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Dangerous Games #3
How to Win
A REAL GAME-CHANGER
Liam Parker has come a long way in the past two years, from gaming-industry noob to the new head of security for Gen Con, the largest tabletop gaming convention in America. He just got married, and his first game is up for the Diana Jones Award. The last bit of dirty work he needs to do to put the past behind him is help lock his old nemesis Tollak Spielmacher behind bars for life.
But Tollak flips the table instead.
When gunmen charge into Gen Con and take the Writer’s Symposium hostage, issuing incredible demands, Liam suspects this is not their real gambit. He needs to figure out the rules to this new game of theirs — and how to win — or he stands to lose everything.
And Gen Con too.
How to Win is the third novel in the Dangerous Games series.
Liam Parker has come a long way in the past two years, from gaming-industry noob to the new head of security for Gen Con, the largest tabletop gaming convention in America. He just got married, and his first game is up for the Diana Jones Award. The last bit of dirty work he needs to do to put the past behind him is help lock his old nemesis Tollak Spielmacher behind bars for life.
But Tollak flips the table instead.
When gunmen charge into Gen Con and take the Writer’s Symposium hostage, issuing incredible demands, Liam suspects this is not their real gambit. He needs to figure out the rules to this new game of theirs — and how to win — or he stands to lose everything.
And Gen Con too.
How to Win is the third novel in the Dangerous Games series.
- GenresFiction
198 pages, ebook
First published August 12, 2013
1 person is currently reading
27 people want to read
About the author
Matt Forbeck
210 books314 followersI'm an award-winning, New York Times-bestselling author and game designer and happily married father of five, including a set of quadruplets. For more on my work, see Forbeck.com.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
October 17, 2013
You can read the full review over at my blog:
http://sonsofcorax.wordpress.com/2013...
I’ve talked before about Matt’s super-crazy plan to write a dozen novels last year, a project that he called 12-for-12 which specifically called for him to write one 50k novel a month for every month of 2012. He didn’t quite get to complete the project, since he also undertook comic gigs and wrote novels as work-for-hire, aside from other events, but it was still a superhuman feat. He’s been working on the novels this year as well and has already released nine of the novels, three separate trilogies with different themes and settings, to great fanfare and a hell of a reception. While I loved his Brave New World trilogy and his Shotguns & Sorcery trilogy was another good one, its really his Dangerous Games trilogy that I have really, really enjoyed.
Set at the premier gaming convention in the West, GenCon, this trilogy is a thriller/crime novel that makes full use of Matt’s experiences as a tabletop/board/card game designer and his attendance of the convention itself for the last several years. If ever you needed a window into a geek con through the lens of a contemporary novel, this is the trilogy you need to be reading.
Dangerous Games 03 How To WinIts great to finally see Liam Parker’s story play out in full with this novel. We first met him in How To Play where he was an aspiring game designer and was attending his first GenCon. Quite unplanned, he got caught up in a murder investigation at the convention and was eventually hired part time by the con-committee to act as liaison with the local police given his recent graduation from police academy. It was a riveting adventure that really showed off life at GenCon and it really made me want to go to one myself. In How To Cheat we saw Liam level up and attend his second GenCon, this time as a game designer just putting out his first board game, thanks in part to a self-tuckerized Matt Forbeck who helped him make his debut and mentored him. Once again, Liam was involved in a murder investigation, all to do with Tollak Spielmacher, the overt villain from the first novel. And now, with How To Win things pretty much come full circle and this is the big showdown that Matt has been building up till now. With his third GenCon, Liam is now a bona fide tabletop game designer, having successfully launched his game Mojo Poker to great acclaim, with the possibility of even winning his first Diana Jones Award, which is pretty much the premier award in the tabletop gaming community. And things are about to get worse since a bitter Tollak Spielmacher is now going all-out to get his revenge on all the people who have looked down on him through the years, and he particularly wants to bring down Liam, who has thwarted him again and again.
Its a lot to take in really. And Matt Forbeck never lets up. As with the previous two novels, the pacing for this novel is in overdrive from the get go. Things move rapidly throughout as we go from one situation to another. There’s the Diana Jones Award Party which has been the cornerstone opening event of the Dangerous Games novels from the start and has always had a bit of a fun tension to it. There’s Tollak’s court trial for his involvement in the murders at GenCon for the past 2 years. There’s the assassination attempt on Tollak. There’s the murder rampage through GenCon this year. And yes, its a hell of a murder rampage.
Ultimately, while quite horrific in its effects on GenCon, this was the best part of the novel. You see, whenever there is a tragedy in real life, the community (or communities) that are affected always bands together. It supports the people who call that community its own and they face the adversity together. This is what Matt showcases in this novel. With killers running loose through GenCon, we see how the convention attendees react to all of it, especially when there is a hostage situation. Matt has tuckerized a lot of well-known folks from the gaming and publishing industries into these novels and he continues that trend here, but he one-ups everything this time. For this time, we have some of the biggest geek celebs like John Scalzi, Wil Wheaton, Patrick Rothfuss, Felicia Day, Paul S. Kemp and many others who do their cameos. Through each of these characters and many others, people from all walks of life in the gaming industry, he shows how the community reacts to the villains in its midst.
There’s a particularly heroic moment involving Wil Wheaton and Patrick Rothfuss that really had me fist-pumping the air. It is the kind of heroism that I’d expect from the man who used to play Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Paul S. Kemp, a New York Times bestselling author does his small part by sharing what he knows of the villains as they rampage through the convention. And it goes on and on. There are cameos and heroics aplenty in this novel.
Of course, there is a body count in this novel, and its not pretty, not by any means. That is the saddest part of the novel, the most emotional part. Its hard to imagine really. Thousands of people attend a gaming convention, nerding out and geeking out with the best of them. And then suddenly there is a police car slamming through the entrance. Gunmen get out and start spraying the crowd with bullets. Hard-breaking really.
All the same, kudos to Matt for writing such an unexpected story. When I picked up the novel, I had no idea that the story would become so personal, or so moving. But if there is one thing that Matt is really good at, it is at handling those emotional stakes so well. Nothing in the novel feels gratuitous or for-the-hell-of-it. Each event has an impact on the story and the characters. Even when someone dies, he treats it as a solemn moment, with consequences for the characters involved.
What matters at the end is that this book is more than it seems on the surface. It has a lot of heart and it treats the setting with respect and shows it off in a great positive light. Which is all one could ask anyhow. Once again, this was an absolutely amazing way to end the trilogy and I’m really glad that I got a chance to read the novel. As with the previous two novels, the characterisation is spot-on and there is a wealth of geek material and references here to keep you busy for a few weeks trying to figure out all of them.
And just a small point, but I am tuckerized in this book, which was all kinds of cool. No physical cameo, I get a name-check, but it was really cool to see that. Makes it my third tuckerization ever, which is super-cool, especially since all three were this year!
You definitely need to be reading this trilogy. I enjoyed it, and I hope you do as well.
Rating: 9.5/10
http://sonsofcorax.wordpress.com/2013...
I’ve talked before about Matt’s super-crazy plan to write a dozen novels last year, a project that he called 12-for-12 which specifically called for him to write one 50k novel a month for every month of 2012. He didn’t quite get to complete the project, since he also undertook comic gigs and wrote novels as work-for-hire, aside from other events, but it was still a superhuman feat. He’s been working on the novels this year as well and has already released nine of the novels, three separate trilogies with different themes and settings, to great fanfare and a hell of a reception. While I loved his Brave New World trilogy and his Shotguns & Sorcery trilogy was another good one, its really his Dangerous Games trilogy that I have really, really enjoyed.
Set at the premier gaming convention in the West, GenCon, this trilogy is a thriller/crime novel that makes full use of Matt’s experiences as a tabletop/board/card game designer and his attendance of the convention itself for the last several years. If ever you needed a window into a geek con through the lens of a contemporary novel, this is the trilogy you need to be reading.
Dangerous Games 03 How To WinIts great to finally see Liam Parker’s story play out in full with this novel. We first met him in How To Play where he was an aspiring game designer and was attending his first GenCon. Quite unplanned, he got caught up in a murder investigation at the convention and was eventually hired part time by the con-committee to act as liaison with the local police given his recent graduation from police academy. It was a riveting adventure that really showed off life at GenCon and it really made me want to go to one myself. In How To Cheat we saw Liam level up and attend his second GenCon, this time as a game designer just putting out his first board game, thanks in part to a self-tuckerized Matt Forbeck who helped him make his debut and mentored him. Once again, Liam was involved in a murder investigation, all to do with Tollak Spielmacher, the overt villain from the first novel. And now, with How To Win things pretty much come full circle and this is the big showdown that Matt has been building up till now. With his third GenCon, Liam is now a bona fide tabletop game designer, having successfully launched his game Mojo Poker to great acclaim, with the possibility of even winning his first Diana Jones Award, which is pretty much the premier award in the tabletop gaming community. And things are about to get worse since a bitter Tollak Spielmacher is now going all-out to get his revenge on all the people who have looked down on him through the years, and he particularly wants to bring down Liam, who has thwarted him again and again.
Its a lot to take in really. And Matt Forbeck never lets up. As with the previous two novels, the pacing for this novel is in overdrive from the get go. Things move rapidly throughout as we go from one situation to another. There’s the Diana Jones Award Party which has been the cornerstone opening event of the Dangerous Games novels from the start and has always had a bit of a fun tension to it. There’s Tollak’s court trial for his involvement in the murders at GenCon for the past 2 years. There’s the assassination attempt on Tollak. There’s the murder rampage through GenCon this year. And yes, its a hell of a murder rampage.
Ultimately, while quite horrific in its effects on GenCon, this was the best part of the novel. You see, whenever there is a tragedy in real life, the community (or communities) that are affected always bands together. It supports the people who call that community its own and they face the adversity together. This is what Matt showcases in this novel. With killers running loose through GenCon, we see how the convention attendees react to all of it, especially when there is a hostage situation. Matt has tuckerized a lot of well-known folks from the gaming and publishing industries into these novels and he continues that trend here, but he one-ups everything this time. For this time, we have some of the biggest geek celebs like John Scalzi, Wil Wheaton, Patrick Rothfuss, Felicia Day, Paul S. Kemp and many others who do their cameos. Through each of these characters and many others, people from all walks of life in the gaming industry, he shows how the community reacts to the villains in its midst.
There’s a particularly heroic moment involving Wil Wheaton and Patrick Rothfuss that really had me fist-pumping the air. It is the kind of heroism that I’d expect from the man who used to play Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Paul S. Kemp, a New York Times bestselling author does his small part by sharing what he knows of the villains as they rampage through the convention. And it goes on and on. There are cameos and heroics aplenty in this novel.
Of course, there is a body count in this novel, and its not pretty, not by any means. That is the saddest part of the novel, the most emotional part. Its hard to imagine really. Thousands of people attend a gaming convention, nerding out and geeking out with the best of them. And then suddenly there is a police car slamming through the entrance. Gunmen get out and start spraying the crowd with bullets. Hard-breaking really.
All the same, kudos to Matt for writing such an unexpected story. When I picked up the novel, I had no idea that the story would become so personal, or so moving. But if there is one thing that Matt is really good at, it is at handling those emotional stakes so well. Nothing in the novel feels gratuitous or for-the-hell-of-it. Each event has an impact on the story and the characters. Even when someone dies, he treats it as a solemn moment, with consequences for the characters involved.
What matters at the end is that this book is more than it seems on the surface. It has a lot of heart and it treats the setting with respect and shows it off in a great positive light. Which is all one could ask anyhow. Once again, this was an absolutely amazing way to end the trilogy and I’m really glad that I got a chance to read the novel. As with the previous two novels, the characterisation is spot-on and there is a wealth of geek material and references here to keep you busy for a few weeks trying to figure out all of them.
And just a small point, but I am tuckerized in this book, which was all kinds of cool. No physical cameo, I get a name-check, but it was really cool to see that. Makes it my third tuckerization ever, which is super-cool, especially since all three were this year!
You definitely need to be reading this trilogy. I enjoyed it, and I hope you do as well.
Rating: 9.5/10
October 23, 2021
A fitting wrap to the trilogy. Liam gets to test his skills. Several characters reap the consequences of their actions from the first 2 books.
September 11, 2013
I've been fortunate enough to attend GenCon for the past two years and I had plans to attend yearly until I read this amazing trilogy, but thanks to Mr. Forbeck, my eyes have been opened to the tremendous danger lurking in those hallowed halls and I shall never darken their doors again.
Ah, who am I kidding. GenCon is a blast, and now that I've been, I can't imagine missing it. I am a little late to the gamer tribe, but the people I've met and interacted with have been wonderful. Reading this trilogy brought such joy to me. Mr. Forbeck is the epitome of a professional writer, completely in control of his prose and his readers. I kept telling myself that I had to get some sleep, but then he'd hit me with another cliffhanger and I had to keep going. Thank you, Mr. Forbeck, for allowing me to see further into this fabulous world.
Ah, who am I kidding. GenCon is a blast, and now that I've been, I can't imagine missing it. I am a little late to the gamer tribe, but the people I've met and interacted with have been wonderful. Reading this trilogy brought such joy to me. Mr. Forbeck is the epitome of a professional writer, completely in control of his prose and his readers. I kept telling myself that I had to get some sleep, but then he'd hit me with another cliffhanger and I had to keep going. Thank you, Mr. Forbeck, for allowing me to see further into this fabulous world.
July 29, 2024
For his third GenCon, newlywed Liam Parker returns, this time as the convention's Chief Security Officer. Once again he has a game to launch at the convention, but old enemies are making plans to interrupt the fun and games. Will he make it out alive?
With Dangerous Games: How to Win, Matt Forbeck repeats his feat of short novel writing. Giving us the same relentless pacing, he takes the story to a new and more dramatic high. Truly masterful writing.
With Dangerous Games: How to Win, Matt Forbeck repeats his feat of short novel writing. Giving us the same relentless pacing, he takes the story to a new and more dramatic high. Truly masterful writing.
August 2, 2013
This is an excellent end to the trilogy. It packs a punch. This story effectively builds on the previous two 'dangerous games' which were both excellent. Forbeck ups the tension by using real (and still very much alive) people as some of his characters. This element added extra tension to this novel, in a way I did not expect. An excellent, engrossing and enjoyable read.
October 14, 2014
Matt Forbeck finishes his wonderfully bloodthirsty love letter to tabletop gaming convention GenCon with this final installment in the Dangerous Games trilogy. The final chapter throws out whatever vestiges of restraint still lingered around the premise - murders taking place in and around the so-called "Best Four Days in Gaming" - by plunging the convention into bullet-ridden, blood-soaked mayhem.
It's terrific. First of all, once the action starts it's pretty relentless. But where in the previous episodes Forbeck may have felt that credibility demanded a certain circumspection in the number of killings, this time all bets are off. Bodies drop like autumn leaves.
Which comes to the second, more entertaining part - Forbeck takes the slightly ridiculous series conceit of using well-known (real world) gaming industry figures as his supporting cast and runs it crazily off the rails here, and it's delightful. Forbeck himself is a prominent character, whose proximity to the (fictitious) protagonist makes him by no means certain or even likely to survive the story. Plenty of other high-profile gaming luminaries don't make it to the end of the book. Forbeck seems to be having a great time gleefully executing his friends and colleagues throughout.
Where in previous volumes I found myself oddly distanced by the prospect of fictional murder being done to people I've heard of and followed online for years, in this case, when the stakes were turned up to 11, it just felt like the right amount of cognitive crazy.
Not to give away anything about the actual plot (which is a logical if somewhat hyperactive extension of the previous two books) the whole thing might not have worked without a deliriously stirring speech given after the climax, which speaks to either a triumph of the human spirit or the sheer dissociative insanity of the gaming fraternity. I suppose it's probably intended as the former, but I have my suspicions.
Either way, it's a triumph. This is a mad, ambitious and gleefully violent celebration of gaming that is, I guarantee, worth it for the Kenneth Hite dialogue alone.
(Disclaimer: I backed this project on Kickstarter. That is a decision I do not regret for one moment).
It's terrific. First of all, once the action starts it's pretty relentless. But where in the previous episodes Forbeck may have felt that credibility demanded a certain circumspection in the number of killings, this time all bets are off. Bodies drop like autumn leaves.
Which comes to the second, more entertaining part - Forbeck takes the slightly ridiculous series conceit of using well-known (real world) gaming industry figures as his supporting cast and runs it crazily off the rails here, and it's delightful. Forbeck himself is a prominent character, whose proximity to the (fictitious) protagonist makes him by no means certain or even likely to survive the story. Plenty of other high-profile gaming luminaries don't make it to the end of the book. Forbeck seems to be having a great time gleefully executing his friends and colleagues throughout.
Where in previous volumes I found myself oddly distanced by the prospect of fictional murder being done to people I've heard of and followed online for years, in this case, when the stakes were turned up to 11, it just felt like the right amount of cognitive crazy.
Not to give away anything about the actual plot (which is a logical if somewhat hyperactive extension of the previous two books) the whole thing might not have worked without a deliriously stirring speech given after the climax, which speaks to either a triumph of the human spirit or the sheer dissociative insanity of the gaming fraternity. I suppose it's probably intended as the former, but I have my suspicions.
Either way, it's a triumph. This is a mad, ambitious and gleefully violent celebration of gaming that is, I guarantee, worth it for the Kenneth Hite dialogue alone.
(Disclaimer: I backed this project on Kickstarter. That is a decision I do not regret for one moment).
October 25, 2013
So I try not to be one of those people who just tosses out 5 stars to everything. But this book, this whole series has earned it. Dangerous Games is a Blood Soaked love letter to Gen Con and 80's action films. Liam Parker is once again back at Gen Con for his third year. This time he is a nominee for the Diana Jones award and Head of Security for Gen Con. But there is one other thing he has to take care of while in Indianapolis this year. He is the star witness in the murder trial of Tollak Spielmacher for his part in the events at Gen Con the year before. Normally I would tell you a little more about the plot but everything from that point on is action and I wouldn't want to spoil it for you. This is the final act of the trilogy so the body count is going to be high. I read this entire book in about two sittings as a pallet cleanser after a real tough read. However fifty pages in I couldn't put it down. The book reads like it could have been a lost script for a missing Die Hard movie. It is filled with some of the best cliches we all know and love. I believed in this book so much you can find my name in the back with all the other people who ponied up the cash, sight unseen, to will the book into existence.
November 7, 2013
Well after starting this series on Sunday and finishing it on Wednesday I gotta say it was a great series. This book was by far the craziest in the series. It was a lot of fun with all the characters in the book being people in the gaming industry, many I know of by name and at least one I talk to semi-regularly. Matt gives this book a great feel of action and some great writing. Can't wait to read some more of the 12 for '12 ... although I think Vegas Knights is going to be an appropriate followup.
January 20, 2014
High body count, name-dropping finale to the series. I think I finished this book in about a day because I couldn't put it down. Great finish to a really fun series!
January 9, 2014
More Liam please I enjoyed every word
I am a fan and love the game it's how I met my geeky hubby. I still have my geek cred and this set of books makes me so ok happy.
I am a fan and love the game it's how I met my geeky hubby. I still have my geek cred and this set of books makes me so ok happy.
January 8, 2018
A trilogy isn't enough
The third book is as enjoyable as the other two. The only downside is that they are over. I would love to see more.
The third book is as enjoyable as the other two. The only downside is that they are over. I would love to see more.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews