Thank you Hachette for this book in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis:
You are invited!
COme inside and play with G.O.D.
Bring your friends!
It;’s fun!
But remember the rules. Win and ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE.™ Lose, you die!
With those words, Charlie and his friends enter the G.O.D. Game, a video game run by underground hackers and controlled by a mysterious AI that believes it’s God. Through their phone-screens and high-tech glasses, the teens’ realities blur with a virtual world of creeping vines, smoldering torches, runes, glyphs, gods, and mythical creatures. When they accomplish a mission, the game rewards them with expensive tech, revenge on high-school tormentors, and cash flowing from ATMs. Slaying a hydra and drawing a bloody pentagram as payment to a Greek god seem harmless at first. Fun even.
But then the threatening messages start. Worship me. Obey me. Complete a mission, however cruel, or the game reveals their secrets and crushes their dreams. Tasks that seemed harmless at first take on deadly consequences. Mysterious packages show up at their homes. Shadowy figures start following them, appearing around corners, attacking them in parking garages. Who else is playing this game, and how far will they go to win?
And what of the game’s first promise: win, win big, lose, you die? Dying in a virtual world doesn’t really mean death in real life—does it?
As Charlie and his friends try to find a way out of the game, they realize they’ve been manipulated into a bigger web they can’t escape: an AI that learned its cruelty from watching us.
God is always watching, and He says when the game is done
Review:
I love me some fantasy books, but lately all the fantasy books seem to be exactly the same thing, with the same kind of characters and situations that aren’t dire, and everything gets handed to the ‘hero’ on a silver platter. The God Game breaks that barrier.
I read the blurb and thought this might be another one of those books that promise so much but deliver so little, but damn was I mistaken.
This book reminded me of Nerve and Ready Player One but on a whole new level.
Charlie and his band of friends are invited to play a game with ‘God’ on the computer. God seems to know their daily activities, their usual routine and what they generally feel and think. So with a little bit of harmless fun, God convinces Charlie and his friends to start pulling little pranks on fellow students and teachers and God will provide them with cash in return. But as the story progresses the challenges become hard and the tasks become more dangerous and will turn them against themselves.
But who is God and why are they tearing this group of friends apart in a high paced, action and chair clenching adventure.
Not only are these style of books highly entertaining it also shows how desperate people will be to do anything for cash and the horrid lengths they would go to.
When I say you find yourself gripped and drawn into the story from the start, I am not joking, this book legit had me on the edge of the seat, wanting to know what was going to happen next! This well written book, leaves you rooting for the little gang of unruly teens, no matter the mischief they get up to!
Rating: 5/5
Publisher: Gollancz
ISBN: 978143224483