Press Start to Play
Stories
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
IT’S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE! TAKE THIS.
You are standing in a room filled with books, faced with a difficult decision. Suddenly, one with a distinctive cover catches your eye. It is a groundbreaking anthology of short stories from award-winning writers and game-industry titans who have embarked on a quest to explore what happens when video games and science fiction collide.
From text-based adventures to first-person shooters, dungeon crawlers to horror games, these twenty-six stories play with our notion of what video games can be—and what they can become—in smart and singular ways. With a foreword from Ernest Cline, bestselling author of Ready Player One, Press Start to Play includes work from: Daniel H. Wilson, Charles Yu, Hiroshi Sakurazaka, S.R. Mastrantone, Charlie Jane Anders, Holly Black, Seanan McGuire, Django Wexler, Nicole Feldringer, Chris Avellone, David Barr Kirtley,T.C. Boyle, Marc Laidlaw, Robin Wasserman, Micky Neilson, Cory Doctorow, Jessica Barber, Chris Kluwe, Marguerite K. Bennett, Rhianna Pratchett, Austin Grossman, Yoon Ha Lee, Ken Liu, Catherynne M. Valente, Andy Weir, and Hugh Howey.
Your inventory includes keys, a cell phone, and a wallet. What would you like to do?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Even those who doubt the editors' claim that "video games have come to play a vital role in modern human civilization" will be enthralled by these 26 stories (most of which are original to this volume) exploring what video gaming does for and to its participants. The main character in Robin Wasserman's "All of the People in Your Party Have Died" painfully chooses selfish practicality over passion. Physical metamorphoses reveal the essence of a macho lawyer in Marguerite K. Bennett's equally pessimistic but hilarious "Stats." Players discover valuable truths by testing the limits of a fantastic scenario in Cory Doctorow's "Anda's Game." Some stories, such as Chris Kluwe's "Please Continue," vehemently argue against too much immersion in gaming, while others, such as Charlie Jane Anders's "Rat Catcher's Yellows," simply respect the potent allure of living for a brief time in a fantasy world. Wilson and Adams (Robot Uprisings) have assembled a provocative assortment of thoughtful stories, making a valuable contribution to ongoing conversations about the future directions of video gaming.
