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Player Choice
It's 2040. With neural implants, people can play games in an immersive virtual reality known as the aether space. Game designer Glen Cullather has a plan for the most ambitious aether game ever a fantasy epic that gives players the freedom to do anything.
But Glen's own life is fragmenting into alternate realities. He can't tell whether his aether game idea has succeeded, or failed miserably. And Freya Janoske is either his biggest rival, or his most intimate partner. Glen must figure out what's real and what's, well, fantasy—for his own survival.
Player Choice is a fast-paced gaming sci-fi adventure that dares to
What happens when unreality becomes our reality?
But Glen's own life is fragmenting into alternate realities. He can't tell whether his aether game idea has succeeded, or failed miserably. And Freya Janoske is either his biggest rival, or his most intimate partner. Glen must figure out what's real and what's, well, fantasy—for his own survival.
Player Choice is a fast-paced gaming sci-fi adventure that dares to
What happens when unreality becomes our reality?
ebook
First published January 30, 2015
About the author
Jeff Deck
18 books50 followersJeff Deck is a fiction ghostwriter and editor who lives in Maine with his wife, Jane, and their silly dog, Burleigh. Deck writes science fiction, fantasy, horror, dark fantasy, and other speculative fiction.
Deck's work includes the urban fantasy / mystery series "The Shadow Over Portsmouth" (Book 1: "City of Ports," Book 2: "City of Games," Book 3: "City of Notions").
He is also the author of the supernatural thriller novel "The Pseudo-Chronicles of Mark Huntley" the sci-fi gaming adventure novel "Player Choice," and (with Benjamin D. Herson) the nonfiction book "The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time" (Crown/Random House).
In 2008, Deck took a road trip across the U.S. with friends to fix typos in signage and nearly wound up in federal prison. He enjoys reading speculative fiction, exploring New England with his family, playing video games, and plundering from the past and future.
Deck's work includes the urban fantasy / mystery series "The Shadow Over Portsmouth" (Book 1: "City of Ports," Book 2: "City of Games," Book 3: "City of Notions").
He is also the author of the supernatural thriller novel "The Pseudo-Chronicles of Mark Huntley" the sci-fi gaming adventure novel "Player Choice," and (with Benjamin D. Herson) the nonfiction book "The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time" (Crown/Random House).
In 2008, Deck took a road trip across the U.S. with friends to fix typos in signage and nearly wound up in federal prison. He enjoys reading speculative fiction, exploring New England with his family, playing video games, and plundering from the past and future.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 23, 2015
Ready Player One + World of Warcraft = Player Choice
(see Amazon for a more indepth review by me)
(see Amazon for a more indepth review by me)
December 1, 2025
VERDICT: A fast-paced sci-fi thrilling account on how far video gaming can lead to. Be warned when you enter, you may not be able to go out, but in the meantime you will enjoy a fascinating book. Highly recommended to all geeks.
see my full review:
http://wordsandpeace.com/2015/05/30/b...
see my full review:
http://wordsandpeace.com/2015/05/30/b...
March 1, 2018
This book was very engaging and I truly cared about the characters and their relationships and struggles. The story grabbed me from the beginning. But, as the main character, Glen Callather, began having mental breakdowns, there were times the transitions in the story line became harder to follow. (Maybe that’s me!) The gaming battles were action packed, similar to Ready Player One. I wanted more at the conclusion of the book. It seemed an abrupt ending and I wanted more closure details about the company, Freya, Tara and the rioting! Maybe there’s a sequel in mind?
April 17, 2015
Jeff Deck, co-author of The Great Typo Hunt, recently reached out to me to promote his new novel Player Choice. He provided me a copy in exchange for an honest review.
The protagonist, Glen Cullather, is a successful game programmer. He lives in a world not too far from our current reality where technology dominates everyday life, from interactive semi-sentient digital assistants to fully-capable AIs who can run entire companies. Gaming is immersive in shades of today’s Oculus Rift and Star Trek’s holodeck technology, and Glen is on his way to pitch a new experience called Novamundas to the company's board of directors when his entire world goes sideways.
The story is quickly paced and the mystery around the reality of Glen’s situation is exciting. It kept me engaged and drawn back to the pages, as did the cognitive exercise of what else this universe could explore. The characters were diverse and colorful, and the social message was clear as the story drew to a close, warning readers of the potential pitfalls from over-reliance on tech and limited decision making.
Novamundas is built on the philosophy of providing choice to the players by trying to make them think beyond the hack-and-slash that dominates the gaming scene, even to the point of making violent problem-solving in the virtual world a chore rather than a quick means to drive the game's story.
This is in contrast to the game’s creator, who is limited by his own tortured past: Glen’s own agency is limited by mental trauma that he hasn’t worked through, which leaves him as man who treats women and himself poorly. For that reason, I had a hard time identifying with Glen. It was necessary for the hero to be a flawed character, but he was not a hero that I could cheer for.
Similarly, Freya Janoske was hard to identify with because of how she was filtered through Glen’s experiences. Since this story is told entirely from Glen’s point of view, every interaction is laced with his prejudices and biases. Again, it’s a great way to tell Glen’s story, but it also becomes difficult to develop a sympathetic relationship for supporting characters when every interaction before the final three chapters is completely subjective.
The second half of the story is dominated by the aether world of the game as Glen’s goals start to coalesce. The game itself is quite interesting, and the dynamics of emphasizing creativity over violence are intriguing, but the story is bogged down in the nuts and bolts of skills, attributes, and gaming mechanics. It made sense to me as a casual gamer, but the details and gamer lexicon might potentially derail the story’s flow for anyone not well-versed in the gaming world, which adds an accessibility hurdle to the moral message.
The pacing is more evident in the second part, especially once the characters realize the urgency of their situation. The actual core conflict and the goals of the antagonists – yes, bad guys with actual goals and moderately complex motivations! – was very fun to think about. Unfortunately, I think the pace hindered Glen’s character growth as he is forced to react quickly to each development and never gets a chance to really reflect on what he’s learned about himself or resolve his inner demons. The story actually ends at the beginnings of his healing process, which left me feeling like I’d been cheated out his complete arc.
What this story did do for me is make me think. From a morals, messages, and meanings standpoint, it leaves several avenues to explore in how a society exists in a world dominated by technology. While it’s far from being neatly wrapped with a big red bow, that aspect of science fiction exploring the human condition through allegory was refreshing.
Overall, I give Player Choice three and a half stars out of five. For Goodreads and Amazon, which don’t deal in halves, I’ll bump it to four.
The protagonist, Glen Cullather, is a successful game programmer. He lives in a world not too far from our current reality where technology dominates everyday life, from interactive semi-sentient digital assistants to fully-capable AIs who can run entire companies. Gaming is immersive in shades of today’s Oculus Rift and Star Trek’s holodeck technology, and Glen is on his way to pitch a new experience called Novamundas to the company's board of directors when his entire world goes sideways.
The story is quickly paced and the mystery around the reality of Glen’s situation is exciting. It kept me engaged and drawn back to the pages, as did the cognitive exercise of what else this universe could explore. The characters were diverse and colorful, and the social message was clear as the story drew to a close, warning readers of the potential pitfalls from over-reliance on tech and limited decision making.
Novamundas is built on the philosophy of providing choice to the players by trying to make them think beyond the hack-and-slash that dominates the gaming scene, even to the point of making violent problem-solving in the virtual world a chore rather than a quick means to drive the game's story.
This is in contrast to the game’s creator, who is limited by his own tortured past: Glen’s own agency is limited by mental trauma that he hasn’t worked through, which leaves him as man who treats women and himself poorly. For that reason, I had a hard time identifying with Glen. It was necessary for the hero to be a flawed character, but he was not a hero that I could cheer for.
Similarly, Freya Janoske was hard to identify with because of how she was filtered through Glen’s experiences. Since this story is told entirely from Glen’s point of view, every interaction is laced with his prejudices and biases. Again, it’s a great way to tell Glen’s story, but it also becomes difficult to develop a sympathetic relationship for supporting characters when every interaction before the final three chapters is completely subjective.
The second half of the story is dominated by the aether world of the game as Glen’s goals start to coalesce. The game itself is quite interesting, and the dynamics of emphasizing creativity over violence are intriguing, but the story is bogged down in the nuts and bolts of skills, attributes, and gaming mechanics. It made sense to me as a casual gamer, but the details and gamer lexicon might potentially derail the story’s flow for anyone not well-versed in the gaming world, which adds an accessibility hurdle to the moral message.
The pacing is more evident in the second part, especially once the characters realize the urgency of their situation. The actual core conflict and the goals of the antagonists – yes, bad guys with actual goals and moderately complex motivations! – was very fun to think about. Unfortunately, I think the pace hindered Glen’s character growth as he is forced to react quickly to each development and never gets a chance to really reflect on what he’s learned about himself or resolve his inner demons. The story actually ends at the beginnings of his healing process, which left me feeling like I’d been cheated out his complete arc.
What this story did do for me is make me think. From a morals, messages, and meanings standpoint, it leaves several avenues to explore in how a society exists in a world dominated by technology. While it’s far from being neatly wrapped with a big red bow, that aspect of science fiction exploring the human condition through allegory was refreshing.
Overall, I give Player Choice three and a half stars out of five. For Goodreads and Amazon, which don’t deal in halves, I’ll bump it to four.
Read
July 26, 2015I have been putting off reviewing this book. Anyone who knows me, also knows that if I don't like a book I'm not shy about saying so, but every time I go to write a review for this book I get stuck between what Deck was clearly going for and what I see as the result.
I really wanted to like this book. I enjoy a pretty wide range of sci-fi, fantasy, historical fiction, and fiction. I really enjoyed The Great Typo Hunt and you can check out my review Here. The Great Typo Hunt was charming, fun, and invoked just the right amount of nostalgia. I was excited to be offered the chance to get a free copy of Player Choice for review, I knew I already liked one book Deck had been a part of and the premiss reminded me of Ready Player One, another book I really enjoyed.
Unfortunately this book did not work for me, I'll try to explain some of my reasons. I'll start by saying I'm not faulting this book for not being as good as Ready Player One, I'm currently reading Armada and while enjoyable it unsurprisingly isn't quite capturing the magic that RPO was somehow able to harness. My issues with this book are not limited to, but stem from, a few main issues. 1) Try as I might I just couldn't figure out why we were supposed to care about Glen or root for his success, 2) some very strange, very unexpected, negative approach to female characters, and 3) Poor build of story.
Basically as it is presented when the book starts Glen is a game designer who has created a groundbreaking new game and depending on which reality is real either he is an unappreciated "genius" (according to him) or a fairly successful and appreciated genius. The one thing that the book really doesn't allow us to question is that his new game is genius and thus deserves to be made. Full disclosure I did not make it far past the halfway point in this book where suddenly the entire story shifts and we're suddenly inside the game. I did not make it past this point because even though I was halfway through the book I still had no idea why I should care about Glen or his game. If Glen were more likable as a character perhaps I would have been concerned about him coming through in one piece, but as it stood I didn't even care if he made it let alone if his game made it.
The women stuff, this was extremely troubling. Very early on in the book we're hit with a couple of lines like this "Women and the power they carelessly wielded." Excuse me what?! which was the second off handed and unpleasantly sexist thing I'd highlighted in less than two pages. This said about a woman whom he sees as stupid, lacking any of the creative genius that he himself clearly has and happy to go along with the status quo so long as it helps her get ahead. Then in the other reality he's thrown into she's his girlfriend and throwing herself at him, and when she's servicing him instead of opposing him he's totally into her and her perky tits. So basically "good Freya" is his girlfriend and supporter, "bad Freya" is his competitor. This was a huge problem for me because basically the only thing that changes about her from one reality to the next is that in one she is ambitious and competing against Glen and thinks he's a looser (which he does kind of come off as a looser) and in the other she thinks he a genius, supports him, and wants to fuck him. NOT OKAY.
Finally the concept is interesting, but as stated before I never really connected enough to Glen to feel any urgency about what happens to him. Mainly I was just annoyed because I felt like it was still pretty unclear what was going on 50% of the way through the book, and even when things did clear up I had zero interest in seeing how everything resolved itself.
I really wanted to like this book. I enjoy a pretty wide range of sci-fi, fantasy, historical fiction, and fiction. I really enjoyed The Great Typo Hunt and you can check out my review Here. The Great Typo Hunt was charming, fun, and invoked just the right amount of nostalgia. I was excited to be offered the chance to get a free copy of Player Choice for review, I knew I already liked one book Deck had been a part of and the premiss reminded me of Ready Player One, another book I really enjoyed.
Unfortunately this book did not work for me, I'll try to explain some of my reasons. I'll start by saying I'm not faulting this book for not being as good as Ready Player One, I'm currently reading Armada and while enjoyable it unsurprisingly isn't quite capturing the magic that RPO was somehow able to harness. My issues with this book are not limited to, but stem from, a few main issues. 1) Try as I might I just couldn't figure out why we were supposed to care about Glen or root for his success, 2) some very strange, very unexpected, negative approach to female characters, and 3) Poor build of story.
Basically as it is presented when the book starts Glen is a game designer who has created a groundbreaking new game and depending on which reality is real either he is an unappreciated "genius" (according to him) or a fairly successful and appreciated genius. The one thing that the book really doesn't allow us to question is that his new game is genius and thus deserves to be made. Full disclosure I did not make it far past the halfway point in this book where suddenly the entire story shifts and we're suddenly inside the game. I did not make it past this point because even though I was halfway through the book I still had no idea why I should care about Glen or his game. If Glen were more likable as a character perhaps I would have been concerned about him coming through in one piece, but as it stood I didn't even care if he made it let alone if his game made it.
The women stuff, this was extremely troubling. Very early on in the book we're hit with a couple of lines like this "Women and the power they carelessly wielded." Excuse me what?! which was the second off handed and unpleasantly sexist thing I'd highlighted in less than two pages. This said about a woman whom he sees as stupid, lacking any of the creative genius that he himself clearly has and happy to go along with the status quo so long as it helps her get ahead. Then in the other reality he's thrown into she's his girlfriend and throwing herself at him, and when she's servicing him instead of opposing him he's totally into her and her perky tits. So basically "good Freya" is his girlfriend and supporter, "bad Freya" is his competitor. This was a huge problem for me because basically the only thing that changes about her from one reality to the next is that in one she is ambitious and competing against Glen and thinks he's a looser (which he does kind of come off as a looser) and in the other she thinks he a genius, supports him, and wants to fuck him. NOT OKAY.
Finally the concept is interesting, but as stated before I never really connected enough to Glen to feel any urgency about what happens to him. Mainly I was just annoyed because I felt like it was still pretty unclear what was going on 50% of the way through the book, and even when things did clear up I had zero interest in seeing how everything resolved itself.
April 10, 2015
I was contacted by Jeff Deck co-author of The Great Typo Hunt, which was one of my very early reviews my website. Jeff sent me a free copy of his newest creation, his eBook Player Choice, in exchange for an honest review. Player Choice leads the reader down dream like paths into alternative realities and worlds that will make them reexamine their own choices and agency.
The book is divided into two very distinct parts. The first part is about Glen’s very real alternate realities that are akin to reading about some very lucid dreams. The question is which one is real. Like lucid dreams there are some really real and emotional moments that make it hard to decipher what is happening, but like Glen I knew something was up and while I figured out mostly what was going on, I didn’t quite figure out everything. Which, as we all know, I enjoy immensely. I also enjoy reading about, discussing, and researching lucid dreaming, so this was definitely my favorite part of the book.
The second part of the book delves into Glen’s gaming world, the one that he created. I’ll be honest, not my favorite part of the book. But, I’m not the worlds biggest gamer. So reading about, what I’ll admit is a very cool gaming world, wasn’t as exciting for me as the lucid dreaming like part. I think people who are gamers, will really enjoy this part of the book. Jeff has definitely built a cool game in Glen’s world and the game has nuances that make it interesting on a deeper level than just conquering bosses.
I like books that strike up an emotional feeling and engage me in the world that I am reading. Jeff has definitely written such a book. I had so many emotions that I wrote a much longer piece about some of Glen's sordid piece over at my website. You can read my full review at Absurdly Nerdly
The book is divided into two very distinct parts. The first part is about Glen’s very real alternate realities that are akin to reading about some very lucid dreams. The question is which one is real. Like lucid dreams there are some really real and emotional moments that make it hard to decipher what is happening, but like Glen I knew something was up and while I figured out mostly what was going on, I didn’t quite figure out everything. Which, as we all know, I enjoy immensely. I also enjoy reading about, discussing, and researching lucid dreaming, so this was definitely my favorite part of the book.
The second part of the book delves into Glen’s gaming world, the one that he created. I’ll be honest, not my favorite part of the book. But, I’m not the worlds biggest gamer. So reading about, what I’ll admit is a very cool gaming world, wasn’t as exciting for me as the lucid dreaming like part. I think people who are gamers, will really enjoy this part of the book. Jeff has definitely built a cool game in Glen’s world and the game has nuances that make it interesting on a deeper level than just conquering bosses.
I like books that strike up an emotional feeling and engage me in the world that I am reading. Jeff has definitely written such a book. I had so many emotions that I wrote a much longer piece about some of Glen's sordid piece over at my website. You can read my full review at Absurdly Nerdly
May 11, 2015
It's a unique view on a cyber-future and the future of gaming and the people who create it. Glen is a selfish big-wig game designer in the 2040s, fresh off successes in several online games. But his past is shattered, and so may be his head. Most people have implants in their heads that give them access to a "celph," an AI that can access most information and can interact with its human at an almost equal level. He just created Novamundas, a game with "player choice," something that's borderline mutinous at "safe" Logjam Games. Many of the encounters in this fantasy world can be talked through, rather than hacked through. Though, someone has hacked into his game before it was ready. Warning: Once you start reading, prepare not to stop!
November 28, 2016
I read an earlier draft of this novel as a beta reader in 2014, and it is much improved. The protagonist is more well rounded and believable, the ending is a good deal more satisfying, and the writing is even more polished, a hard feat to accomplish for a writer whose prose springs fully formed from the head of Zeus. And, if you're not a gamer, you'll still enjoy the book.
Want to Read
July 8, 2015kindle
August 16, 2015
Such a neat concept. I liked how the game intertwined with the main character's real life.
September 21, 2016
DNF
After the first couple of swear words I did a search and found over 20 f- words. Done. Not reading anymore.
After the first couple of swear words I did a search and found over 20 f- words. Done. Not reading anymore.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews