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montymitra 's review for:
Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation
by Blake J. Harris
Damn. I was really looking forward to this one. Blake Harris clearly has an incredible talent for finding people and extracting really amazing information from them. Coupled with his obvious passion for the things he covers, such as movies and video games, he can get and do interviews that would make even the top journalists envious.
But what's also clear is that writing, specifically long form writing, is just not his thing. I'm sure he can crank out perfectly serviceable blog posts but what he completely forgot to do with Console Wars was the very necessary task of developing a singular cohesive narrative. Console Wars plays out more like a complex nest of Wikipedia entries than it does a story. I almost have to lay the blame at his publisher: did they not give him a fucking editor? And it's too bad because there are interesting themes that are hinted at throughout the book. But since Harris has no basic outline of a story, he doesn't know where and how to expound upon them and, more importantly, when to completely eliminate them.
Tactically, his writing style is a bit juvenile as well. The mostly fictionalized dialogue is pretty damn corny and his prose can be unnecessarily dramatic.
Based on his appearances on the How Did This Get Made podcast and the stuff he uncovers on /Film, Blake Harris seems like an awesome guy and I'd love to hang out with him if nothing else but to hear all the crazy stories he's accumulated. And honestly, he loves this stuff and his passion for the subject is a bit infectious (which is the extra star). But unfortunately, there were just so many times while reading this that I really wished Michael Lewis had written it.
But what's also clear is that writing, specifically long form writing, is just not his thing. I'm sure he can crank out perfectly serviceable blog posts but what he completely forgot to do with Console Wars was the very necessary task of developing a singular cohesive narrative. Console Wars plays out more like a complex nest of Wikipedia entries than it does a story. I almost have to lay the blame at his publisher: did they not give him a fucking editor? And it's too bad because there are interesting themes that are hinted at throughout the book. But since Harris has no basic outline of a story, he doesn't know where and how to expound upon them and, more importantly, when to completely eliminate them.
Tactically, his writing style is a bit juvenile as well. The mostly fictionalized dialogue is pretty damn corny and his prose can be unnecessarily dramatic.
Based on his appearances on the How Did This Get Made podcast and the stuff he uncovers on /Film, Blake Harris seems like an awesome guy and I'd love to hang out with him if nothing else but to hear all the crazy stories he's accumulated. And honestly, he loves this stuff and his passion for the subject is a bit infectious (which is the extra star). But unfortunately, there were just so many times while reading this that I really wished Michael Lewis had written it.