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A review by thisisstephenbetts
For the Win by Cory Doctorow
4.0
Ambitious and entertaining, this sprawling story is set in a near future where massive, networked, multi-player games have become nation-sized economies. Doctorow speculates on what that future may look like, and hones in on the people who try to make a living there - as opposed to simply playing for entertainment - and what might happen if they tried to organise into unions. The story - like the games - is globe-spanning (and the locales felt very convincing), with a vast array of characters.
This book could have been amazing if it had been firing on all cylindars, but unfortunately most of them seemed to misfire. The ecnomics stuff was interesting, but wasn't explained quite well enough; the story was a bit too convoluted and started to feel repetitive; the characters weren't quite well-defined enough; the book a bit too long; and the ending didn't deliver like I'd hoped it would.
So enjoyable, original and ambitious - and that's not bad.
This book could have been amazing if it had been firing on all cylindars, but unfortunately most of them seemed to misfire. The ecnomics stuff was interesting, but wasn't explained quite well enough; the story was a bit too convoluted and started to feel repetitive; the characters weren't quite well-defined enough; the book a bit too long; and the ending didn't deliver like I'd hoped it would.
So enjoyable, original and ambitious - and that's not bad.