What do you think?
Rate this book
Continue?: The Boss Fight Books Anthology
Boss Fight is proud to present our first multi-author collection, Continue? The Boss Fight Books Anthology.
In these pages, Anna Anthropy celebrates her second favorite Epic MegaGames title, David LeGault offers a tour of the lost 80s Action Max console, and Mike Meginnis tells his Best American Short Stories-selected tale of a father and son who become obsessed with the saddest adventure game in the world.
The eBook collects a diverse survey of essays and short stories from Boss Fight series authors Michael P. Williams, Ken Baumann, Jon Irwin, and Darius Kazemi, as well newcomers Matt Bell, Tevis Thompson, Rebekah Frumkin, Brian Oliu, Salvatore Pane, Mike Lars White, and Rachel B. Glaser.
In these pages, Anna Anthropy celebrates her second favorite Epic MegaGames title, David LeGault offers a tour of the lost 80s Action Max console, and Mike Meginnis tells his Best American Short Stories-selected tale of a father and son who become obsessed with the saddest adventure game in the world.
The eBook collects a diverse survey of essays and short stories from Boss Fight series authors Michael P. Williams, Ken Baumann, Jon Irwin, and Darius Kazemi, as well newcomers Matt Bell, Tevis Thompson, Rebekah Frumkin, Brian Oliu, Salvatore Pane, Mike Lars White, and Rachel B. Glaser.
135 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 19, 2015
6 people are currently reading
134 people want to read
About the author
Gabe Durham
27 books44 followersGabe Durham is the author of a novel, FUN CAMP, and a book about 90s Christian Nintendo games, BIBLE ADVENTURES. He is the editor of Boss Fight Books. He lives in Los Angeles.
http://www.bossfightbooks.com
http://www.bossfightbooks.com
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 26, 2016
A few great pieces, a few mediocre. Glad I picked it up, but if you do, be quick to skip any piece that doesn't start strong.
February 14, 2023
This whole collection of essays makes me think a lot about the semi-gonzo video game reviews that Tim Rogers is known for. The shorter format allows the authors to be much more creative than they can be in the full-size Boss Fight Books. It’s a very fun read overall. Here are my thoughts per entry:
Ken Sent Me - A fun piece about playing Leisure Suit Larry back in the 1990s and more recently. I was also a big fan of the Sierra games of the period, although I never played LSL. The essay is written with just the right amount of humor for talking about an early Sierra game.
Barbarians at the Door - A great exploration of Tower Defense games. I was also introduced to the genre via Plants vs Zombies and felt a lot of the same things the author did. They also explore a couple other topics like the free-to-play model that seemed like it was going to take over the whole industry back when the essay was written or the social implications behind tower defense.
Navigators - a somewhat depressing story about a father and son working together to beat a videogame.
JILLOJUN - An essay about a subversive computer game. When I was young my parents didn’t have a lot of discretionary money, so my experience of the early days of videogames was somewhat uneven. However, when I read essays like this one and think back to playing Sim City 1 and Civilization 1, it’s very interesting to me that computers didn’t win out over video game systems in America. (They did for a while in England and perhaps other parts of Europe) It is only most recently that we’ve had a renaissance in developers and publishers taking the PC seriously as a platform with only Nintendo as a complete holdout. It’s just another one of those times that the better system did not win (see BeOS vs early versions of Windows).
How Megaman got his pistol back - Using Megaman as the main object of study, the author takes us on a journey of how box art was so radically different in Japan and North America in the 1980s and 1990s. They then bring us up to the present, highlighting changes in styles on both sides of the Pacific and how digital games and globalization have affected things. If the essay has one weakness, it’s a lack of images. It would have been awesome for BFB to allow for images in this section of the book so that readers don’t need to take to the internet to look for all the box art examples the author mentions.
The John Lennin Xperience - a short story that covered a few topics like game addiction and para-social relationships. The best part was when it showed that if you're not addicted to a game, you may just have not yet found the one that's addictive for you.
The big metal stomach - According to the opening copyright page, this isn’t one of the fictional stories. So it’s an autobiographical tale from early in video game history when arcades were incredibly important to the culture. It was about finding a public space to show off how great you were at video games before Steam profiles and achievements. It also starts off incredibly crazily for a true story.
Three videogames that feel horribly like life - a look at 3 games that push the boundaries of what games can do and, perhaps, showcase their emotional levels - like books, movies, and TV shows do.
No quarters given - about life and death of arcades and reliving the past. I wonder what the current generation will search for when they remember their young gamer days.
The Glitch - A short story only tangentially related to games. Very interesting how the short stories in here all seem to be on the sad side.
Leave Luck to Heaven - Too chaotic for me to read. Uncharacteristically for me, I gave up halfway through.
The Fall of the House of Ghostly - An era of video games I was slightly too young for. Although I remember a family friend or cousin having a Teddy Ruxpin. It’s interesting to see this early FMV-style game that didn’t quite have the tech to pan out.
John Starks - a bizarre fiction story about NBA Jam and some real basketball players.
FUCK VIDEO GAMES - A screed against trying to jam all forms of expression into video games.
Ken Sent Me - A fun piece about playing Leisure Suit Larry back in the 1990s and more recently. I was also a big fan of the Sierra games of the period, although I never played LSL. The essay is written with just the right amount of humor for talking about an early Sierra game.
Barbarians at the Door - A great exploration of Tower Defense games. I was also introduced to the genre via Plants vs Zombies and felt a lot of the same things the author did. They also explore a couple other topics like the free-to-play model that seemed like it was going to take over the whole industry back when the essay was written or the social implications behind tower defense.
Navigators - a somewhat depressing story about a father and son working together to beat a videogame.
JILLOJUN - An essay about a subversive computer game. When I was young my parents didn’t have a lot of discretionary money, so my experience of the early days of videogames was somewhat uneven. However, when I read essays like this one and think back to playing Sim City 1 and Civilization 1, it’s very interesting to me that computers didn’t win out over video game systems in America. (They did for a while in England and perhaps other parts of Europe) It is only most recently that we’ve had a renaissance in developers and publishers taking the PC seriously as a platform with only Nintendo as a complete holdout. It’s just another one of those times that the better system did not win (see BeOS vs early versions of Windows).
How Megaman got his pistol back - Using Megaman as the main object of study, the author takes us on a journey of how box art was so radically different in Japan and North America in the 1980s and 1990s. They then bring us up to the present, highlighting changes in styles on both sides of the Pacific and how digital games and globalization have affected things. If the essay has one weakness, it’s a lack of images. It would have been awesome for BFB to allow for images in this section of the book so that readers don’t need to take to the internet to look for all the box art examples the author mentions.
The John Lennin Xperience - a short story that covered a few topics like game addiction and para-social relationships. The best part was when it showed that if you're not addicted to a game, you may just have not yet found the one that's addictive for you.
The big metal stomach - According to the opening copyright page, this isn’t one of the fictional stories. So it’s an autobiographical tale from early in video game history when arcades were incredibly important to the culture. It was about finding a public space to show off how great you were at video games before Steam profiles and achievements. It also starts off incredibly crazily for a true story.
Three videogames that feel horribly like life - a look at 3 games that push the boundaries of what games can do and, perhaps, showcase their emotional levels - like books, movies, and TV shows do.
No quarters given - about life and death of arcades and reliving the past. I wonder what the current generation will search for when they remember their young gamer days.
The Glitch - A short story only tangentially related to games. Very interesting how the short stories in here all seem to be on the sad side.
Leave Luck to Heaven - Too chaotic for me to read. Uncharacteristically for me, I gave up halfway through.
The Fall of the House of Ghostly - An era of video games I was slightly too young for. Although I remember a family friend or cousin having a Teddy Ruxpin. It’s interesting to see this early FMV-style game that didn’t quite have the tech to pan out.
John Starks - a bizarre fiction story about NBA Jam and some real basketball players.
FUCK VIDEO GAMES - A screed against trying to jam all forms of expression into video games.
May 12, 2022
Like most Anthologies this collection has its ups and downs. For some sections I was really interested in learning more about a specific game, an arcade museum, the biographical story, or fictional story that was being told. Then in other parts I felt disappointed by a segment that was clearly only a portion of a bigger narrative, grossed out by some of the material, or, in one section in particular, completely confused by what I read and what it was supposed to accomplish. There is plenty in here that I would whole heartedly recommend, so overall I still recommend this book. Just know that you're in for a bit of a bumpy ride.
October 17, 2019
Una antología muy diversa: ficción, ensayo, crónica. El único hilo en común son los videojuegos. Quizás es un buen lugar para empezar si no entiendes de qué va esta editorial. Personalmente, a la fecha, prefiero sus libros ensayísticos más enfocados.
Pero no es un mal libro. Tiene potencial de agarrar buenos lectores.
Pero no es un mal libro. Tiene potencial de agarrar buenos lectores.
May 17, 2018
Great book..
October 9, 2022
2.5 *, rounded up to 3 *
Very Hit and Miss. Some good essays, did not care for the fiction.
Very Hit and Miss. Some good essays, did not care for the fiction.
January 8, 2025
3 stars instead of 1 because I liked the fictitious short story, Legends of Silence, about a non-existent game a father and son spend time together playing.
June 23, 2017
You have to applaud Boss Fight Books for their why-didn't-I-think-of-that concept; taking the emerging crop of millennial (or older) indie writers and giving them a deliciously nostalgic prompt. The results in this anthology, like the first line of the books, is mixed. But I'd have to say I was a hell of a lot more impressed than I was underwhelmed by most of these stories/essays. One author would take you on a reference-filled hindsight critique, another into a farcical appropriation of a game's storyline, and yet another would shove you down into the depths of disturbing, experimental fiction, simultaneously showing us how games can be inhuman products and heartfelt tools of mercy. The work is delightfully free of pigeonholing; there are nerds, yes, but there are Dads, Moms, friends, brothers, sisters, teachers, bullies, lovers. The fact that the writers & editors approached this writing with such maturity, levity, and commitment to the medium & its aspects is what makes this a quality anthology. It truly embraces games as a medium rather than just a children's pastime. It shows the beauty, the horror, and the truth that video games have the power to unlock within our hearts & minds. If you're already a fan of the series (if not, go check them out) this is an awesome collection that is worth putting in that extra quarter.
December 22, 2022
Jon Irwin's "No Quarters Given" alone is easily worth the price.
May 17, 2016
My head responded with some relativity, some insight, and some disassociation, some disconnection.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews