books for gamers

if we talk about books for gamers, the debate about when the video game is one of the issues to be discussed. It depends on the definition, for some experts, the first would have been the one developed by Alexander S. Douglas, in 1952: a computerized version of tic tac toe that allowed a human player to play against the machine. Or that of William Higginbotham who created, in 1958, using a program for calculating trajectories and an oscilloscope, tennis for two (tennis for two): a simulator of tennis table for entertainment of visitors to the exposure Brookhaven National Laboratory. Four years later, Steve Russell, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologyspent six months creating a computer game using vector graphics: Spacewar. This new fictional world it didn’t take long for him to look to the library as a source of inspiration to develop stories. The Abbey of Crime, based on The name of the rose, is one of the great examples of this fruitful symbiosis. Alice: Madness Returns it turned the heroine of Lewis Carroll into a character to take weapons. And we can’t forget about The Color of Magicthe first game based on Discworld, the brilliant work of Terry Pratchett. Curious fact, the daughter of the famous writer, Rhianna, is one of the great international references as a video game scriptwriter.

Currently, the relationship between these two fictional worlds, which feed off each other so well, is much more sophisticated. In this way, we find novels that they acquire from video game stylistic elements to incorporate into your narrative, see Condensed milk (Troy Horse); or that are the central theme of the plot, as in Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow (Periscope, DNA).

1- Condensed milk, by Aida González Rossi (Trojan Horse)

A literary gem with a Canarian accent. Heartbreaking story from the first page, but also tender, from the first word. Aida is a teenager who suffers bullying and a toxic and abusive relationship with his cousin, Moco. They were both born on the same day and their grandmother has instilled in them that they are practically one. Shelters that become prisons. Figures that go from being heroes to true villains. Loves that make her discover that she is different, but valid. Although this lesson is learned between tears and stinging. With the stinging pain you feel when you pick a scab and bleed. The book is structured in chapters titled by the different types of attack that we can find in the pokemon video game. An accurate metaphor that tells us a lot about a generation that was born already digital.

2- Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Periscope, DNA)

Literary phenomenon of the year, as dictated by the magazine Timewhich supposed that its author, Gabrielle Zevinhe will win Goodreads Award for Best Novel of 2022,. The plot unravels an exciting story about video games, friendship and overcoming. Sam and Sadie want to create a blockbuster video game. They borrow money, favors and, before even graduating, sign their first blockbuster: ichigo, a game in which one can escape the confines of the body and the betrayals of the heart, in which death means nothing more than an opportunity to start over and play again. The play focuses on the contrast between two worlds: the perfect one built by Sam and Sadie; and the imperfect, in which they live. The story spans more than thirty years, going from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, passing through lands in between and other worlds.

3- death by video game, Simon ParkinTurner

A father overwhelmed by his son’s illness, a battered woman, a young bisexual whom his mother doesn’t even want to see, a chronically depressed woman, and a Taiwanese man who drops dead after almost a whole day at the computer. All of them are united by video games. It is true that happy people also develop this hobby, but it is also true that video games can isolate you from reality and can even kill you. The book gives us a detailed and long chronicle of these deadly events. Simon Parkin also does them justice by dedicating many pages to narrating the benefits of these: virtual worlds also allow the mind to be developed (what some call cognitive capacity), communities and affective ties can be created in them and there are even those who free themselves from their traumas instead of chaining themselves to an addiction. The author presents us with an aesthetic and even political theory of the video game, paradoxically written without value judgments. “A love letter in the form of a travel book and an introduction – which makes you think – about the religion that spreads the most on the planet”, he declared. The Times.

4- Quintet and the trilogy of the soul, by Chris Herraiz (Paper Heroes)

Known as the Saga of Heaven and Earth, symbolizes the period of maturity in the universe of video games. The also called Soul Trilogy (Soul Blazer, Illusion of Time and Terranigma) was developed by Quintet Company, Limited, a mythical Japanese video game company founded in 1989. The name comes from the musical term quintet, as well as from the five elements to design a video game: planning, graphics, sound, programming and production. Its heyday was in the 90s. While other companies designed video games that dealt with exterminating aliens, fighting evil corporations or saving damsels in distress, Quintet offered three stories about the creation of the world, the flourishing of life, and the role, not always positive, of human beings in the global ecosystem.

5 – Minecraft: The Islandby Max Brooks (Montena)

U-turn: the video game became the source of inspiration for the book. The first official novel of the Minecraft license was this: a kind of Robinson Crusoe full of adrenaline. “If you are alone, confused and scared to death, you are exactly as I was when I arrived on the Island. That is why I have left this book here. So that my adventure helps you with yours”. Imagine waking up on a beach, alone and surrounded by a world made up of blocks. This is just the beginning of an adventure in which the protagonist will have to face zombies, creepers, skeletons or waves of lava among many other surprises.

6- The Van Helsing Archives, by Xavier Borràs Fernández (The Ferry)

The saga of 15 titles about the vampire hunter that began in 2004, is based on the film of the same name, directed by Stephen Sommers, whose main character was in turn inspired by the character in the novel. draculaDr. Abraham van Helsing. Xavier Borràs Fernández managed to be a finalist in the Fernando Lara Award 2017, with this novel that begins with Father Abraham Van Helsing, an elderly Jesuit priest discovering the existence of a documentary collection that belonged to his great-uncle, the respected theologian. While examining the various documents that make it up —letters, diaries, memoranda—, the religious reconstructs the genealogy of his family, which has dedicated its efforts to fighting against a man who, in order to defeat death, chose to become a demon. . Fantastic novel loaded with tributes to the classics of the genre, from the Frankenstein, from Mary Shelley to The Cthulhu Mythos, from Lovecraft; and historical, whose plot extends throughout the last five centuries of the history of Europe.

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