The God Game by Danny Tobey

In the G.O.D. game, when you Win, ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE but if you Lose, you die. What a premise to this exciting YA thriller/suspense read where free will and choices in the game have real life consequences. This certainly gave me the Black Mirror vibes in the setting of Ready Player One. I love reading about how people navigate the morality of their actions to gain and advance in life – for every action there is an equal or opposite reaction.

Charlie and his four other friends (Peter, Vanhi, Alex and Kenny) who call themselves “the Vindicators” a group of computer nerds who meet at midnight in the schools’ computer lab. They all receive an invitation to play this GOD game.

I found that the writing was solid and the characterization well written - each of the characters equally had an amazing back story and how this GOD game could benefit each one of them. The pacing was amazing and the short chapters propelled the story well.

I loved that the overall theme of the story was about friendship, loyalty and the importance of family. The book did address the issues young adults are facing such as pressures of grades, college applications and acceptance, as well as, sexuality and individuality. I think those were handled well within the story. I really recommend this book highly for those looking for an exciting entertaining suspense and thriller read.

“What they whispered was a code, a series of instructions, commands and prompts and incantations basically—for at the end of the day, what was the difference between a hack and a spell? Both were a precise flow of words in a secret language known only to the initiated, to manipulate a reality that was inviolate only to those content to accept it as such.”
...
“The optimists said the Web would give every human a voice. Holy shit! Have you met humans? We created God to protect us from ourselves. From our brains. Then we accidentally built the world’s biggest brain, and we forgot to give it a conscience..”

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for sending me an ARC of The God Game in exchange for an honest review.

Five teenagers begin playing The God Game, a VR app that gives players choices with real world consequences. Coming from different backgrounds and places in their lives, each begins a slow slide downward as they prove willing to do things they know are wrong to get what they want.

The characterization is solid, as is the writing. And the novel does a good job depicting different types of teen angst: about relationships with each other and with parents, the pressure of the college admission process, and all manner of jealousy. But what sets this book apart is the pace. The story starts fast and only gets faster. Even when certain plot points seemed unlikely or a bit absurd, I remained highly entertained and interested in reading on to see what would happen next.

I am not sure why Mr. Tobey chose to set this story against the backdrop of the 2016 election. I suspect the reader is to draw certain parallels about the morality of the characters in the book and the voters in real life, but I found that aspect the weakest part of the story. Still, there is a lot going on in this novel, and most of it works really well. Recommended.

I'm a senior citizen and while I do play some online games, they are nothing like portrayed in this novel. The players here are high school kids who get deep into a game asking them to do increasingly harmful tasks to gain power and personal desires. Computer speak is important to understanding much of what is going on and I am lacking there. A great deal of the book was over my head. I also think there must be television programs or movies related to what was going on in the book. Since I don't watch television and rarely go to movies, I was again lost for much of the action. I did not find the characters engaging either. None of them was crafted so that I really cared about how their life turned out.

I had a hard time reading this novel. I felt the plot was slow for the much of the book. It is an interesting study in power and acceptance at the high school level. There is also an element of greed permeating the characters. All something this senior citizen did not find particularly captivating. I think the book is aimed at young adults, perhaps high school age, but I felt the content was not at all appropriate. It was more dark than what I'd like to see high school students read. And I didn't appreciate the vulgar language either.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

The God Game is an interesting book that is not something I would typically read but I was intrigued with the description. The book follows five friends who start playing a game with "God" and it starts to impact their daily lives. It's told from multiple points of view. What happens if you do something good? Will it affect someone else? What happens if you do something "bad"? Will it affect someone else's outcome? The friends find out while playing this game- not all turns out well for everyone. Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

DNF at 25%. Thanks to the publisher for sending this widget but I should have known this one way too outside of my usual genre and passed. My fault.

"The God Game" by Danny Tobey comes out January 7, 2020. Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC. 

"The God Game" follows 5 friends as they join an AI experience. What begins as a game, quickly turns into a struggle for their lives. Each member of their group, "the Vindicators," takes a risk for a big life moment to go their way, but by taking the risk they owe the game something. Often these tasks end up being on the violent side to appease a god mixed from all religions and tending to take on blood thirsty traits. As the tasks get riskier and the game has more dirt on them, they want a way out... but there's only one way out of the game...

This book is extremely interesting from a plot standpoint. Artificial intelligence directing a risky game always seems like a good idea. Until the AI begins to believe it is actually God. And then proceeds to ruin your life. Ideally this narrative creates a quick read because "what will happen next?!"

I, however, was not a huge fan of the book. It's a little more intense than I was comfortable with. I don't feel like I would have picked this book out on my own. My main interest was all the hype for it on #bookstagram. I wish the characters would have had bigger motivations and plot lines I felt should be larger were dropped. 

Overall, I wanted to like this book, but I can only give it 3/5 stars.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book was INSANE. I couldn't put it down - I read this while on a cruise, and stopping for our excursions and meals was really hard, because so much was happening and it just kept bringing me back for more!

To recap it in a spoiler-free nutshell, the main characters sign up for an online game with an AI that claims to be "god" and it starts affecting their real lives. Good things happen. Bad things happen. They do good things. They do bad things. The game starts to control them...

Needless to say, this sci-fi thriller was intense and a lot of fun to read. I'm just glad I was reading about it and not living it!

3 for neutral! Unfortunately, this was not at all what I expected nor the book for me. I ended up not being able to finish and therefore will not rate low, but don’t think it was my mood, just not intriguing nor one I found catching my attention for any length of time. If you like long, weirder books, it may be for you!

This is a long book. It wasn’t that it didn’t hold my attention. It has lots of issues, questions, sci-fi interest, well a little of everything. Between AI, religion and what I’ll call subtle political comments, it really covered the gamut.

I don’t know if I felt this was of the YA genre because of the characters or it was that the dialect used seemed that way. It seemed young to me.

Having said the above, I think this is a book you should dive into and see what you think. It just has some elements for everyone and is interesting enough to hear what everyone thinks. It definitely could evoke conversation.

Thanks to Netgalley and St Martins press for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was a crazy premise- a group of high school kids who play with technology and call themselves “the vindicators” get roped into a game with God. They have no idea what they are playing with but it definitely gets a little crazy!

Overall I enjoyed this book to about 70% then I was just bored. I think that this means this genre just isn’t for me. I think this is probably great for lots of others!

I give it a 3 overall for interesting premise just didn’t do it for me.

Every so often a story falls into your lap that has all the elements you’re looking for, one that compels you to keep reading far into the night and causes you regret when you realize you will complete the book when you really want is for it to continue. “The God Game” by Danny Tobey is one of those stories.

The story begins with an innocence, introducing five friends who discover a game that seems like it might be fun even though there are veiled warnings about what may happen. It doesn’t take long for the group to discover that evil lurks just below the surface as they confront situations that push against their willpower and strain their personal ethical boundaries.

The story quickly becomes dark as every action causes a reaction. The author introduces numerous twists and turns, most of them unexpected. The pacing of the story is excellent, as once the game is introduced, the consequences introduce more challenges and it feels like nothing ever slows down as the book accelerates to the climax. I did mention that the story turns dark, and that includes the language. If you are bothered by vulgarities and f-bombs, as the characters become more entangled in the game the wording increases in coarseness. While an excess amount of vulgarities has bothered me in other books, I felt Mr. Tobey used them to ratchet up the tension and thus added to rather than detracted from the essence of the story.

The author has mixed a sci-fi horror story with a full dose of fear of artificial intelligence and what it could do, given the opportunity. The POV changes and allows the reader to experience the characters’ personal debates as they each question the ethics and morality of the choices presented by the game. In this era of AI getting smarter all the time, it raises the specter of something like “The God Game” actually happening. Highly recommended. Five stars.

Thank you Netgalley, St-Martin’s Press and Danny Tobey.
I was very surprised that I really, really enjoyed this novel. There were parts which I did not understand since it was based on Artificial Intelligence and gaming. Super nerdy, computer savvy High school kids playing the G O D game on their computer. These 5 kids called themselves the “ Vindicators”. These kids were from different ethnicities and enjoyed gaming.
Well written, Mr. Tobey is a noted expert on Artificial Intelligence and it shows throughout this novel.
This novel keeps you interested and on the edge of your seat, you cannot wait to read what happens next,

Recommend 4 stars.

I really wanted to like this one but I just couldn't get in to it and that ending, yikes. It took me a long time to read this one since I just wasn't invested in the characters.

This book started out a little slow, establishing the dynamics of this complicated group of high school misfits (aka a group that ticks all the boxes for potential high school kid problems: religious parents, abusive parents, dead parents, aloof parents, drug dealing, being bullied, being smart but not smart enough, being in love with the popular girl, being gay... The list goes on). Then from about 20%-60% the plot took off, taking on the mantle of a modern Ready Player One with thriller tendencies and few-to-no obscure nerdy references.

But then everything just got very... melodramatic. There's a crazy car chase scene where they're driving at 100mph and swerving around while the car is being hacked and they can't see anything. The side characters were caricatures (the broken girl who becomes HBIC, the nice popular girl who's in over her head, the football player who's a bully and doesn't see anything wrong with it, the other football player who's a bully to hide/reject his own gayness, etc) and as they took on some of the narrative, distracted from the more complex and interesting main three: Charlie, Vanhi, and Kenny.

Alex and Peter I struggled with. Peter was pretty much a caricature from the start and his role in the ending just added to the melodrama, thus souring my view of the story. Alex... Alex was more complicated. His feelings of inadequacy and his hard-and-fast desire to kill himself (TW: attempted suicide) was a disproportionately HUGE part of the story. As someone who went to a high school with a frighteningly high suicide rate, that was really hard to read about over and over and over again.

Then there's the game itself. What started out as an interesting theological experiment (essentially) turned into this mess of conflicting religious dogma as the whole plot devolves into chaos. I grew tired of the game's contrived machinations early on but they only got more convoluted as time passed.

I will say: this one is absolutely a binge-worthy read. If I'd had the time, I probably would have read it very quickly.

God Game is an interesting take on Artificial Intelligence. The characters were real and not always predictable. I thought it was interesting and posed a lot of ethical questions that the characters had to answer through their choices. The ending was not at all what I expected, but that made it even more interesting. 4 stars

This will appeal to fans of Ready Player One. It's perfect for teenagers and up. It's a dark thriller, with teenage underdogs leading the charge. I found this very compelling and the pacing was spot on.

High school senior Charlie, and his small circle of friends are known as The Vindicators. They are invited to play The G.O.D. game. A highly intelligent AI game on the web. What starts out as simple pranks eventually turns dark and dangerous, as The Vindicators' lives spin out of control. Although, what do you expect from a game that says "if you win, your dreams come true. Lose, and you die!"

This book hooks you and becomes an addictive read. The tension and suspense keeps mounting and the chapters are so short, you'll find yourself staying up deep into the night thinking, "just one more chapter." The author does a fantastic job of getting the reader to feel sympathy for some characters and dislike for the others. The technological descriptions can be confusing if you're not in the IT field, but that can easily be overlooked because of how good the story is.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and author Danny Tobey for gifting me with an e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was a super interesting premise, and overall I enjoyed this story.

A group of teens get an invitation to play a computer game with someone calling themselves God. The game instructs them to complete tasks (mostly pranks) for money, but the tasks start to become more challenging and it causes the teens' lives to spiral out of control.

My only complaint is that I found myself unable to really connect with the characters; they made terrible decisions and seemed so whiny, but they were just teenagers so I can forgive that somewhat.

The story was very fast-paced, a true thriller!

3.75 stars

Unlike anything I've ever read and surely not my typical genre. Kept hearing wonderful things about his title though so I just had to dive in and see what all the hype was about.

A group of teenage outcast friends known as The Vindicators are drawn into what seems to be a perfectly innocent video game at first until it becomes clear that what happens in the game, translates to real life. G.O.D., as it's known, starts to require more dangerous tasks to advance and things start to get highly questionable and flat out scary for this group. Every task seemed like a bigger test of morality... This was a thrilling and highly addictive read and I can't help but feel the comparison between the obsession with the game and our society's current social media/technology obsessions.

With a chance to play a highly technological game against God, who wouldn't play and see what could happen? That's what this group of friends agrees to, and they are hooked from the beginning. Looking through their phones, the world is altered, there are people to communicate with who have tasks for them, and the rewards are great.

Except when things aren't so great, because of course, that's how it goes. They're being asked to do more and more dangerous things, things that compromise their morals and who they are. Yet not all of them are ready to quit the game and we watch the tasks get more complicated and more dangerous.

This was a fun read, I thought the way the world was altered through the game was fun. Tobey had some inclusive characters who had a wide variety of issues that affect teens today. The level of distrust that was built grew to epic proportions and you could visibly watch the group fall apart. This was a fast-paced read, once the action started you didn't want to put the book down because you had to know what the game was going to ask for next. Nicely done. Thank you St. Martin's for sending this along!