Wassail Games Club Forum (board gaming in Frome and Cornwall)

[Bill Zeebub]

"Game Night" by Jonny Nexus
Published by Magnum Opus Press
ISBN 978-1-906402-01-3

Jonny Nexus is a long time roleplayer and co-founder of the Critical Miss webzine: http://www.criticalmiss.com/
and this, his first foray into published fantasy fiction, is clearly inspired by the years of "twice weekly bouts of extremely bad roleplaying" that are mentioned in the brief author's biography.
I agreed to review the book with a little trepidation as over the years I've seen a few spin-offs from the gaming world that don't really translate well into other media (such as the "Dungeons and Dragons" films). M.A.R. Barker has also turned roleplaying on the world of Tekumel into fantasy fiction with a variable degree of success. So despite enjoying his writing on "Critical Miss" I was unsure if Jonny Nexus would be able to pull this off, especially when I realised he was also aiming at the humour end of the fantasy market so dominated by Terry Pratchett.
It may be a little unfair to mention Pratchett but as comparisons will inevitably be made I'm glad to say Jonny Nexus has developed his own writing style rather than aping the genre's silverback.
The other cause for concern was that humorous fantasy is not a favourite genre of mine.
The basic premise is that the main characters of the book feature on two levels - as gods and also as the mortals they are roleplaying who are,as de rigueur for a fantasy story, on an epic quest.
To my mind some of the funniest moments were the interaction of the gods, who are horribly recognisable archetypes of different styles of roleplayer. I know as I have met every one of these people at some time in the last twenty years and I shuddered to recall one or two of them. This conceit worked quite well but is possibly also a weakness for some readers who may not get the roleplaying in-joke that these characters represent. However, the story's other level works quite well too and whilst for me not guffaw out loud material was still very entertaining.
Overall a worthy first effort from Jonny Nexus and I hope he's inspired to produce some more as I enjoyed it despite it falling into a genre that I read very little of.
7/10.
_________________
"If the murder of twelve innocent people saves one human life, it will have been worth it"

[Sandman1973]

Thanks Toby.

I read the first chapter PDF from the website when you mentioned that you had this book for review. It seemed ok but did not really inspire me to want to read any more. I can't really put my finger on why but perhaps I just have too many books to get around to reading and not enough time.

I thought that the D&D film was ok for what it was although I know that most did not think much of it.
_________________
** PAUL JORDAN **
http://sandman1973.googlepages.com
http://flickr.com/photos/sandman1973/

[Pete Minall]

Toby, Thanx for the review.

Any chance of letting interested people borrow the book at the games club?

It is always good to hear of anything at all that adds a twist or has added input to our wonderful and sometimes very whacky world of gaming and I'm glad that Jonny has put his money where his mouth is and done something to give pleasure to others.

I echo Toby's words and wish Jonny well with his next book!

Oh, well, as I have been roundly beaten twice today by Helen at TTR Switzerland it is back to the hell of the gaming table and hopefully revenge over a game of Pillars of the Earth.

I know it is early, but the sun is over the yardarm here and so an accompanying glass of Taylors finest port is called for to enhance the experience.

Chin chin.

[Bill Zeebub]