongside memorable explorations of what a game can say about a culture. What lifts Constellation Games from merely funny and inventive to something great, though, is the individuality of the characters.
The book derives both humor and dramatic tension from the variety in the Constellation species' distinct, non-human ways of thinking. Whenever attention lingers on one species, we see that there are differences of culture and personality and motivation within it. Even a hive mind embodies dissent, with some of its members at one point blowing raspberries at their own supermind. Among the humans, not even the spooks from the hastily-assembled Bureau of Extraterrestrial Affairs can stay on the same page. Ariel and his friends like each other, but they often don't understand each other.
Naturally, Ariel discovers that playing some alien games becomes a window onto more serious matters. He has an entertaining, sympathetic point of view, but he's also sometimes a creep to the people close to him. Richardson's master trick is in letting us care about him the way you care about a longtime friend who you probably wouldn't like if first meeting them now—not approvingly, but with understanding, some frustration, and some hope.
UPDATE: The last chapter of the serialization arrived today, and the end and the whole lived up to all my expectations.
The book is lush with science-fictional thought experiments; the entries in the "Constellation Database of Games of a Certain Complexity" alone deliver some fantastic one-off jokes alongside memorable explorations of what a game can say about a culture. What lifts Constellation Games from merely funny and inventive to something great, though, is the individuality of the characters.
The book derives both humor and dramatic tension from the variety in the Constellation species' distinct, non-human ways of thinking. Whenever attention lingers on one species, we see that there are differences of culture and personality and motivation within it. Even a hive mind embodies dissent, with some of its members at one point blowing raspberries at their own supermind. Among the humans, not even the spooks from the hastily-assembled Bureau of Extraterrestrial Affairs can stay on the same page. Ariel and his friends like each other, but they often don't understand each other.
Naturally, Ariel discovers that playing some alien games becomes a window onto more serious matters. He has an entertaining, sympathetic point of view, but he's also sometimes a creep to the people close to him. Richardson's master trick is in letting us care about him the way you care about a longtime friend who you probably wouldn't like if first meeting them now—not approvingly, but with understanding, some frustration, and some hope.
UPDATE: The last chapter of the serialization arrived today, and the end and the whole lived up to all my expectations.
February 14, 2015
What a beautiful book! Constellation Games is a sci-fi that's a love story, a coming-of-age novel that's a comedy, a computer games fest that's serious. Get it, read it, savor it!
The background story seems at first our typical aliens-contact-Earth, but quickly dissolves in a discussion about bigot and liberal, Aliens and Earthlings playing in both camps. The storyline gets messy very quickly, but there is an optimistic line that makes it beautiful.
The epistolary style (should I call it blogary style?) is distracting at first, but then becomes increasingly more suitable to represent the life of the main characters, who are as disconnected online as they are in their real lives, and characterise quite well the documented lifestyle of the born-digital generation.
I also liked very much the part about computer games, with the book's detailed discussion about game design, with the barbs aimed at today's industry many problems (Poneis brilhantes FTW!), with the accurate desc of how it is to go indie. Perhaps I liked this part too much, to the point where I stopped often to think about game designs derived from this book's. Funny, I spent less time thinking about the moral implications of aliens stealing the Polar ice-caps (yes, it happens in this book).
The characters are well cast, and the macho gamedev culture and the rebel indie artist are captured spot-on. The Feds are more stick figures and could have been done better. The aliens are for me surprisingly well contoured, especially given the length of the material in which they feature; truly a good sci-fi writ.
Enough said, go read this: fun and learning and even some depth. Not your typical sci-fi, not your typical gamedev book!
The background story seems at first our typical aliens-contact-Earth, but quickly dissolves in a discussion about bigot and liberal, Aliens and Earthlings playing in both camps. The storyline gets messy very quickly, but there is an optimistic line that makes it beautiful.
The epistolary style (should I call it blogary style?) is distracting at first, but then becomes increasingly more suitable to represent the life of the main characters, who are as disconnected online as they are in their real lives, and characterise quite well the documented lifestyle of the born-digital generation.
I also liked very much the part about computer games, with the book's detailed discussion about game design, with the barbs aimed at today's industry many problems (Poneis brilhantes FTW!), with the accurate desc of how it is to go indie. Perhaps I liked this part too much, to the point where I stopped often to think about game designs derived from this book's. Funny, I spent less time thinking about the moral implications of aliens stealing the Polar ice-caps (yes, it happens in this book).
The characters are well cast, and the macho gamedev culture and the rebel indie artist are captured spot-on. The Feds are more stick figures and could have been done better. The aliens are for me surprisingly well contoured, especially given the length of the material in which they feature; truly a good sci-fi writ.
Enough said, go read this: fun and learning and even some depth. Not your typical sci-fi, not your typical gamedev book!
March 1, 2013
Constellation Games made me mad. That is why I liked it.
Say I am driving to work after reading a bit of the book in the morning. I am mad. Why the hell would Ariel (main character) do THAT?!?! It doesn't make sense. What the hell is going on here?
Sometimes I feel this a bit when I read a sloppily written book. Some hack "author" will write a book and then have the protagonist execute a series of random, unlikely decisions. That is just trash. It doesn't stay with me and instead serves as further proof that the author was crap. But I could tell this was not the case. This was clearly a smart author who had to LIVE each of his characters to be able to write the book at all. So then what the hell was going on?
What was going on was the hook. I cared about these characters and really wanted to resolve whatever was going on. Leonard Richardson would eventually solve all of these issues for his readers, but you would have to wait for it. "Keep reading," he would whisper in between the lines.
That is a good feeling. I hope that he writes some more books. This one was very fun.
Say I am driving to work after reading a bit of the book in the morning. I am mad. Why the hell would Ariel (main character) do THAT?!?! It doesn't make sense. What the hell is going on here?
Sometimes I feel this a bit when I read a sloppily written book. Some hack "author" will write a book and then have the protagonist execute a series of random, unlikely decisions. That is just trash. It doesn't stay with me and instead serves as further proof that the author was crap. But I could tell this was not the case. This was clearly a smart author who had to LIVE each of his characters to be able to write the book at all. So then what the hell was going on?
What was going on was the hook. I cared about these characters and really wanted to resolve whatever was going on. Leonard Richardson would eventually solve all of these issues for his readers, but you would have to wait for it. "Keep reading," he would whisper in between the lines.
That is a good feeling. I hope that he writes some more books. This one was very fun.
May 13, 2015
I am a big science fiction fan. One of the most seen tropes in the genre is the First Contact Scenario, in which humanity is faced with the existence and arrival of aliens. I really enjoy good first contact stories, from The Day the Earth Stood Still to Carl Sagan's Contact. Constellation Games is by far the most entertaining first contact story that I have ever read. One of the themes of just about every first contact story that I have ever encountered is that of finding a commonality between humanity and the extraterrestrials. In this story the commonality (or at least on of them) is video games. Another common theme of these stories is that the aliens are really just reflections of ourselves. In my opinion, these aliens reflect what we could achieve in the future. They live in an anarchic society with very little hierarchy; there is no real scarcity. They represent a the kind of future that techno-optimists like Kurzweil write about. Yet despite this, they are not quite perfect. There is still conflict in their society over what course to take, and how best to minimize the damage to humanity of the rapid changes brought on by their contact.
The writing style is unique and entertaining. Much of the book is made up of blog posts and IM conversations. The story is fast paced and moves right along. Readers will not have to sit though a lengthy introduction before getting to the good stuff. The aliens arrive not just in the first chapter, not just on the first page, but on the very first sentence. Not only is the main character well developed, but so are his human and alien friends, from his ambiguous relationship with his best (possibly more than) friend, to the alien Curic (who redefines the meaning of internal conflict), to his Alien (with a capital 'A') friend Tetsuo (on of my favourites in the book).
Perhaps the best praise I can give this book is that I hope the author write a sequel.
The writing style is unique and entertaining. Much of the book is made up of blog posts and IM conversations. The story is fast paced and moves right along. Readers will not have to sit though a lengthy introduction before getting to the good stuff. The aliens arrive not just in the first chapter, not just on the first page, but on the very first sentence. Not only is the main character well developed, but so are his human and alien friends, from his ambiguous relationship with his best (possibly more than) friend, to the alien Curic (who redefines the meaning of internal conflict), to his Alien (with a capital 'A') friend Tetsuo (on of my favourites in the book).
Perhaps the best praise I can give this book is that I hope the author write a sequel.
March 5, 2013
I bought this after reading Cory Doctorow's rave on Boing Boing, and was not disappointed. A truly original plot in which our narrator -- a hapless but very appealing video game designer -- becomes the inadvertent ambassador for humanity to a loose confederation of aliens who have approached Earth to see if it's ready to join the Constellation. In reviewing the Constellation's archive of long-defunct games, Ariel Blum gains insights into its ancient culture and its plans for the Solar System. Richardson updates the classic epistolary novel form to include blog posts, emails, and IMs, creating a pace that makes the novel un-put-downable. The aliens are the true stars - charming, unforgettable characters who you absolutely wish you could meet for real. An amazing debut that should appeal to all readers, even those who dont usually pick up hard SF.
April 11, 2015
Constellation Games is an alien first contact story told via the medium of video game reviews.
Before I get all caught up on narrative structures and literary merit, let me just say this was a completely enjoyable book. It's full of in-jokes about video games, game design, and the early internet, and if you're the kind of person who is in on those things, you'll get the jokes and feel gratified. It's also a really funny book, though it gets darker as it goes on. It's so funny and so enjoyable that I was ready to give it four (4) stars, based on enjoyment alone (to get five you also have to have literary merit), except then I got to the ending and was a bit let down by the lack of resolution.
Like, don't get me wrong, I've read a lot of postmodern novels and I'm pretty cool with books leaving you hanging a bit. But the way this book was, its frankly lightweight nature, made me expect a traditional ending. Which it didn't give me.
Here's what isn't wrong with this book.
The structure is fascinating, and towards the end of the book, I think the structure tells us quite a bit about the plot. The story is delivered entirely via artifacts/surveillance: blog posts, emails, and chat messages, all contributed by or collected from our main character, Ariel.
Ariel is a guy who runs a game review blog. Like a lot of blogs ostensibly focused on a particular topic, it meanders to his personal life sometimes. When an alien coalition of multiple species of peaceful anarchist aliens lands on the moon and starts a contact mission with earth, Ariel wants to play and review their video games. So, an alien anthropologist gets in touch with him, and sends him an emulator, and he starts playing and reviewing. As Ariel learns about the games, he also starts to understand the people who created and played them. Meanwhile, he has interpersonal problems with his friends and legal problems with shady federal agents.
I don't want to give away too much of the plot because one of the delightful things about this book is the constant re-framing. As Ariel starts to understand the aliens better, his problems get a lot more interesting. But they also become the kind of problems that you have to have built up to in order to understand them.
One of my gripes with the book is that the aliens, despite their weird bodies and sexual habits, are remarkably relatable to the human characters. Only toward the very end of the book do you get a little bit of re-framing when one of the alien characters explains how they experienced what Ariel had thought was a thoroughly positive interaction. That was good. I would have liked to see more of that!
Despite its flaws, Constellation Games is a well-realized world, with fully developed characters (bonus: all the female (human) characters are individuals), an intriguing plot, and lots of humor. I had a shitty week and reading Constellation Games was a wonderful solace against that.
I hope Leonard Richardson writes more fiction because I could use more feel-good space opera.
Before I get all caught up on narrative structures and literary merit, let me just say this was a completely enjoyable book. It's full of in-jokes about video games, game design, and the early internet, and if you're the kind of person who is in on those things, you'll get the jokes and feel gratified. It's also a really funny book, though it gets darker as it goes on. It's so funny and so enjoyable that I was ready to give it four (4) stars, based on enjoyment alone (to get five you also have to have literary merit), except then I got to the ending and was a bit let down by the lack of resolution.
Like, don't get me wrong, I've read a lot of postmodern novels and I'm pretty cool with books leaving you hanging a bit. But the way this book was, its frankly lightweight nature, made me expect a traditional ending. Which it didn't give me.
Here's what isn't wrong with this book.
The structure is fascinating, and towards the end of the book, I think the structure tells us quite a bit about the plot. The story is delivered entirely via artifacts/surveillance: blog posts, emails, and chat messages, all contributed by or collected from our main character, Ariel.
Ariel is a guy who runs a game review blog. Like a lot of blogs ostensibly focused on a particular topic, it meanders to his personal life sometimes. When an alien coalition of multiple species of peaceful anarchist aliens lands on the moon and starts a contact mission with earth, Ariel wants to play and review their video games. So, an alien anthropologist gets in touch with him, and sends him an emulator, and he starts playing and reviewing. As Ariel learns about the games, he also starts to understand the people who created and played them. Meanwhile, he has interpersonal problems with his friends and legal problems with shady federal agents.
I don't want to give away too much of the plot because one of the delightful things about this book is the constant re-framing. As Ariel starts to understand the aliens better, his problems get a lot more interesting. But they also become the kind of problems that you have to have built up to in order to understand them.
One of my gripes with the book is that the aliens, despite their weird bodies and sexual habits, are remarkably relatable to the human characters. Only toward the very end of the book do you get a little bit of re-framing when one of the alien characters explains how they experienced what Ariel had thought was a thoroughly positive interaction. That was good. I would have liked to see more of that!
Despite its flaws, Constellation Games is a well-realized world, with fully developed characters (bonus: all the female (human) characters are individuals), an intriguing plot, and lots of humor. I had a shitty week and reading Constellation Games was a wonderful solace against that.
I hope Leonard Richardson writes more fiction because I could use more feel-good space opera.
September 8, 2016
I'm in a sweet spot now where there are a lot of authors that seem to be about the same age as me give or take a decade. So I'm starting to see more and more references I can relate to. The main character of this book, Ariel Blum, seems to have also grown up in the video game revolution of the 80s. I appreciate his not-Laura Croft, Dana Light, in a way that I doubt those much older or younger than me would. And, while it's not singular in this respect, a book told mostly through blog posts, IMs, and emails, definitely speaks to me as someone who straddles the Gen X/ Millenial age cutoffs. Ariel's work on phone games continues to be more and more relevant as clickers and free to play games become ever more prevalent.
The over-arching story is that of first contact between a present-day Earth and an Star Trek Federation-like alien collective. At first I was left ever-more frustrated at the story to latch on to any of the first contact tropes it was throwing out there. We're introduced to two threats, Slow People and another I can't recall because it's that inconsequential, but involves some organism that eats fossils.
Eventually it became clear that this was because first contact was really only the backdrop being used by Mr Richardson to explore a different story - one that has existed for a long time in a modern context, but which seems to really strike a chord with the last two generations of Americans - is what I do for a living and for recreation worthwhile and fulfilling? Ariel makes stupid phone games for a living. Before that he made stupid first person shooters for a living. He had realized his dream of working to create video games and it turned out to be soul crushing. When the aliens arrive, he decides to review alien video games. This eventually leads to personal growth and understanding - this is a story about Ariel that happens to have aliens.
The writing style and dialogue remind me of Neal Stephenson at his best - think Snow Crash or Crytonomicon. The characters are witty, but believable and the plot is depicted in an almost sarcastic manner while still being moving, emotionally. I might also compare it to Old Man's War by John Scalzi.
If you're a gamer somewhere between your 20s and 40s, I think you'll find resonance with the plot and writing style. If you're not, but enjoy sci-fi - I think you can definitely find something here.
--
Edit 20160909 - While watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jko06... , I wonder if Dana Light is actually supposed to be a play on Joanna Dark? Or if it's just parodying that name while still being a parody of Laura Croft. (The book mentions posters with the PS1 version which makes me think Laura Croft)
The over-arching story is that of first contact between a present-day Earth and an Star Trek Federation-like alien collective. At first I was left ever-more frustrated at the story to latch on to any of the first contact tropes it was throwing out there. We're introduced to two threats, Slow People and another I can't recall because it's that inconsequential, but involves some organism that eats fossils.
Eventually it became clear that this was because first contact was really only the backdrop being used by Mr Richardson to explore a different story - one that has existed for a long time in a modern context, but which seems to really strike a chord with the last two generations of Americans - is what I do for a living and for recreation worthwhile and fulfilling? Ariel makes stupid phone games for a living. Before that he made stupid first person shooters for a living. He had realized his dream of working to create video games and it turned out to be soul crushing. When the aliens arrive, he decides to review alien video games. This eventually leads to personal growth and understanding - this is a story about Ariel that happens to have aliens.
The writing style and dialogue remind me of Neal Stephenson at his best - think Snow Crash or Crytonomicon. The characters are witty, but believable and the plot is depicted in an almost sarcastic manner while still being moving, emotionally. I might also compare it to Old Man's War by John Scalzi.
If you're a gamer somewhere between your 20s and 40s, I think you'll find resonance with the plot and writing style. If you're not, but enjoy sci-fi - I think you can definitely find something here.
--
Edit 20160909 - While watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jko06... , I wonder if Dana Light is actually supposed to be a play on Joanna Dark? Or if it's just parodying that name while still being a parody of Laura Croft. (The book mentions posters with the PS1 version which makes me think Laura Croft)
May 2, 2013
This book took a little while to warm up, so if your tolerance for goofy sci-fi is low you may never get to the payoff. For about the first half I was enjoying it as a fun read that might as well be in the same universe as Ready Player One or Year Zero. Lots of pop culture injokes and references for video game fans, pretty well executed to seem fun if you get them and not be too intrusive if you don't.
In the second half (or so) though, the characters seem to open up and expose a whole level of depth that was hidden before. Maybe it's the novel's format, presented as narrative interspersed with a series of snarky blog posts by the protagonist, but it takes a long time to cut through that snark.
I was really impressed when it finally did, though. Really, this book ended up having a lot more heart than its silly sci-fi premise would seem to require. I know this is some high praise in the genre, but by the end I felt it was funny more like Douglas Adams than some of the more recent books.
This is the first fiction book by Leonard Richardson, and I'm excited to read more.
In the second half (or so) though, the characters seem to open up and expose a whole level of depth that was hidden before. Maybe it's the novel's format, presented as narrative interspersed with a series of snarky blog posts by the protagonist, but it takes a long time to cut through that snark.
I was really impressed when it finally did, though. Really, this book ended up having a lot more heart than its silly sci-fi premise would seem to require. I know this is some high praise in the genre, but by the end I felt it was funny more like Douglas Adams than some of the more recent books.
This is the first fiction book by Leonard Richardson, and I'm excited to read more.
December 22, 2014
I really have to give this book 6 stars. It has to be the funniest book I've ever read. I won't rehash the plot, it honestly makes the book sound a bit lamer than it really is. Now I have a dry sense of humor, I was raised on Monty Python and the Muppet Show. So you might not have the same reaction I did to this book. I was laughing at almost ever page for most of the book. Beyond the humor, the plot as actualy quite good and there were some fresh ideas and situations I was totally not expecting. I'd recommend this book to most people. Its not a hardcore sci-fi, so I think many people who don't read a lot of that genre can still enjoy this book. If you want a few really good belly laughs pick this one up.
April 13, 2013
I'm conflicted over this book. Not because it was bad, since it wasn't. Rather because it didn't end as the same book that it started being.
It starts out as a funny book. And it is, often extremely funny. Slowly though, it becomes apparent that this is a serious book, no matter the funny clothes its wearing.
And this is why I'm conflicted. See, I like this book. I was expecting something funny with aliens though, and I got an exposition on how cultures are forced to change and adapt, and some introspection as well.
Both good, but thus the confliction. Go on, read it for yourself. Just don't expect cover to cover humorous fluff.
It starts out as a funny book. And it is, often extremely funny. Slowly though, it becomes apparent that this is a serious book, no matter the funny clothes its wearing.
And this is why I'm conflicted. See, I like this book. I was expecting something funny with aliens though, and I got an exposition on how cultures are forced to change and adapt, and some introspection as well.
Both good, but thus the confliction. Go on, read it for yourself. Just don't expect cover to cover humorous fluff.
July 31, 2012
Constellation Games is a space opera epic--one told largely through blog posts, faux twitter feeds, and reviews of extraterrestrial video games--about a first contact event with earth. Plot points (mild spoilers): climate change crisis, chase sequence involving gravity wells and an art museum, extraterrestrials playing MLP-themed casual games and Halo and deducing facts about our civilization from these. The game reviews alone would be worth the price, and famous ZZT programmer and professor Adam Parrish invented a language for it, I think. READ THIS BOOK.
June 14, 2012
First contact has happened. The Constellation, a large, diverse group of aliens, has popped out of a wormhole and turned a large chunk of the moon into a space station. Now they visitors want our two civilisations to get to know each other in the hope that one day, maybe in a couple of thousand years, humanity might join the Constellation too.
Constellation civilisation has been around for hundreds of millions of years. Their technology is unbelievably advanced. And it occurs to twenty-something game programmer Ariel Bloom that at some point in their combined histories, the members of the Constellation would have made some pretty cool video games that he could port to the XBox.
I imagine if Doug Coupland and John Scalzi collaborated on a novel it'd probably turn out pretty close to Constellation Games. leonardr's world building is as good as it gets and his dialogue is witty, fun, and free flowing.
_Constellation Games_ isn't hard sci-fi, nor is it a book aimed at gamers. It's a refreshing and I think unique take on alien invasion. A really great debut.
Constellation civilisation has been around for hundreds of millions of years. Their technology is unbelievably advanced. And it occurs to twenty-something game programmer Ariel Bloom that at some point in their combined histories, the members of the Constellation would have made some pretty cool video games that he could port to the XBox.
I imagine if Doug Coupland and John Scalzi collaborated on a novel it'd probably turn out pretty close to Constellation Games. leonardr's world building is as good as it gets and his dialogue is witty, fun, and free flowing.
_Constellation Games_ isn't hard sci-fi, nor is it a book aimed at gamers. It's a refreshing and I think unique take on alien invasion. A really great debut.
October 7, 2012
I was deceived by the rave ratings/reviews of this book. It's a video gamer geekfest (Ready Player One less the '80s retro nostalgia) slash first contact novel - but not as good as Ready Player One (or, say, Snowcrash) and vastly lacking in depth compared to innumerable first contact novels (e.g., The Sparrow, Robert J. Sawyer's stuff, Brin's Uplift universe, etc. etc.).
September 9, 2013
I only give it 3 stars because, while I did like it quite a bit, the story seemed to switch gears right in the middle. I enjoyed the exploration of how the world might react to a non-invasion. I especially enjoyed all the alien video games, and the snarky video game reviews, by both the human and alien reviewers. Then it became about politics and fractals, and it lost me.
December 24, 2011
A fantastic book about First Contact with aliens, from the perspective of a game developer/blogger who really never grew up. Lots of swearing and sex makes this inappropriate for kids, but it's a great scifi story for adults.
September 22, 2012
Feels like a Rudy Rucker novel (a good thing) with a bit less higher dimension psychedelic mushrooms. A good start and I will be looking for another novel from this author.
March 8, 2018
This book is exactly the type of book I want to read at any given time: a humorously told scifi romp exploding with Big Ideas (on art and stories, on humanity and our place in the galaxy, etc) with a solid amount of heart at the core. There's an effortless *fun* throughout, one that isn't trying too hard but still feels creatively fresh -- it makes me feel the way my favorite kid scifi series did growing up. I have an immense fondness for everything about this book.
On a primary level, this is a story about about gaming, from an anthropological perspective. It's first contact with aliens, and the culture clash that goes with it, from the perspective of video game nerd Ariel (and the alien anthropologists/historians he befriends). Throughout the book, Ariel reviews alien games, and through this experience uncovers just how *alien* these aliens can be. What "makes" a video games is questioned from every perspective -- the mechanics (aliens use different sensory experiences to play), theming, broader cultural and political messages, storytelling, personal significance, social bonding, the labor organization that creates them, and why we play to begin with.
I don't even play video games (except for those $1 phone apps that Ariel complains about), but my passion and knowledge of tabletop games are transferable for the core messages here. Even better -- On a broader level, this exploration on gaming is also about: art and cultural communication, geek culture, the role of storytelling and historical record within societies, escapism and nostalgia for youth vs taking responsibility for our own lives and communities.
This book is kinda what I wanted from Ready Player One, but didn't get from that. It's an intensely geeky novel, but in a way that uses nerd culture as a way to explore human nature at its core. It's not dependent on references or familiarity with niche details, but rather the *feel* of it. You won't recognize any games referenced within the book (fictional), but you will recognize, for example: Ariel's resentment of games designed only with capitalistic appeal to the masses; you'll recognize his desire to use his chosen medium (video games) to create art and to make a statement on why people game. Nerds are people who love something niche, who pay such close attention to it that they have a deeper understanding of the subject matter and why it's important -- not just memorizing trivia or using it as an aesthetic.
Ariel is intensely familiar to me as a character. He feels like someone I'm already friends with -- not a particular individual, but more like a category of nerd that I'm endeared by and relate to. I recognize him. I *know* him. His sharp brand of snark is wickedly funny, but what's notable I think is that it's not employed to be edgy or superior, but as a way to cope with self-deprecation and his own sensitivity. While the first half of the book sets up this snarky humor and the game blog/aspirations, the second half lays bare the humanity in Ariel and thus the story as a whole. All the characters, really, are immensely endearing, especially the aliens who manage to be truly alien as well as relatable (and *hilarious*). Even the romantic element at the end won me over, which tends to be a tough sell for me in these types of books (but maybe that's because in this case it doesn't end perfectly). The people within feel real, reacting in the weird ways real people do. There's emotions and a sentimental passion at the core that helps ground that higher-flying Big Scifi Ideas.
On a technical level, this is far from a perfect book, despite my ravings, and at times rather amateur. It starts off a bit slow, and it's not all that plot-driven, but rather hops and skips a bit between points. The blog entries / instant messaging gimmick makes for fun reading, but the way "real life" entries have to be tied in to advance anything or that dialogue is recreated in blog posts kinda makes for a weird inability to distinguish between them. Also, what I assume to be the climax in a traditional plot sense wasn't all that gripping, and at the end the book kinda petered out. (Although I could argue the open-ended nature of the ending was pefectly suited to the themes the book was conveying, it isn't quite satisfying for a reader perhaps.)
Overall, I want more people to read this book, if only becauase that might spur the author to write a sequel. (The first two chapters are free on the author's website, www.constellation.crummy.com!) Highly recommend, if nothing else than because it's just plain *fun* -- in fact, I might read it again myself...
On a primary level, this is a story about about gaming, from an anthropological perspective. It's first contact with aliens, and the culture clash that goes with it, from the perspective of video game nerd Ariel (and the alien anthropologists/historians he befriends). Throughout the book, Ariel reviews alien games, and through this experience uncovers just how *alien* these aliens can be. What "makes" a video games is questioned from every perspective -- the mechanics (aliens use different sensory experiences to play), theming, broader cultural and political messages, storytelling, personal significance, social bonding, the labor organization that creates them, and why we play to begin with.
I don't even play video games (except for those $1 phone apps that Ariel complains about), but my passion and knowledge of tabletop games are transferable for the core messages here. Even better -- On a broader level, this exploration on gaming is also about: art and cultural communication, geek culture, the role of storytelling and historical record within societies, escapism and nostalgia for youth vs taking responsibility for our own lives and communities.
This book is kinda what I wanted from Ready Player One, but didn't get from that. It's an intensely geeky novel, but in a way that uses nerd culture as a way to explore human nature at its core. It's not dependent on references or familiarity with niche details, but rather the *feel* of it. You won't recognize any games referenced within the book (fictional), but you will recognize, for example: Ariel's resentment of games designed only with capitalistic appeal to the masses; you'll recognize his desire to use his chosen medium (video games) to create art and to make a statement on why people game. Nerds are people who love something niche, who pay such close attention to it that they have a deeper understanding of the subject matter and why it's important -- not just memorizing trivia or using it as an aesthetic.
Ariel is intensely familiar to me as a character. He feels like someone I'm already friends with -- not a particular individual, but more like a category of nerd that I'm endeared by and relate to. I recognize him. I *know* him. His sharp brand of snark is wickedly funny, but what's notable I think is that it's not employed to be edgy or superior, but as a way to cope with self-deprecation and his own sensitivity. While the first half of the book sets up this snarky humor and the game blog/aspirations, the second half lays bare the humanity in Ariel and thus the story as a whole. All the characters, really, are immensely endearing, especially the aliens who manage to be truly alien as well as relatable (and *hilarious*). Even the romantic element at the end won me over, which tends to be a tough sell for me in these types of books (but maybe that's because in this case it doesn't end perfectly). The people within feel real, reacting in the weird ways real people do. There's emotions and a sentimental passion at the core that helps ground that higher-flying Big Scifi Ideas.
On a technical level, this is far from a perfect book, despite my ravings, and at times rather amateur. It starts off a bit slow, and it's not all that plot-driven, but rather hops and skips a bit between points. The blog entries / instant messaging gimmick makes for fun reading, but the way "real life" entries have to be tied in to advance anything or that dialogue is recreated in blog posts kinda makes for a weird inability to distinguish between them. Also, what I assume to be the climax in a traditional plot sense wasn't all that gripping, and at the end the book kinda petered out. (Although I could argue the open-ended nature of the ending was pefectly suited to the themes the book was conveying, it isn't quite satisfying for a reader perhaps.)
Overall, I want more people to read this book, if only becauase that might spur the author to write a sequel. (The first two chapters are free on the author's website, www.constellation.crummy.com!) Highly recommend, if nothing else than because it's just plain *fun* -- in fact, I might read it again myself...
January 21, 2019
I really liked the idea behind the novel: first contact via videogames. Unfortunately, it was a better as an idea rather than in practice.
There were some things that I really liked in the book, but most of those things came in the last third of it. I slogged through the first 250-odd pages to get to some wonderful prose and interesting ideas. I wasn't a fan of the whole ending conceit, but overall, the last ~20% was much better than the previous ~80%.
Also,
The main character, Ariel, is very much unlikeable, and we have to put up with him and his snark for most of the book. His posse is only slightly better, but there is very little time devoted to them. I kinda wish I didn't have to say this, but I'd have liked less on the videogames and more humans.
Structure is another dislike of mine: in the blog format, it's very... passive(?) and describing "such-and-such happened to me today" or "this is a videogame from XXX species." For me, the story would have worked better in a more active manner (ie Ariel playing the games and us looking over his shoulder). I definitely prefered the "irl" segments to the blog/email segments.
So, basically, if you can get past the first 80% of the book, you'll get to the interesting stuff. For those not wanting to spend that much investment in a book to get to the good stuff, you'll find other first contact narratives a better bargain.
There were some things that I really liked in the book, but most of those things came in the last third of it. I slogged through the first 250-odd pages to get to some wonderful prose and interesting ideas. I wasn't a fan of the whole ending conceit, but overall, the last ~20% was much better than the previous ~80%.
Also,
The main character, Ariel, is very much unlikeable, and we have to put up with him and his snark for most of the book. His posse is only slightly better, but there is very little time devoted to them. I kinda wish I didn't have to say this, but I'd have liked less on the videogames and more humans.
Structure is another dislike of mine: in the blog format, it's very... passive(?) and describing "such-and-such happened to me today" or "this is a videogame from XXX species." For me, the story would have worked better in a more active manner (ie Ariel playing the games and us looking over his shoulder). I definitely prefered the "irl" segments to the blog/email segments.
So, basically, if you can get past the first 80% of the book, you'll get to the interesting stuff. For those not wanting to spend that much investment in a book to get to the good stuff, you'll find other first contact narratives a better bargain.
March 5, 2016
I discovered this book via a boingboing review a few years ago, and found it deeply delightful. Rereading it more recently has confirmed my impression that it will be a favourite for a long time to come. It's also not exactly widely known, and I would love for more people to discover it, so here's something a bit more in-depth than I usually post here.
Well, first things first: do not, I repeat, do not judge this book by its cover. I beg you. You'd be doing yourself and the book a disfavour.
Constellation Games is a first contact story, set on a more or less present-day Earth, and told from the POV – and partly through the blogs and twitter account - of the protagonist Ariel, a small-time video game programmer who, in his spare time, runs a games blog. When the Constellation, a large conglomerate of anarchist aliens somewhat reminiscent of Iain Banks' culture (but without Special Circumstances), arrives to build a base on Earth's moon, it therefore seems only natural to Ariel to ask them for games to review. Any species who has computers, Ariel figures, will also have computer games. The aliens proceed to send him a database of – literally - prehistoric games, because those are the only ones compatible with humanity's current state of development. Ariel's reviews of those ancient extraterrestrial games are interspersed throughout the rest of the novel, making for a good amount of its off-beat appeal.
Richardson uses the idea of extraterrestrial video games to a variety of effects. There's humour, obviously – things and (non-human) people are frequently named rather oddly, e.g. there's an alien game publishing group called „The Crusade 6 Against Food Shaped Like Other Food“ - and this is only one way in which the sheer, well, alienness of the extraterrestrials of Constellation Games provides a source of amusement.
More importantly, the reviews serve as windows into the cultures that make up the Constellation. Many of the games that Ariel discovers have little to do with any human idea of what games should look like or do, even on the most fundamental level of what you see on the screen. There are games that always depict the player character from underneath, and others that require senses or organs that humans don't have. Many are centered on objectives that feel rather strange and un-game-like, or deal with taboos that seem incomprehensible. Play may be universal, but the forms it takes are deeply informed by culture – so the book's argument; and culture, in turn, is shaped by the physical and biological conditions in which it arose.
As Ariel explores the database, he also begins to discover, in the themes of some of the games, the traces of previous first contact situations between the Constellation and other species. He learns, unsurprisingly, that contact tends to be disruptive. What's more, most species manage to put themselves on the road to extinction even without the additional strain of planet-wide culture shock, although the latter often proves the last straw. Most of the cultures that the Constellation has discovered throughout its incredibly long history were dead by the time the exploration party arrived. And of the ones that weren't, many or most took a route that in some ways seems to be just as, or nearly as bad as extinction...
Ariel figuring out just what that means, and then committing to trying - together with some newlyl won extraterrestrial friends - to work towards preventing it from happening on Earth, is one of the main strands of the book's plot. Without going into too much spoilerific detail, this is a book about art and life, virtuality and reality, escapism and responsibility.
It almost goes without saying – given the subject matter – that this is an intensely geeky book. Constellation Games is filled to the brim with references to geek culture, many of which will make sense to the average geekily inclined reader. It also feels like one of the surprisingly few recent books that really understand the internet. In a slightly odd decision - perhaps so as to avoid copyright issues? - all references to Earth video game properties are to fictitious games, some of which closely parallel well-known games in our own world, and some which don't, or at least don't so obviously as to be decodable for a reader not deeply steeped in gaming culture. There is also a subtle alternative universe thing going on, with a few hints of slightly different technologies, and an abandoned human base on the moon. I'm not entirely sure if there is a subtle plot thing here which necessitates this very mild alt-u flavour, and which I failed to pick up on, or if this is just the author having some additional fun.
Which kind of brings me back to the main thing that makes me recommend this book: it's incredibly fun. From the way it uses internet slang and culture, to the to the beautifully realised aliens – be they the lizard-like Tetsuo Milk who mercilessly steals every scene he's in, or the hermaphrodite, authority-despising Curic who teaches Ariel how to say „fuck the System“ to the system, to the many, many strange and wonderful details we learn about the Constellation and its constituent cultures, this book is fun on many different levels. There's a sense of welcoming familiarity for anyone who's lived a lot on the internet, and a distinct sense of wonder, and the brain-tingling thrill of encountering the truly Other and Weird.
Still not convinced that you should read this book? You can read the first couple of chapters for free on the author's website!
Well, first things first: do not, I repeat, do not judge this book by its cover. I beg you. You'd be doing yourself and the book a disfavour.
Constellation Games is a first contact story, set on a more or less present-day Earth, and told from the POV – and partly through the blogs and twitter account - of the protagonist Ariel, a small-time video game programmer who, in his spare time, runs a games blog. When the Constellation, a large conglomerate of anarchist aliens somewhat reminiscent of Iain Banks' culture (but without Special Circumstances), arrives to build a base on Earth's moon, it therefore seems only natural to Ariel to ask them for games to review. Any species who has computers, Ariel figures, will also have computer games. The aliens proceed to send him a database of – literally - prehistoric games, because those are the only ones compatible with humanity's current state of development. Ariel's reviews of those ancient extraterrestrial games are interspersed throughout the rest of the novel, making for a good amount of its off-beat appeal.
Richardson uses the idea of extraterrestrial video games to a variety of effects. There's humour, obviously – things and (non-human) people are frequently named rather oddly, e.g. there's an alien game publishing group called „The Crusade 6 Against Food Shaped Like Other Food“ - and this is only one way in which the sheer, well, alienness of the extraterrestrials of Constellation Games provides a source of amusement.
More importantly, the reviews serve as windows into the cultures that make up the Constellation. Many of the games that Ariel discovers have little to do with any human idea of what games should look like or do, even on the most fundamental level of what you see on the screen. There are games that always depict the player character from underneath, and others that require senses or organs that humans don't have. Many are centered on objectives that feel rather strange and un-game-like, or deal with taboos that seem incomprehensible. Play may be universal, but the forms it takes are deeply informed by culture – so the book's argument; and culture, in turn, is shaped by the physical and biological conditions in which it arose.
As Ariel explores the database, he also begins to discover, in the themes of some of the games, the traces of previous first contact situations between the Constellation and other species. He learns, unsurprisingly, that contact tends to be disruptive. What's more, most species manage to put themselves on the road to extinction even without the additional strain of planet-wide culture shock, although the latter often proves the last straw. Most of the cultures that the Constellation has discovered throughout its incredibly long history were dead by the time the exploration party arrived. And of the ones that weren't, many or most took a route that in some ways seems to be just as, or nearly as bad as extinction...
Ariel figuring out just what that means, and then committing to trying - together with some newlyl won extraterrestrial friends - to work towards preventing it from happening on Earth, is one of the main strands of the book's plot. Without going into too much spoilerific detail, this is a book about art and life, virtuality and reality, escapism and responsibility.
It almost goes without saying – given the subject matter – that this is an intensely geeky book. Constellation Games is filled to the brim with references to geek culture, many of which will make sense to the average geekily inclined reader. It also feels like one of the surprisingly few recent books that really understand the internet. In a slightly odd decision - perhaps so as to avoid copyright issues? - all references to Earth video game properties are to fictitious games, some of which closely parallel well-known games in our own world, and some which don't, or at least don't so obviously as to be decodable for a reader not deeply steeped in gaming culture. There is also a subtle alternative universe thing going on, with a few hints of slightly different technologies, and an abandoned human base on the moon. I'm not entirely sure if there is a subtle plot thing here which necessitates this very mild alt-u flavour, and which I failed to pick up on, or if this is just the author having some additional fun.
Which kind of brings me back to the main thing that makes me recommend this book: it's incredibly fun. From the way it uses internet slang and culture, to the to the beautifully realised aliens – be they the lizard-like Tetsuo Milk who mercilessly steals every scene he's in, or the hermaphrodite, authority-despising Curic who teaches Ariel how to say „fuck the System“ to the system, to the many, many strange and wonderful details we learn about the Constellation and its constituent cultures, this book is fun on many different levels. There's a sense of welcoming familiarity for anyone who's lived a lot on the internet, and a distinct sense of wonder, and the brain-tingling thrill of encountering the truly Other and Weird.
Still not convinced that you should read this book? You can read the first couple of chapters for free on the author's website!
September 11, 2023
Let me be honest here, for the first few chapters, I had no idea what was happening.
Once I caught on, I didn’t really enjoy the format and especially the game reviews dragged on. The book as a whole felt at least 50 pages too long.
There were too many things I as a reader had to keep track of (what was the truth and what was entirely made up by Curic and/or Ariel).
To make a long review short(er); this book wasn’t for me at all, but you might like it!
Once I caught on, I didn’t really enjoy the format and especially the game reviews dragged on. The book as a whole felt at least 50 pages too long.
There were too many things I as a reader had to keep track of (what was the truth and what was entirely made up by Curic and/or Ariel).
To make a long review short(er); this book wasn’t for me at all, but you might like it!
July 26, 2013
I've kind of overdosed in historical fiction lately, what with my Napoleonic War summer and all, and felt myself in need of an antidote to all of that highly mannered costume drama. I found it (Oh did I find it!) in Constellation Games, a book on which I've had my eye since I first spotted it at publisher Candlemark and Gleam's website really just based on that cover. So eye catching, even before one realizes it's actually depicting an exotic video game controller!
And I do mean exotic. For this is a first contact novel, and as far as our protagonist, game designer/blogger Ariel Blum (a male) is concerned, the only interesting way for two cultures to make such contact is via the sharing of video games past and present. And the Constellation, which is an Ian Banks Culture-style* conglomeration of all sorts of alien species, has millions of years of gaming history to share, all ready to be ported for human tech. At least as much so as stuff developed for wildly divergent sensory organs/sizes/number and type of limbs/utterly alien worldviews can be.
So of course our man Ariel seizes on this right away, and is chosen to be one of the lucky few who get to experience this contact directly. Before we know it, he's hanging out with an Alien otaku, who is not only obsessed with gaming, but also with an extinct and bizarre culture from his home world to the point of painstakingly recreating a period correct crappy apartment where an Alien like him once spent most of his life playing video games. Come on, this is every sci-fi nerd/gamer's dream, right? Aliens show up and they want to sit around your house and shoot the breeze and tell stories and talk about crappy awesome games from their youth and exciting new games under development and passing the controller around and making plans to port your stuff to their systems and vice versa? It can't just be me, you guys!
All this and there is a plot, too. For of course while our crowd is nerding it up, government types from Earth and sort-of-government-ish-but-really-more-hive-overmind-avatar-like from the Constellation are dealing with bigger matters. Like how an advanced civilization has shown up on humanity's doorstep to observe that it's a very nice planet and maybe humans should stop trashing it and hey, we can help clean it up if you want. And how certain factions on Earth don't like that idea one little bit, not in their backyards, they can have my non-existent global warming when they pry it from my cold dead fingers. But on the other hand, it is nice to have a space program again and while you scared the crap out of us when you blew up part of the moon, that is a very nice base you built up there. Mind if we do some of the experiments we had planned to conduct before we let our space program decay into kipple?
All of this is told in a wonderfully wry narrative voice in the vein of David Wong's "David Wong" in John Dies at the End. Except -- and this is my only quibble about this fantastic, fantastic book -- said voice mostly comes to us via his blog, making Constellation Games a 21st century epistolary novel, which is not my favorite narrative style even when it's done the way it should be, in exquisite and grammatical 19th century prose as rendered by a writer who cares very about that sort of thing and has created a character who also cares about that sort of thing. Ariel's blog posts are very casual and while not totally ungrammatical, well, they're a little too note perfect as blog posts. Fortunately, they are very funny blog posts, and really do fit the story and all of its wonderful little nuggets, like when Farang visitor/representative/gamer who has been dropping F-bombs right and left because hey, that's how Ariel talks, learns what F-bombs actually are and turns around, matter-of-factly, to inform Ariel that he swears too much. Hee.
What's really, really excellent about this book though, is that the aliens are really genuinely alien, as in not Star Trek humanoids with face wobblies, and so are their games, which really do make a wonderful lens through which to view a culture, and herein, like the aliens themselves, are really alien. And not just in that David Cronenberg bio-port/umbi cord way (though hey, I love me some eXistenZ as much as anybody!). For instance, one member species' individuals are essentially two individuals in one body, with the male mind "in charge" part of the day and the female for the other part. Their games are those a weird combination of cooperative and competitive and, incidentally, something that I would really like a chance to play someday. And no, that's not an unsubtle hint to any aliens who may be snooping on my blog. Although wouldn't that be awesome?
And now I'm off to read a story Richardson wrote for Strange Horizons a few years ago, "Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs." Sample dialogue: "Humans won't pay to watch dinosaurs ride motocross bikes forever." YES. I think I love this Leonard Richardson person.
*A bit less anarchic, but basically it is the Culture, in all the ways that matter. The Culture with all kinds of bug-eyed monsters and other wildly alien life forms.
And I do mean exotic. For this is a first contact novel, and as far as our protagonist, game designer/blogger Ariel Blum (a male) is concerned, the only interesting way for two cultures to make such contact is via the sharing of video games past and present. And the Constellation, which is an Ian Banks Culture-style* conglomeration of all sorts of alien species, has millions of years of gaming history to share, all ready to be ported for human tech. At least as much so as stuff developed for wildly divergent sensory organs/sizes/number and type of limbs/utterly alien worldviews can be.
So of course our man Ariel seizes on this right away, and is chosen to be one of the lucky few who get to experience this contact directly. Before we know it, he's hanging out with an Alien otaku, who is not only obsessed with gaming, but also with an extinct and bizarre culture from his home world to the point of painstakingly recreating a period correct crappy apartment where an Alien like him once spent most of his life playing video games. Come on, this is every sci-fi nerd/gamer's dream, right? Aliens show up and they want to sit around your house and shoot the breeze and tell stories and talk about crappy awesome games from their youth and exciting new games under development and passing the controller around and making plans to port your stuff to their systems and vice versa? It can't just be me, you guys!
All this and there is a plot, too. For of course while our crowd is nerding it up, government types from Earth and sort-of-government-ish-but-really-more-hive-overmind-avatar-like from the Constellation are dealing with bigger matters. Like how an advanced civilization has shown up on humanity's doorstep to observe that it's a very nice planet and maybe humans should stop trashing it and hey, we can help clean it up if you want. And how certain factions on Earth don't like that idea one little bit, not in their backyards, they can have my non-existent global warming when they pry it from my cold dead fingers. But on the other hand, it is nice to have a space program again and while you scared the crap out of us when you blew up part of the moon, that is a very nice base you built up there. Mind if we do some of the experiments we had planned to conduct before we let our space program decay into kipple?
All of this is told in a wonderfully wry narrative voice in the vein of David Wong's "David Wong" in John Dies at the End. Except -- and this is my only quibble about this fantastic, fantastic book -- said voice mostly comes to us via his blog, making Constellation Games a 21st century epistolary novel, which is not my favorite narrative style even when it's done the way it should be, in exquisite and grammatical 19th century prose as rendered by a writer who cares very about that sort of thing and has created a character who also cares about that sort of thing. Ariel's blog posts are very casual and while not totally ungrammatical, well, they're a little too note perfect as blog posts. Fortunately, they are very funny blog posts, and really do fit the story and all of its wonderful little nuggets, like when Farang visitor/representative/gamer who has been dropping F-bombs right and left because hey, that's how Ariel talks, learns what F-bombs actually are and turns around, matter-of-factly, to inform Ariel that he swears too much. Hee.
What's really, really excellent about this book though, is that the aliens are really genuinely alien, as in not Star Trek humanoids with face wobblies, and so are their games, which really do make a wonderful lens through which to view a culture, and herein, like the aliens themselves, are really alien. And not just in that David Cronenberg bio-port/umbi cord way (though hey, I love me some eXistenZ as much as anybody!). For instance, one member species' individuals are essentially two individuals in one body, with the male mind "in charge" part of the day and the female for the other part. Their games are those a weird combination of cooperative and competitive and, incidentally, something that I would really like a chance to play someday. And no, that's not an unsubtle hint to any aliens who may be snooping on my blog. Although wouldn't that be awesome?
And now I'm off to read a story Richardson wrote for Strange Horizons a few years ago, "Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs." Sample dialogue: "Humans won't pay to watch dinosaurs ride motocross bikes forever." YES. I think I love this Leonard Richardson person.
*A bit less anarchic, but basically it is the Culture, in all the ways that matter. The Culture with all kinds of bug-eyed monsters and other wildly alien life forms.
November 29, 2020
Funny and imaginative. Somewhat believable in an impossible way first contact story.
Read
November 26, 2023Fun.
June 2, 2016
Smart, flip, alien contact story.
This book vaguely reminds me of something Douglas Coupland may have written, like a new Millennium, science fiction, JPod only set in Austin, TX and not the Pac-NW. Other times, particularly when the aliens are involved, it reminds me of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The writing is good. There have been several times, where I've laughed-out-loud.
There is also a certain amount of edu-tainment, involved. I've managed to learn a bit about the 'nuts and bolts' of video games, or what goes on behind the 'splash screen'. Oddly, there is very little science fiction tech in the story, except for of few familiar troupes.
If I have a complaint, its that as the story progresses, I'm finding the prose in the form of 'text messages' and 'blog' posts to be less and less effective. I get it. I understand the effect these mediums have on Millennial inter-personal communications. The author's character-to-character dialog was strong enough not to need this affectation after the first third of the book. The ending was a bit-weaker than expected too.
I thought this was a very hip, tongue-in-cheek read. As I mentioned, I think it borrows heavily from the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in its sense of humor. (That's fine by me.) Although its a tad less Kafka-esque than that book. While not perfect, I found this to be an entertaining story. (Its also not very long.)
This book vaguely reminds me of something Douglas Coupland may have written, like a new Millennium, science fiction, JPod only set in Austin, TX and not the Pac-NW. Other times, particularly when the aliens are involved, it reminds me of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The writing is good. There have been several times, where I've laughed-out-loud.
There is also a certain amount of edu-tainment, involved. I've managed to learn a bit about the 'nuts and bolts' of video games, or what goes on behind the 'splash screen'. Oddly, there is very little science fiction tech in the story, except for of few familiar troupes.
If I have a complaint, its that as the story progresses, I'm finding the prose in the form of 'text messages' and 'blog' posts to be less and less effective. I get it. I understand the effect these mediums have on Millennial inter-personal communications. The author's character-to-character dialog was strong enough not to need this affectation after the first third of the book. The ending was a bit-weaker than expected too.
I thought this was a very hip, tongue-in-cheek read. As I mentioned, I think it borrows heavily from the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in its sense of humor. (That's fine by me.) Although its a tad less Kafka-esque than that book. While not perfect, I found this to be an entertaining story. (Its also not very long.)
August 15, 2019
4.5 stars. Funny, made me want more, looked up the author, disappointed that his other books are about software.
September 4, 2015
Well, it's interesting. I picked this book back up to bring with me on vacation, where I started it from scratch and really liked it! The idea is so innovative, and brings a maturity along with the geekiness that is refreshing. The tagline on the back about how Ariel "will have to grow up" is so corny, but it really works here! It's really true! And with that growth comes a new way to confront problems and conflict that is, in itself, perfectly in-tune with the stealthy critical examination of video games as an art form that the book performs. It's really something. I have a few quibbles - the cutesy jumps between emails, blog posts, friends-locked blog posts and standard third person narrative doesn't really add up to much, and the Constellation's naming conventions are juuuuust off-putting enough to slip from an intended perch of Pleasantly Puzzling into Just Plain Annoying (one species of the extraterrestrials are called Aliens, but only one? Really?) But those are minor.
What keeps this from being five stars is the fact that I was able to walk away from this for so long. That has to mean something. Sans vacation, I don't think this would have ever left my nightstand. It would have just moldered on my Goodreads 'Currently Reading' shelf forever. So, one star deduction for not grabbing me the first time, darn it!
Highly recommended for any video game fans - deserves to be in the pantheon with Ready Player One and Snow Crash, in my opinion.
What keeps this from being five stars is the fact that I was able to walk away from this for so long. That has to mean something. Sans vacation, I don't think this would have ever left my nightstand. It would have just moldered on my Goodreads 'Currently Reading' shelf forever. So, one star deduction for not grabbing me the first time, darn it!
Highly recommended for any video game fans - deserves to be in the pantheon with Ready Player One and Snow Crash, in my opinion.
August 21, 2013
An interesting, funny first-contact novel clearly written by someone with both a love of SF and gaming. Aliens show up, want to give humans stuff and/or integrate them with their civilization(s). (The aliens are made up of multiple species, all of whom are named "alien" in some language. It was getting a little old by the time I got to "peregrini.") Anyway. The main character is a video game blogger who wants to play, review, and port alien games. So the aliens send him alien games. The whole thing is sort of epistolary, as it is mostly told in the format of the main character's blog posts.
I loved reading about the aliens and their gaming; the whole thing is really, really weird. In a good way. There is some awesome worldbuilding here. And I loved the aliens, especially Curic and Tetsuo.
It's also a really funny book, and I actually laughed several times while reading. And it takes a lot to make me laugh at books when they are trying to be funny.
However, the actual plot itself? The stuff that didn't have anything to do with video games? That was confusing, meandering, and a little hard to follow. And I don't think it meshed well with the rest of the book. Oh well.
I loved reading about the aliens and their gaming; the whole thing is really, really weird. In a good way. There is some awesome worldbuilding here. And I loved the aliens, especially Curic and Tetsuo.
It's also a really funny book, and I actually laughed several times while reading. And it takes a lot to make me laugh at books when they are trying to be funny.
However, the actual plot itself? The stuff that didn't have anything to do with video games? That was confusing, meandering, and a little hard to follow. And I don't think it meshed well with the rest of the book. Oh well.
September 21, 2016
I bought this book on a whim, and it ended up being my favorite read so far this year. A combined galactic civilization of many alien races makes first contact with Earth, and the best thing the self-absorbed protagonist can think to do is ask the aliens if he can play and review some of their classic video games for his blog.
That alone would be entertaining enough, especially if your fascination with video games runs as deep as mine does. But the book becomes much more than that, as the mostly-anarchist group of aliens turn out to be misfits from their own civilization, and have to constantly battle the governments and institutions of Earth in their efforts to help us.
The author has a wicked sense of humor. At one point, one of the aliens turns the tables and writes a review of the protagonist's own video game, an awful microtransaction-laden mobile mess. I laughed like a madman. Leonard Richardson, I want to buy you a beer.
That alone would be entertaining enough, especially if your fascination with video games runs as deep as mine does. But the book becomes much more than that, as the mostly-anarchist group of aliens turn out to be misfits from their own civilization, and have to constantly battle the governments and institutions of Earth in their efforts to help us.
The author has a wicked sense of humor. At one point, one of the aliens turns the tables and writes a review of the protagonist's own video game, an awful microtransaction-laden mobile mess. I laughed like a madman. Leonard Richardson, I want to buy you a beer.
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