TOMORROW And Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zelvin

This novel has the potential to be the gamer-geek's literary LOTR.

Speaking as both a gamer and a writer, with kin and friends deeply embedded in the gaming industry, I found this novel an amazing read on multiple levels of complexity. Like the best video games, in fact, it can be read (played) through several difference lenses/levels of difficulty.  There's the children of immigrants thread that winds through the whole, the Unfair Games' autobiographically-tinged rags to riches origin story, and the mixture of twenty-something relationships - friends, romances, sexual, even violent - plus Sam's physical disability story being subsumed by the character Ichigo while Sadie's psychological fragility is its own precarious quest mirrored into 'Both Sides', their next original game. Social tropes abound without being allowed to become preachy or take over from the unfolding quest for the perfect game.

My review is not in the least objective as I loved, deeply loved, this novel far beyond my ability to comment on the quality of writing or character development . Honestly, after the first tentative dip into Chapter One, every time I opened a new chapter I was quickly drawn into the spell, no matter how many days had passed since my last session. I'll likely come back to it several more times and find other elements to comment on in more detail.

If you enjoyed Erin Morgenstern's 'Starless Sea' and played the hell out of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, you'll find elements here to pull you into Sam and Sadie's world, with Marx as the helpful, if sometimes annoying, Navi character.

Also

(from Macbeth, spoken by Macbeth)

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more.

I'm very grateful for the e-ARC from Netgalley

#gamers #gaming #fiction #friendship #Netgalley #Harvard #tech #GameDevelopment #disability #immigrant #VisibleMinority #Tomorrowx3