Kill Screen

by Benjamin Reeves

When game designer Jack Valentine finds his best friend’s body floating in a bathtub of his own blood, he begins an investigation to discover the reason for his friend’s sudden suicide. As Jack digs into the abandoned artifacts of his friend’s private life, he uncovers a mysterious artificial intelligence program that takes credit for his friend’s death. After conversing with the program, Jack quickly spirals into an insomnia-fueled craze. Haunted by demons from his past, Jack will have to discover the truth behind his friends suicide in order to save is career, his love life, and even his sanity. Set in the heart of videogame and tech culture of the mid-‘90s, Kill Screen is a novel that explores the concepts of death, personal forgiveness, and the social issues surrounding our ever-advancing technological culture.

Genres: Mystery

230 pages, Paperback

First published June 17, 2012

About the author

Benjamin Reeves is a writer, journalist, and geek sponge. For the last 10 years he has worked as an editor for Game Informer Magazine. He has a passion for video games, comic books, science fiction (or fact), and nearly every other thing that got you picked on in high school. He makes his own make my own beer, practices stand-up comedy, and has navigated Japan’s train system all by himself. Kill Screen is his first novel. Don’t forget his name.

Reviews

[Andrew Beatty · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book took a while to get on to, at least 40% through, but the rest of the book was a page turner and quite enjoyable right up until the conclusion.

[Evolvingintrovert · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my second read through of the book and I’m fine not reading it a third time. It’s a decent but dark book.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was a bit slow. I wouldn't read it again.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you very much to author Benjamin Reeves for this copy of Kill Screen. Thanks also to Goodreads for hosting this op through the First Reads program.

I really enjoyed this book. It was well written, well edited, lots of emotion, twists, good story, good character set, and a perfectly fine finish. A few light touches into paranormal I thought didn't quite fit, but that's being picky. The story, I thought, was at its core, a love story on multiple threads. Mr. Reeves spends a fair amount of print injecting/teaching us background related to what's happening in the story, which I love. Some really interesting stuff.

Highly recommended. A good read.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kill Screen by Benjamin Reeves is as creepy as a late-night session of Resident Evil in a dark basement. An apt description, considering the book is about a dark and creepy video game that achieves sentience and drives its players insane.*

Jack Valentine, co-owner of the video game company Electronic Sheep, finds his partner and best friend Dexter Hayward dead in a bathtub filled with his own blood. It's a confirmed suicide - something to which Jack is not a stranger - but it spurs Jack to discover why his friend abruptly killed himself. Jack's investigation leads him to Evi, a mysterious computer program embedded in a video game under development at Electronic Sheep. Evi shows Jack terrifying things, including horrors from his own past. To save his sanity, and gain justice for Dexter, Jack has to discover what the program wants and how to stop it from causing more deaths.

Kill Screen is set in San Francisco during the 1990s, a heady time and place to be working in software development. A tech veteran himself, Reeves does a wonderful job depicting the joys and frustrations of developing software on the bleeding edge of technology.

Told in first-person point of view by Jack, we see how tortured and guilt-ridden he is over the death of his wife, something that drives his single-minded pursuit to learn why Dexter killed himself. The secondary characters in the Electronic Sheep offices were stock - the opinionated art director; the uber-coder who programmed at 60-words per minute; the sycophantic newb who never had an opinion until he heard his manager's first - but made me nostalgic for my own software development days during the '90s. I knew people like that. For me, the stock characters only added to Reeves's techie credibility.

Reeves's prose is wonderful, especially in a first-time novel. His metaphors and descriptions are highly original and convey a mood or mental image as concrete as any I've read by more experienced authors. However, my enthusiasm is tempered by the many spelling errors of the misplaced-word variety ("her" instead of "here", etc.). They were numerous enough to notice, but not so bad as to avoid the book.

I hope this isn't the last we see of Evi. A sequel with Evi escaping onto the Internet would be an entertaining follow-up to a novel I highly recommend to fans of tech thrillers.

* No, I'm not suggesting Resident Evil will achieve sentience and drive its players insane. But it is freakin' dark and creepy.

[Originally posted at New Podler Review of Books.]

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed by Jennifer Reinoehl for Readers' Favorite

Kill Screen by Benjamin Reeves is about a game designer named Jack whose world is turned on end when he discovers his best friend's suicide. Jack must work through his past to unravel the truth behind the AI that proves to be a menacing opponent. Since Reeves is in the gaming industry, he writes like a gamer which accounts for his beginning chapters spending much time setting up the scene and allowing for the character to explore his environment. Once the book gets past this, the action and suspense carry it through to a climatic finale.

I enjoyed reading Kill Screen. It drew me in so deeply that I ended up burning dinner. There are few quirks and typos that I felt should have been worked out beforehand and it started a little slow, which lowered my rating of it. If the author fixed these in a second edition, it would receive five stars because of the entertainment value. It also is well-written structurally, a pleasant surprise from a first novel. This book is more suspense and science fiction with the AI acting in paranormal ways than standard general fiction. If you are the type to enjoy those genres, you will probably like this as well. Gamers and programming geeks should also appreciate the subject matter, but they may not want to read it at night. The entire book keeps you wondering if the AI or Jack will win in the end and lends itself to either a sequel, movie, or, obviously, a video game.

[Victoria Pinto Rivas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a question to everyone who read this novel: Do you think is possible that, in some far or close future, could exist an AI capable of show your worst fears, nightmares, and even your dark inner self?

That was the question that popped up in my head during the time (I can't say how many hours, because it caught me in my chair!) I was reading this book today, part of the morning and the afternoon. That was something that, frantically, I didn't expect to find in this book. What I expected to find on it was some typical industrial espionage, some software to use as a weapon... Not a software that shows you the worst part of yourself, the things you don't want to accept are over, that you must let it go.

Now, let me tell you that I've thought that the machine was sort-of-possessed, because is already known that it's impossible that a machine would surpass human mind. Then, when I was in the three last chapters, I caught how that thing really works: Its creator used information, intimate one I dare to say, to confront himself and his loved ones. It seemed that the poor man had been through suffering and was tired of that. Was an artistical way to confront his deep self... Or something more complex like that.

I really enjoyed it despite the little annoying repetitive beginning of each chapter referring to the main character's past.

Soon the Spanish (and maybe extended) version on my blog!

[Drew McGee · Rating 4 out of 5]

First things first: I'm a game writer and this novel is entrenched in the world of the game industry, so I'm a bit biased. That said, Mr. Reeves has put together an entertaining tale of imperfect characters forced to face their imperfections. If you're into soft sci-fi with a hint of hard-boiled detective novel or if you just like smart reflection on our lives in general, this is the one for you.

I'm a slow reader, but zipped through this one. The pacing was perfect and the chapter endings kept me locked in for "just one more chapter". Enjoy!

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Dexter commits suicide, it is up to Jack Valentine to find out how a gaming program and Evi contributed to the death. Set in the 1990s, Author Benjamin Reeves taps his experience as editor for "Game Informer Magazine" to create a scenario where video games illusion become real.

Too many dashes and clichés.

[AH]

Kindle free download 8/5/12.