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Typical Day
Every morning from 6 until 7 am, Joyce Williams plays a video game called LifeMaster. This game is embodied in a small, square, ruby colored crystalline cube.Using the game, Joyce plays through all the events of his coming day. At the end of the playing hour, his day gets locked in.Joyce then goes out and lives exactly what happens to him in the game he’s just played.He’s an average player. He lives a normal, average life. No big highs, no big lows. Strictly straight down the middle. Good enough for Joyce.Then one day lightning hits a gas main, destroying Joyce’s apartment and his LifeMaster cube.No problem. LifeMaster customer service issues him a new cube.When he tries to play it, his LifeMaster console labels it VOID and spits it out.The rigid and unsympathetic LifeMaster bureaucracy refuses to replace his cube a second time.Joyce is forced to live his life in the dreaded and risky default mode. He doesn’t play the game himself. Instead, the LifeMaster system uses complex mathematical probability theories to generate his daily activities. Since he’s not personally playing his game, he doesn’t know beforehand what the day will bring, what’s going to happen to him. It’s a terrifying prospect for somebody who’s never lived that way.Joyce pessimistically expects his life will stay the way it was or get slightly worse.To his delight and amazement, it goes the other way. His life gets better. Way, way better.He gets promoted big time at work.He starts hanging out with pro basketball sports hero Scooter Kale who nicknames him Jay. When they play basketball one-on-one, Jay always wins.To Jay’s amazement, he gets taller, thinner, stronger. He even gets better looking.At work, he moves up again, this time to his company’s super secret Special Ops Division. There he’s partnered with Herculisa, a costumed, crime-fighting superheroine.Jay becomes the brave and fearless crime fighter JayHawk. He gets his own superhero costume. He goes on amazing, dangerous, and exciting missions battling dire forces of evil. He always triumphs.Jay has it all. Wealth, excitement, success, and a gorgeous girlfriend.He can’t believe how much his life has improved since he started playing life in the default mode.Then, without warning, his perfect world comes crashing down.He loses his superhero status, his wealth, his spiffy new penthouse, his girlfriend. He ends up sad, lonely, destitute, friendless.Joyce eventually figures out why his life got better. And then with stunning swiftness fell apart.He wasn’t playing in the default mode. His life was hacked. Some stranger was using his supposedly lost cube, playing his game, living his life for him. When the hacker got bored and stopped playing, Joyce’s life fell apart.To get his life back, Joyce must find the mysterious hacker and persuade him to undo the misery he’s caused.That turns out to be easier, and yet much, much harder than Joyce ever imagined.Typical Day introduces a cleverly original new story concept from Gary K. Wolf, the creator of Roger Rabbit. The world he portrays here is as strange and wondrous a place as Toontown. A world where the normal rules don’t apply. Where nothing is what it seems.
148 pages, Paperback
First published December 7, 2012
25 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 26, 2013
Originally posted at: http://www.longandshortreviews.com/bo...
Have you ever wished you were a superhero? Until the accident Joyce is fairly content with his steady (if boring) job at an insurance company. His biggest wish is to afford an upgrade to a nicer hotel on his next vacation. Little does he know how much his life is about to change.
The best way to describe Typical Day is to say it’s a graphic novel without pictures. From the first time Joyce attempts to navigate life without the guidance of LifeMaster his adventures, sidekicks and nemesis are larger than life. One day his life is perfectly ordinary and the next he’s pole vaulting over an electric fence with a pink, seven foot tall woman named Herculisa. What endeared me to Joyce was his reaction to the unbelievable things happening around him. As surprised as he is by certain events he slowly grows accustomed to his new life and it becomes his new normal. I’ll admit that I was not a fan of some of the negative character traits that emerge when Joyce faces additional challenges but I completely understand why they would occur. In his shoes I would almost certainly have had the same reaction.
Arthur C. Clarke once said, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” The concept for this story isn’t something I’ve read about before. I would have preferred to learn more about how LifeMaster works. Is it powered by a magical spell or a computer-generated algorithm? Based on how Joyce reacts to the world around him I would assume it was the latter but this is never explained.
Typical Day’s vision of the future is as fresh as it is fascinating. This is a good choice for anyone who has ever wished they could know what surprises a new day holds or go on autopilot during a particularly dull meeting.
Have you ever wished you were a superhero? Until the accident Joyce is fairly content with his steady (if boring) job at an insurance company. His biggest wish is to afford an upgrade to a nicer hotel on his next vacation. Little does he know how much his life is about to change.
The best way to describe Typical Day is to say it’s a graphic novel without pictures. From the first time Joyce attempts to navigate life without the guidance of LifeMaster his adventures, sidekicks and nemesis are larger than life. One day his life is perfectly ordinary and the next he’s pole vaulting over an electric fence with a pink, seven foot tall woman named Herculisa. What endeared me to Joyce was his reaction to the unbelievable things happening around him. As surprised as he is by certain events he slowly grows accustomed to his new life and it becomes his new normal. I’ll admit that I was not a fan of some of the negative character traits that emerge when Joyce faces additional challenges but I completely understand why they would occur. In his shoes I would almost certainly have had the same reaction.
Arthur C. Clarke once said, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” The concept for this story isn’t something I’ve read about before. I would have preferred to learn more about how LifeMaster works. Is it powered by a magical spell or a computer-generated algorithm? Based on how Joyce reacts to the world around him I would assume it was the latter but this is never explained.
Typical Day’s vision of the future is as fresh as it is fascinating. This is a good choice for anyone who has ever wished they could know what surprises a new day holds or go on autopilot during a particularly dull meeting.
June 8, 2022
This is a funny and easy read. reminds me of “Johnny and the bomb” and “only you can save man kind” by pratchett. Also felt a little like a jasper fforde book, (but less random and less puns), but in a class of its own. It is light hearted and would be a great vacation book since it goes by quickly.
January 6, 2013
Typical Day by Gary K. Wolf is everything you would expect from the creative mind behind "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". The book's premise is quite creative and I couldn't put it down. Typical Day grabbed my attention from page 1 till the last.
The sci-fi elements are subtle throughout, but really hit home. Typical Day is set in a world where everyone plays out their day each morning for 1 hour via a computer program called LifeMaster. Every decision, every conversation, what you eat, drink and read is played out beforehand. You can play your day safe or play it risky. As you play, you can acquire what I will call "style points", redeemable for real-world prizes. But the real questions are, are you playing LifeMaster or is LifeMaster playing you? What happens when you no longer know what your day holds, when you are no longer in total control of your life?
Mr. Wolf has written a tale that is multi-layered. The book can be read as straight forward sci-fi for it's pure entertainment value, but there is much more to the story about us as human beings. Our intense need to know. Our intense need to be in control. And this, this is what makes Typical Day a fantastic read. Rarely do I read a novel in one sitting. However, Typical Day is anything but a typical novel.
The sci-fi elements are subtle throughout, but really hit home. Typical Day is set in a world where everyone plays out their day each morning for 1 hour via a computer program called LifeMaster. Every decision, every conversation, what you eat, drink and read is played out beforehand. You can play your day safe or play it risky. As you play, you can acquire what I will call "style points", redeemable for real-world prizes. But the real questions are, are you playing LifeMaster or is LifeMaster playing you? What happens when you no longer know what your day holds, when you are no longer in total control of your life?
Mr. Wolf has written a tale that is multi-layered. The book can be read as straight forward sci-fi for it's pure entertainment value, but there is much more to the story about us as human beings. Our intense need to know. Our intense need to be in control. And this, this is what makes Typical Day a fantastic read. Rarely do I read a novel in one sitting. However, Typical Day is anything but a typical novel.
January 18, 2013
Joyce Williams starts out everyday tuning into LifeMaster who maps out his day and then when the machine is off Joyce goes through the exact same day. One day his world is blown appart when his apartment is blown up and his lifemaster cube is destroyed.
Slowly after a meltdown he begins to slowly go through his day making choices and finds the game has continued without him, and things around him change for what seems to be the better. He gets promoted a few times and winds up in a super secret job beating down bad guys.
He meets a famous pro basketball player that picks him to be friends with. He also finds so much great things happening to him, earning more LifeMaster points than he can spend. The world is perfect for him.
Joyce finds the kid who's been playing his game and in a final movement Joyce ends up ending his own life in LifeMaster which leads to more issues and some black mail from the kid who has been playing LifeMaster.
The end of this was awesome couldn't have predicted a better outcome!
Slowly after a meltdown he begins to slowly go through his day making choices and finds the game has continued without him, and things around him change for what seems to be the better. He gets promoted a few times and winds up in a super secret job beating down bad guys.
He meets a famous pro basketball player that picks him to be friends with. He also finds so much great things happening to him, earning more LifeMaster points than he can spend. The world is perfect for him.
Joyce finds the kid who's been playing his game and in a final movement Joyce ends up ending his own life in LifeMaster which leads to more issues and some black mail from the kid who has been playing LifeMaster.
The end of this was awesome couldn't have predicted a better outcome!
May 23, 2015
I wasn't sure if I'd like this book, but it did hook me and I enjoyed it completely. Not being a gamer I was confused at first...that changed. I had an eye opening effect. How dull life would be if it was ran by a computer.
April 22, 2013
Simple satire and great wit combine for a delightful experience that's all too short.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews