Review: Misleading advertisement
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 22, 2013
Note: Since I published this review, the author has changed the way the book is listed on the Amazon site.  He also requested that I add that this review may contain spoilers.  So read the rest of the review only if you're not concerned about spoilers.  (Although the spoiler is only spoiling the first part of the book.)The Game is an enjoyable book that violates one of the rules that editors use to not buy science fiction: Earth is a computer simulation.  However, even though the novel goes against this rule, it's not at all badly written.  Not bad for a self published novel.However, there is a bit of bait and switch in the advertising for this novel.There are two types of series in science fiction and fantasy (and probably literature in general).  First, the series of related stories.  In this type of series, each novel is self contained, but exists in the same universe as other novels and stories.  Science fiction examples of this would be Niven's Known Space series or Poul Anderson's Technic Civilization series.  If you read one of the books in the series, you'll read an entire story, from beginning to end.  If you read all the books in the series, you gain more than just a series of books but some underlying world building.  There may be interconnections that add to your enjoyment or civilizational changes that create a meta-story above the individual stories.The other type of series is a story that doesn't fit into a single book.  Tolkein's Lord of the Rings trilogy was (at least partially) a trilogy because of limitations on book construction.  It is possible to now buy a copy of Lord of the Rings (which is one story) as a single volume.  On the other hand, series like The Wheel of Time is physically impossible, even under current technology, to print and bind as a single volume.In general, books that are part of the second type of series indicate the fact that they're not a complete story.  The Game doesn't, which means that people who read the book will find at the end that they don't have a story, just the beginning of a story.  Without that indication in the title or book description, the listing for the book is misleading.Now, if the book was called "The Game (The Game is Live Vol. 1)", this wouldn't be an issue.  But before you buy the book, realize that this is only volume 1 of the series which ends on a cliff-hanger, and you will need to buy more to resolve the story.  (It would also be useful if the other books were numbered so you'd know what order to read them in.)