Polybius

by Collin Armstrong

Stranger Things meets The Walking Dead in this shivery novel based on a terrifying urban legend about a small seaside town descending into chaos when an unusual video game is unveiled at the local arcade.

Having recently moved to the gentrifying seaside town of Tasker Bay with her mother, the only thing on high schooler Andi’s mind is saving up enough money for her escape to Silicon Valley. Though it’s owned by the shadiest resident in town, she takes a job at the dingy arcade Home Video World.

Pining over Andi is Ro, the son of Tasker Bay’s sheriff. With his friend’s matchmaking help, he begins spending more time at the arcade and soon, Andi finds herself opening up to Ro. But when the store gets an unusual new game of unknown origin, the floor is suddenly overwhelmed with players fighting to get some time on the machine. Seemingly overnight, a virus-like epidemic sweeps through the town while a major coastal storm rolls in, further isolating them from the outside world. Time is of the essence as residents collectively experience anger, paranoia, hallucinations, and even catatonia. And when one heinous act of violence goes unsolved, the town descends into utter chaos. Realizing no one is coming to their rescue, Andi and Ro take matters into their own hands to get to the bottom of the spiraling madness…until it begins affecting them, too.

Genres: Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller, Fiction, Audiobook, Mystery, Adult

1 pages, Audio CD

First published April 29, 2025

About the author

Collin Armstrong has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade developing, writing, and producing material for outlets including 20th Century Fox TV, ABC Family, Bleecker Street, Viaplay, Discovery, and the LA Times Studios. Polybius is his first novel. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and children.

Reviews

[Queralt✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Polybius by Collin Armstrong is the fictionalized account of an urban legend about a 1981 arcade game that was, in fact, a US government-run experiment that backfired. Polybius allegedly produced intense psychoactive and addictive effects on whoever played it and while it is an urban legend, you still find lengthy posts on the Internet by people who said they played it. After reading this book, I went down the rabbit hole and found pictures of an arcade machine and a long-ass video about it (link). Honestly, reading this was FIRE. And falling into the rabbit hole of the urban legend made it even better. If you like Black Mirror and video games, this book is a must.

Polybius follows a bunch of characters who live in the seaside town of Tasker Bay. Andi works at the arcade in town saving up money to get the fuck out of there when Mal, her boss, brings in a second-hand arcade machine he just bought for cheap. Polybius. The arcade game becomes an instant hit with people lining up to play it and even fighting to get a chance to try it out. And, right after they play the game, people change - they have visions, dreams, crazy ideas, they lose time… In the meantime, David, the sheriff's deputy, is investigating weird cases of violence that have just started happening in town.

As I said, this was FUN. I love it when a horror book features video games, it’s just so cool to me. I had so much fun reading this, I was 100% hooked. At some point, I think I said out loud ‘this is so fucking good’ while reading it (I’m also very cheap and easy to get into urban mysteries, I love a good rabbit hole and this book had plenty). Two other aspects I want to mention are that 1) this is the perfect balance between a plot-driven and character-driven book, just fantastic storytelling. 2) I loved the writing and the vibe of it all, though it felt a little dense overall.

I loved the atmosphere. This felt like the 1980-1990s movies where kids found something and came together to solve the mystery. Getting to actually get some answers from the ‘guy behind (some of) it all’ was as close as solving the urban mystery as we’ll ever get. What a cool idea and what an amazing take. I guess it is a bit cheesy, but it’s also what I wanted from it. (PS - the blurb says this is like The Walking Dead and idk where they see any connection).

It’s a 4.5 read. Rounded down because it felt a bit too heavy and slow at times. If you liked this book, I strongly suggest you pick up The Between by Ryan Leslie. It’s not about an arcade game but a text-based RPG and it hits as good as this one did.

Content Warning: this includes violence. The first sign that things are going really wrong is a pretty gruesome scene involving animals (horses).

*ARC received for free. This has not impacted my review.

[Court Zierk · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️ ⭐️ 1/2

I played a lot of video games as a kid in the 80s, and I can confidently say that if one ever burrowed into my subconscious to hypnotize me and pull all my negative emotions of anger and paranoia to the surface as part of a governmental psyops campaign, I would definitely smash the hell out of the game immediately.

Seriously, why are we waiting so long to destroy the game that is systematically destabilizing an entire town, bringing them to the brink of societal collapse? Go grab a hammer, some gasoline and a set of Diamond matches already and let’s get to demolishing.

This book had a lot of promise, and I loved it for the first 1/3, but it devolved into a repetitive cycle of belabored scenes that showed the town’s descent into madness, and it made the entire middle section of this book almost unbearable.

That’s not to mention anything about my frustration with the characters behavior and irrational decision making. It drove me crazy, and I can only suspend so much disbelief.

Grab an axe or a sledgehammer already and demolish that game! What are we even doing here?

Anyway, the cover art is great. It’s why I even found the book in the first place. The writing is solid. It definitely suffers from first book asymmetry, but I can see this author learning and growing into something much more. The characters were almost formed but fell just short. But the pacing was tough, and that’s where this faltered.

[Stacy (Gotham City Librarian) · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 rounded up.

I heard about this internet urban legend before, so I was intrigued by the idea of a full-length book based on the idea. This was an early review copy, and read like it needed a bit more editing. There was some bad grammar and incorrect sentence structure here and there, as well as an over abundance of commas.

I hate giving this note, but there was quite a bit of telling rather than showing for some of the initial chapters. (Summarizing the situations for the characters, how they feel about each other, an explanation of their personal history, etc. No actual examples of these things in action.)

What I did appreciate were the short sections. I like being able to read a book in brief bursts because of my uncooperative attention span. However, the constant back and forth between multiple characters’ POV and the frequent introduction of various new names and faces had me constantly fatigued. There were so many townspeople that when some of them showed back up later I didn’t remember what they had done in previous chapters or how I was supposed to remember them.

I didn’t feel the chemistry between Andi and Ro. It seemed forced. Some of their dialogue sounded artificial, also. A major issue for me was that I didn’t really care about any of these characters. Ro’s ex was pretty likable, but she sort of took a backseat for much of the plot.

There are multiple reviews that mention pacing issues and I couldn’t agree more. The middle of this has sections that feel both slow and repetitive, with too much switching between POVs, and then at the end there’s a whole lot of stuff happening all at once and the action is confusing in places.

I wanted more of the creepy video game narrative. Much of this read like a Needful Things sort of story, with a town tearing itself apart with violence. And the blurb that compares it to Stranger Things? Not very accurate.

The ending was fine, but it didn’t work for me. I can’t say for sure how I would have done it differently.

Cool cover, though!

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Biggest TW: Animal harm/Death

[Haly Hoards Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are a fan of Stephen King's 1980s novels then you will also be a fan of Collin Anderson. Anderson's debut novel has all of the marks of a great suspense, horror, thriller. The pace of the horror grows gradually until, before you know it, you are in the depths of chaos.

I was lucky to receive an ARC of Polybius for free, and I am voluntarily leaving my opinions of this novel. Thank you to the author, publisher and Goodreads for this opportunity.

As a character driven tale, Anderson has written a novel that is full of strong characters. Andi and her mother are not withering helpless women in their approaches to facing and solving problems. Ro and his dad also step up to protect others during dangerous times in Tasker Bay. The risks the four characters take to figure out what is causing the rash of violence in their small community become more and more lethal as the reach of Polybius spreads. Anderson also writes about how relationships can either break or become stronger in the face of danger.

This is Anderson's first step to becoming an author who will be one fans of slow burn horror will love. I look forward to his next novel.

[Laura]

Dnf. Made an urban legend boring.

[Bethanys_books · Rating 5 out of 5]

5⭐️!!!

This book was perfection. I read this in one day and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. I was skeptical when I saw it was pitched as Stranger Things x The Walking Dead but it truly did have Stranger things vibes in the best of ways!

I loved the 80s setting, and was so creeped out reading this. It’s about a video game made by the government for psychological warfare, but of course nobody knows this yet in the book. A small video game store buys the Polybius cabinet for a very inexpensive cost, not knowing what they’re bringing into their store/town. It seems like everyone who plays it, enters a trance like state and can’t stop playing. They’re walking away seemingly different than normal and crimes start to happen in the town

My ONLY complaint is that there is a violent crime scene described with horses which I didn’t like. I’m a wimp when it comes to any animal cruelty so I struggled with that scene, but in the end this was still a clear five star read for me. I was genuinely creeped out in my own home for a full day after reading this, and the ending could not have been better imo. Can’t wait to see what this author writes next!

[Lara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked it up because it was pitched as "if you like 'Stranger Things'", but it felt more like a bad 80s sci-fi TV movie. Thoughts!

--We know this book is set in the 1980s because there's a video rental store/arcade, one character's 40ish dad was in Vietnam, and there are several mentions of landline phones and burgeoning Silicon Valley. Other than that? Nada. No cultural touchstones. No mention of anything happening in the wider world outside Tasker Bay. Nobody in this town keeps up with sports, or politics, or watches sitcoms, or does anything except worry about the newcomers and descend into madness.

--Related, no one uses any slang, not even the multiple teen characters. The dialogue in this book is there to move the plot along, not give anyone a distinctive voice.

--Andi and Ro are both very basic characters with minimal development other than that they're aware early on that there's something weird about Polybius. Ro is biracial (in a small town in 1982!) and he never once thinks about it. Andi is an early computer geek, but solely so she can be instrumental to the plot. They have no chemistry--the scene where they have sex is out of the blue and also mercifully an immediate fade to black--and their interactions with their parents feel more like casual acquaintances than parent/child.

--Almost no one else in the town gets more than a sentence or two of development, because they are all going to die. David's fellow policemen, Andi and Ro's high school classmates, the newcomers who want to gentrify (before that was even a word) the town, the natives who mistrust change--they get names and then they succumb either to Polybius or to the atmosphere of paranoia and violence it engenders. Three people make it out alive, out of the whole town.

--And of course, the characters who do get a little more development are the ones who go utterly insane. Mal, Laurel, Carl, we get to watch their sanity erode and watch them do horrible, horrible things. I knew going in that this was a horror novel, but if I'd known there would be a multi-page scene of a man pursuing a terrified woman in a car chase that ends when he drives directly into a building because it means he gets to hit her head-on and watch her crushed body hit a wall, I might have reconsidered. Not to mention the scenes of maddened children shooting up the streets.

--I hated the ending. The town turns on itself and then is firebombed/shot out of existence by the government, we never get closure on Roman, Andi and her mom let David fade quietly away into a new life, and there's the extremely eyerolling last page of "And it turns out Andi was, in her own way, manipulated by Polybius for the rest of her life". If I wanted a pretentious ending about the dangers of technology, I'd watch "Black Mirror".

In conclusion, go watch "Stranger Things".

[Gyalten Lekden · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel takes the urban legend of the mysterious arcade game and pushes it out to a wild conclusion that was impressive in its scope and commitment. I had a fun time with this novel and enjoyed it and the characters, especially once it got started. The very first novels felt like they were doing more telling than showing, presenting us with the characters and then narrating their experiences to us instead of letting us experience them, but once we fell into a comfortable groove with the characters that went away. Eventually the portraits we get of the main characters end up being complicated enough to be interesting and not feel rote but also playing with expected archetypes and tropes enough to feel familiar. The writing was comfortable and direct, it didn’t ever feel superfluous or over the top, but balanced description with the emotional states of our characters in an effective, fairly conventional style.

That said, some of the plotting felt a little bit slow. Obviously the readers know something is going on with this arcade cabinet, so the amount of time it takes for the characters to realize it feels drawn out and not particularly satisfying. When they do figure it out the actions they take make sense, and the final act’s climax both make sense and are engrossing, but it felt like spinning some wheels to get there. It never felt bad or boring, the writing was good enough as were the characters and their slow development and inner transformation, but at the same time I wasn’t ever chomping at the bit to pick the story up again, at least not for the first 2/3, during which things did happen, and we do witness an escalation, but it still didn’t feel as propulsive as I would have wanted. I think in part this is also because the “mystery” of the arcade is pretty non-existent. Not only are there no real red herrings or wild conspiracy theories to track down and prove or disprove, but the answer to the mystery also feels like the simplest and least exciting (even if most plausible in the real-world) solution. What happened as a consequence of that is, like I said, delightfully unexpected, but the journey to get there felt like being told something you already knew.

There are certainly parts of this book that surprised me, and some of the character work, especially as it deepened and became more emotive in the back half of the novel, was exciting. There are a small handful of ancillary characters who we see breakdown and go on their own side-quests because of their exposure and those were fun, I wish there had been more, that could have increased tension and the emotional stakes. As it is, it is competently written and it is willing to follow some suggestions to their unexpected consequences, but it didn’t have any a strong sense of discovery or surprise for me, which I was hoping for. If you’re looking for a thriller that combines conspiratorial thinking with teenagers trying to find themselves then this novel certainly delivers on that front.

I want to thank NetGalley, the author, and the publisher Gallery Books, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

As someone who has always been fascinated by the Polybius urban legend, I was intrigued when I saw that a novel based on this premise was available. I was excited to dive in, hoping for an engaging, eerie thriller that explored the mystery of the cursed arcade game. Unfortunately, I found myself a bit disappointed.

While the book is written well enough, I couldn’t help but feel that it leaned more toward the young adult genre, with a bit more gore and swearing thrown in for shock value. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it did give the story an overall feeling of being more juvenile than I expected. The writing flows smoothly, but the character development and tone left me feeling as though it could have been more mature and complex, given the potential of the original legend.

As for the plot, while the core elements of the Polybius myth are certainly present, Armstrong takes the story in a direction that felt more bombastic and outlandish than I anticipated. Rather than a suspenseful, psychological exploration of the curse surrounding the game, the novel veers into more of a fast-paced, action-heavy narrative. This change in direction was a bit jarring for me, as I had expected a more grounded, atmospheric story. The twist the author chose to incorporate felt like a departure from what made the Polybius story so compelling in the first place.

Polybius was an interesting take on a popular urban legend, but it didn’t quite live up to my expectations

[thevampireslibrary · Rating 5 out of 5]

An anxiety fueled suspenseful read, Armstrong has crafted a horror/psychological thriller that fleshes out the urban legend of Polybius, an arcade game that had strange effects on those who played it, a unique spin on the virus/epidemic sub genre, infused with the essence of 80s horror cinema and a pervasive sense of unease this was a wild ride and kept me hooked from beginning to end.

[jocelyn • coolgalreading · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was fuuuun

[Books Amongst Friends · Rating 3 out of 5]

Narration/Audiobook: 3/5
Egalley/Overall Story: 3.75/5

THOUGHTS📖💭: For me, Polybius was a good summerween horror to pick up. The story entertainingly captures the amplified fear, paranoia, and violence of a small seaside town at the controls of a vintage video game. In combination with all the feels of coming to age and wanting to break out, Polybius will definitely make you nostalgic of those days spent at the mall seeing friends and making new ones.

I enjoyed the 80’s setting and the balance between a character and plot driven story. While the idea of an evil government built video game that hooks into its players was enticing enough, there’s a lot of moments to connect to the characters too. There will surely be readers who get sucked into the gradual suspense and how this unlikely crew comes together to get to the bottom of things—even if their choices annoy you most of the time lol.

As this is based around a well known urban legend, I was mostly looking forward to the risks the author would take. Sadly, it never got AS CRAZY as I hoped it would and seemed there was a lot of potential left on the table. Additionally, the same things I enjoyed about the book also worked against it at times. Navigating both character and plot sometimes slowed the pacing and story overall. While there’s moments to connect and reminisce with the characters, at this pace and page length, Polybius should’ve had even more character depth.

My largest issue with Polybius is that it’s marketed as adult horror and not YA. The story does have unsettling moments and tension, but the cast, dialogue, and horror based decision making was better fitting to a younger audience.

Generally, I enjoyed the book and hadn’t read anything like it at the time. I get the comparison to the show Stranger Things, but it reminded me of movies like The Crazies too. It made me think about how we can be/often are, consumed by our devices and the power they have over us. Even more so, the corporations and institutions that benefit from that control so often aimed to target younger people.

[I.D. · Rating 1 out of 5]

An arcade game makes people go crazy.
I think I can safely say this was the worst book I’ve read in a long time. To take a concept that already has years of built in lore freely available online and reduce it to a rip off of George A. Romeo’s The Crazies was peak laziness but it was so much worse than just that. The constant POV hopping (sometimes within the same paragraph!) the use of passive voice which makes the entire thing flat and glacially paced, and the overwhelming exposition dumps for completely unnecessary info leads me to think that this writer may have never read a book or looked into how to do it. This was a farted out first draft by a compete amateur that managed to get a book deal from connections rather than any noticeable skill. The acknowledgments state that this book was expertly edited over multiple drafts and if this is true, then I can only assume that nobody involved in any of those steps knew what they were doing. What a train-wreck.
Great cover though.

[Jess ❈Harbinger of Blood-Soaked Rainbows❈ · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

I really really really really wanted to like this one more. Once I was approved for an ARC through Netgalley, I started it immediately. It seemed like something right up my alley and would be something that I would read with fervor. Except that it wasn't.

My partner is a bit of a conspiracy theory nut so I had peripherally heard about the conspiracy theory/urban legend/creepypasta regarding Polybius but really didn't know many details. All I knew was that it was a video game produced by the government for mind control in the 80s. Everything I had heard or read about this novel was that it was a fictionalized account of that story. It kinda gave me Stranger Things vibes which is always going to be a win for me. Except that it didn't.

I decided on a 2.5 to put it right smack in the middle of the 5 star rating scale. I really enjoyed the premise of this story and there were things I really dug, however the execution was really bad. The writing was not polished nor was it suspenseful or thrilling. There were errors EVERYWHERE. There was no chemistry between any of the characters nor were they interesting or dynamic in any way. This was really problematic for me since by not having a connection to any characters automatically makes me ambivalent about what happens to them which eliminated a lot of tension that could have amped up the suspense factor. The action was also seen through way too many character viewpoints which further watered everything down in my opinion. In essence, I think this novel suffered from telling rather than showing way too much and the stylistic flaws made me disinterested in the outcome. The author did a weird thing also where he switched viewpoints constantly, not just after a break or chapter. It sometimes happened mid-paragraph and even mid-sentence which was an odd stylistic choice and was confusing. I also found the ending to be anticlimactic and forgettable.

I wish there was more tension, more suspense, and more discussion of the governmental conspiracy behind it rather than pages and pages and pages of crimes that people who had played the game were committing. I enjoyed the horror parts the most, but also found a lot of it was thrown in for shock value and didn't add much to the plot.

So 2.5 rounded down. I was disappointed, but it wasn't the worst book I've read. Not sure this author's style is for me though.

[See Kritz Read]

DNF @ 20%

The writing was just info-dumping/ telling, not showing. It felt like I was reading a script for a TV show and the author was giving the actor background info so they would know how to act out their scenes. The final straw for me was the insta-relationship all because some guy said "hi". The main character wants nothing to do with anyone. No friends, no dating, no relationships of any kind. However, when a guy simply says "hi" she can't stop obsessing over him? Get outta here!

I'm bummed about this one as I was looking forward to this release.

[max · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm sorry but this book is not very good. In fact, it's awful. The best thing about it is the premise, which is based on a pre-existing urban legend, so I can't even give the author props for that.

Plotwise, this couldn't feel more by-the-books. You've read this story before. You've seen this movie before. There is nothing new here. It is all very boring and predictable. The characters are the opposite of interesting. They're practically cardboard.

One of the biggest struggles with books centered around a mystery is making the mystery MYSTERIOUS enough that the reader is also invested in figuring out what's going on—in POLYBIUS, the "mystery" is rather obvious from the first couple pages (hell, from the back cover market copy, if we're being honest here), and it's incredibly frustrating to then spend so much time reading about characters failing to see very obvious shit right in front of them. You have to ask yourself: Why am I reading this book? What am I hoping to get from it? At the very least, there should be some modicum of entertainment, but unfortunately that's also absent here, thanks to an atrocious writing style.

It is very obvious the author comes from the screenwriting world. Half the book feels like a screenplay pitch-deck describing characters' quirks, flaws, and desires. "Show, don't tell" is not always appropriate criticism with literature, but in the case of something like POLYBIUS it's pretty much all you can scream while flipping to the next page desperately hoping for some sign of improvement.

You can skip this one.

SIDE NOTE: I can't be the only one who laughed at the front cover blurb. Richard Chizmar comparing something to Stephen King? No shit???

[Celeste]

nope! the writing is very mediocre in almost every aspect, to the point that it becomes unpleasant to read even if the plot sounded interesting

[Richelle Robinson]

This book is supposed to be based on an urban legend from the 80’s and though it started off strong, I have started to lose interest in the story. I’m not feeling any emotional connections to any of the characters and the writing is becoming long winded and repetitive.

Thank you for the free book @gallerybooks.

[Bbecca_marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book Review 👾🌀🕹️
thank you so much partner @gallerybooks #gallerypartner for the gifted copies!

Polybius
by Collin Armstrong
out now!

October, 1982. Forced to move to the quiet seaside town of Tasker Bay by her mother, the only thing on high schooler Andi’s mind is saving up enough money to return to her old stomping grounds in Silicon Valley. Her self-taught skills with all things electronic make her a perfect fit for a job at the dingy local arcade where she can tune out from life and bankroll her eventual escape.

Pining over the distant and aloof Andi is Ro, the son of Tasker Bay’s sheriff, who begins spending more time at the arcade. Despite promising herself she wouldn’t get attached to anyone in town, Andi finds herself opening up to the thoughtful, like-minded Ro.

With Polybius—a new bleeding-edge game of unknown origin arrives—the shop is suddenly overwhelmed with players fighting for time on the machine. Seemingly overnight, a virus-like epidemic grips Tasker Bay while a violent coastal storm rolls in, isolating it from the outside world.

🌀My thoughts:

A government controlled video game?! That’s terrifying and yet I feel like it’s not too far off. This one was a quick and entertaining read! Gaming culture in general makes me uneasy sometimes just seeing how addictive it is/can be. So honestly why wouldn’t the government use it for control? Needless to say my interest was piqued before I even started reading. This delivers a dark and sinister foreboding from start to finish. While taking place in a small town, in the 80s, the tension hits deeper. Nowadays I feel like people are more inclined to believe the unbelievable. Personally I would have did everything I could to destroy this game immediately* once I knew what was going on… But then we wouldn’t have such a good story. For fans of Stephen King and Stranger things per Richard Chizmar… this is the book for you. Polybius is out now!

Happy reading 📖🌀👾

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wild ride. I was nervous with two of the main characters being teens that this would be a tame scifi horror, it’s not. The description of Stranger Things meets Walking Dead is pretty on point. I don’t want to give spoilers, but dang this is perfectly violent for a video game horror book.

The vibes:
1982
Video game arcade
conspiracy theories
scifi mystery
get out alive
teen computer /gaming nerds
80’s scifi horror movies
mystery thriller
small town
fast-paced action

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced reader copy. All opinions are my own. I enjoyed this one!

[Jamie Loves Books · Rating 2 out of 5]

2⭐️

The premise of this book was really interesting and fairly unique. A retro video game causing the community members become obsessive and aggressive. I really liked this concept but unfortunately it just wasn't executed great.

This book really struggled with pacing and too many povs. It was really hard to get connected with any of the characters. The pacing also was a bit all over the place. Super fast at times while dragging during others.

I think readers who enjoy the nostalgia of this feeling in the 80s/90s could enjoy this.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books. My review is voluntarily my own.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks Gallery Books for sending me an ARC of Polybius by Collin Armstrong! This novel is about an urban legend(or is it just legend...) from the 1980s. The legend is that video game machines named Polybius were showing up in arcades across the country. People would play it, get hooked on it, & become very aggressive. Supposedly it was a government plant. In this book, in Tasker Bay, a machine called Polybius showed up @ the arcade & became popular. The writing kept my attention and so did the story.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is such a hard rating to give. If I was rating it strictly for entertainment purposes then it would be a high 4 stars. But I have to be completely honest and the readability of this book is a little rough. If there are multiple characters in a scene then it bounces back and forth between whose thoughts we are in and I got confused a good bit of the time. I also want to mention that having characters named Andy and Ro often made me confuse who was who as both names could be any gender and there wasn't much to differentiate who we were following with how quickly it bounced between characters. With all that said, I'm still giving the book 3.5 stars because I enjoyed it that much and it was so freaky, especially at the end.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars rounded up. I liked the concept, I think the execution just left something to be desired. It’s definitely Needful Things-esque. But even though we kinda jump from head to head of all these people who have had their minds altered by these games we kinda lack anything but mindless violence to make them “scary”. I don’t know if that makes sense.

I’m probably not being fair, because there’s only one Stephen King and I’ve only ever seen him do what was lacking in this book, but the similarities are so stark it’s really hard not to draw the comparison.

I also think this would have been better as a novella. We spent too much time waffling around in the middle. Because it didn’t give the reader the insight into the townies heads a lot of the fights and escalating violence didn’t come off as slow burn or even horror it just kinda came off as boring? And I didn’t care about the set up romances between Andi and Ro… At some point I was wondering why certain characters were making certain inquiries instead of just… I dunno… unplugging the goddamn game….

And then finally… I found the ending really unsatisfying. I think it was supposed to be haunting but at that point I was just glad to be done.

Ugh I’m so sorry. It’s really possible it was me. I’m struggling with my concentration and mindset lately.

[JD · Rating 3 out of 5]

i had so much fun reading this!! very fun concept and a similar vibe to clown in a cornfield - happy summerween!

[Lisa Lynch · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you're looking for a flat, unoriginal, generic horror book written by a basic white man, you've found it!

Because the best thing about Collin Armstrong's Polybius is the cover. A warning: that is the nicest thing I have to say about this book.

The author bio for Armstrong says he has worked for ABC Family and that tracks. Because there's no doubt in my mind that this is a YA novel pretending to be a "coming-of-age" story for adults. I knew I should have DNF'd this 50 pages in because, from the jump, this story focuses very heavily on teenage crushes and feelings and whatnot. Yuck.

AND it's not even well done!

I swear, these teens have no chemistry and start smooching each other out of nowhere in a way that felt prescribed rather than spontaneous. I swear to god, they have an awkward discussion about their favorite movies ON PAGE 262. Like, why are we starting to develop personalities this late in the game?

And it just kind of rubs me the wrong way that this is based on some kind of urban legend. It makes me question what Armstrong brought to the table here. Not character development, I'll tell you that. Not showing instead of telling. Not deep discussions about race or disability or even how video games impact individuals and society at large.

I mean, the narrative here is SO shallow.

There are opportunities for something deeper, but the author chose to focus more on the teenage boy fantasy aspect of this than he did on larger themes. The boy, Ro, is biracial. However, this trait feels more like it was designed to check a box, not to develop character. Like, this is set in the 80's and there's virtually no discussion of race or racism. I mean, Ro's dad is a white police officer ffs. What a perfectly missed opportunity to discuss something meaningful and relevant to today's society.

And the girl, Andi, is colorblind. Again, not really as a way to represent disability, which could have facilitated a larger discussion. But more so as a plot point. And in fact, I about shriveled up and died when Andi tries to hide the electronics she working on because she put color labels on them.

Ro leaned in to examine one of the canvas slips. "What is this?"

"Nothing," Andi snapped, swinging the magnifiers away and stuffing a motherboard back into a cabinet for safekeeping.

"Sorry," Ro said, uncertain what he'd done.

Andy knew right away she'd overreacted. "It's fine," she said, voice a little smaller. "Just... I'm color-blind. Kind of. Certain colors, shades are hard to tell apart. Yellows and blues mostly. It's called tritanopia."

"Oh. Sorry. I didn't know."

"Yeah, why would you?" she asked. "It's just something you live with, I guess."

"You can still do all of this stuff?" Andi shrugged in response, as if none of it was that hard. "That's... kind of incredible," Ro said, a touch of genuine marvel in his voice. (p. 68)

Did you spot the ableism?? Ro being gobsmacked by the fact that Andi can still work on electronics despite her debilitating colorblindness (I'm being facetious) is so cringy, I can't. I did, however, appreciate the example of an accommodation helping someone to be successful at work.

But anyway...

The last thing I will complain about is that this book is BORING. Part of this is the way it's written with its heavy-handed telling instead of showing. It also flips between many characters, none of them particularly interesting or compelling, so this felt overlong and tedious. And with these dipshit, moon-eyed teens at the helm of it all??? Ugh, what a slog.

I'm debating never reading a horror book written by a white man ever again after this.

1.5 out of 5 stars. And I only added the .5 because it isn't the worst thing I've read this year.

[Ric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Polybius is a super cool urban legend, so I was excited to read this one as soon as I saw it was announced. And I really loved this take on it, the story was dark and creepy while also having lovable characters at the heart of it. It didn’t shy away from how the psychological horror impacted the residents of the town, as well as how it translated to physical horrors.

[BiblioPeeks · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Mal felt like he was waking from a coma, except he was upright, on his feet, and holding the game's controls. The screen flickered back at him--Press Start. Somewhere along the line he must have lost and then...played through the rest of his credits? He wasn't sure. He couldn't remember anything past walking over to play the game."

"After a few stubborn players failed to register that she wanted them gone, Andi walked over and pulled the plug, powering Polybius down. Rising back up, she found every pair of eyes that had been staring at the game staring at her, instead. She froze, hairs on the back of her neck at sudden attention."
____

An arcade cabinet game that may be responsible for people turning violently aggressive? Sign. Me. Up! Based on an urban legend, POLYBIUS serves up 80s vibes, teen angst, light romance and increasing paranoia and violence. As someone who was always at the arcade as a teen, this. was. my. JAM!

The several POVs demonstrated just how pervasive the spread of volatility was, which gave way to rising dread and a sense of doom. With a bit of an investigative nature, the lore of how the game came into existence is explored while simultaneously the level of danger in the town increases. Will the plucky teenage heroine and her new guy friend find a solution to reverse the effects?

Things escalate subtly, but quickly with mayhem increasing to a fatal level, where anything can and does happen. I was reminded of the film ‘The Crazies’. There is gore and animal harm/death mentioned, among other violent scenes as you’d expect from a horror novel, so be warned. The thrall affecting the town spreads rapidly with some folks giving in completely to their darker nature, even as others fight it. There was no predicting what would happen next and I was taken by surprise more than once! The ending, while making perfect sense, felt a little abrupt, and I was left wanting more. Perhaps I just wish things had gone differently!

POLYBIUS was just as addictive as an arcade game itself, with ratcheting intensity that kept me glued to the pages! If you enjoy all things 80s, video games, a bit of a YA tone and don’t mind some more gruesome aspects, you’ll absolutely have a fun time with this one!
____

Thank you Gallery Books for my free copy. All thoughts are mine.

[Lorin (paperbackbish) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Gallery for my free copy of Polybius by Collin Armstrong — available now!

» READ IF YOU «
👾 love vintage video games
🔥 can’t resist a juicy urban legend
👯 have had a friend who just “got” you

» SYNOPSIS «
Andi can’t wait to escape this dead end town her mom dragged her to, so she’s working a crappy job at the local video store to save up funds to flee. But when a new, eerily popular arcade game makes its home in the store, things start getting weird, and Andi is more desperate to escape than ever before…

» REVIEW «
This was a FUN nostalgic romp through a video-game-viral-pandemic-wtfishappening story! I am a huge sucker for urban legends, but even if you’ve never heard of Polybius (well, in video game form, not the Greek historian), you’ll have a great time with this one. Andi and Ro are typical teen protagonists, but I love their dynamic, and I absolutely love the ending. Big winner for me!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Trisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's back in 1982 and businesses are closing. A guy who clears out closed businesses and resells what he finds, manages to get his hands on an arcade game. Selling it to the local arcade, it slowly seems to take over the people in the town!

I loved the urban legend feel of this one. I liked that this game seemed to distract and take over people as they really loved playing it. But I did think there were a few parts that really slowed down in order to really dig into episodes and go through every last person who was having them, but the adventure of the other parts and the sheer wild turns this one took kept me reading and interesting

I did this as an audio book and the narrator was great! I highly recommend enjoying it that way!

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.