The Inside Scoop on Gaming

You may have heard of Kim Newman because of the fantasy novels he has written under the alias Jack Yeovil, including the Warhammer novel DRACHENFELS which GW have let slide out of print for reasons of their own. Presumably he's familiar with the cliches all too common in fantasy games, like roleplaying and interactive fiction, and he manages to avoid them all in this book.

LIFE'S LOTTERY is still a pickapath, if you want to do X you have to turn to Y, but it's not an adventure story. You are Keith Marion, middle-class, English, hair that darkens in your teens. You make decisions, sometimes trivial, sometimes important, which shape your life. On occasion a seemingly trivial decision has wide-reaching unforeseeable consequences. Just like real life.

Different paths lead to a wide variety of stories and endings - family dramas, mystery thrillers, psychological horror, science fiction, tragedies, comedies and downright surrealness. But the meta-story is always about decision-making, the consequences of our actions, that whole free will vs. determinism thing, with shades of what it's like to walk in another's shoes.

The tone is talkative, Newman takes a few moments (quite a few at the start) to step out-of-character and talk directly to you, a congratulation here and an admonishment there, but it never becomes moralising. Your decisions are your own, except when they aren't.

It works. I had the feeling of living a whole life or three while reading LIFE'S LOTTERY. The childhood chapters brought back painful memories that will be shared by anyone who was ever bullied (and if you play roleplaying games and have an Internet account, this means you), adolescence was awkward and adulthood varied. Old age gets skimped on, but maybe that's just because of the paths I took, if things don't get cut short by the Grim Reaper, Keith's life can fall into a pattern (for good or ill) that ends with And so on.

There are a few hidden treasures as well, for those with the patience to go back and try different lifelines, or just read passages at random. I could spend days digging through this book to find where X marks the spot. Hell, I probably will.

If I had to find something wrong with LIFE'S LOTTERY, it would be that one of the earliest decisions (the first decision that isn't rigged) leads through childhood but skips adolescence completely. The other path covers it in detail but the other thrusts you straight from child to adult. The other adolescence can be lived in myriad different ways of course, but I still felt like one of my Keiths was missing out. It can be gauged as a measure of success on the writer's part that I just talked about the Keiths like they were my children.

For those who grew up on the ZORK and FIGHTING FANTASY novels like me, this book has the bonus of nostalgia, and it gives you something heavy for hitting those people who sneer at your copy of the Cavern of Doom. But even if you've never read a pickapath in your life Newman still has more to say about life than most authors cram into three books, interactive or otherwise.

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Life's Lottery
Author: Kim Newman Category: Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Book Company/Publisher: Simon & Schuster Line: Interactive Fiction Cost: £17.99 / AUS$40.00 Page count: 488 ISBN: 0-684-84016-2 Playtest Review by Jody Macgregor on 07/27/00. Genre tags: Modern day	You may have heard of Kim Newman because of the fantasy novels he has written under the alias Jack Yeovil, including the Warhammer novel DRACHENFELS which GW have let slide out of print for reasons of their own. Presumably he's familiar with the cliches all too common in fantasy games, like roleplaying and interactive fiction, and he manages to avoid them all in this book. LIFE'S LOTTERY is still a pickapath, if you want to do X you have to turn to Y, but it's not an adventure story. You are Keith Marion, middle-class, English, hair that darkens in your teens. You make decisions, sometimes trivial, sometimes important, which shape your life. On occasion a seemingly trivial decision has wide-reaching unforeseeable consequences. Just like real life. Different paths lead to a wide variety of stories and endings - family dramas, mystery thrillers, psychological horror, science fiction, tragedies, comedies and downright surrealness. But the meta-story is always about decision-making, the consequences of our actions, that whole free will vs. determinism thing, with shades of what it's like to walk in another's shoes. The tone is talkative, Newman takes a few moments (quite a few at the start) to step out-of-character and talk directly to you, a congratulation here and an admonishment there, but it never becomes moralising. Your decisions are your own, except when they aren't. It works. I had the feeling of living a whole life or three while reading LIFE'S LOTTERY. The childhood chapters brought back painful memories that will be shared by anyone who was ever bullied (and if you play roleplaying games and have an Internet account, this means you), adolescence was awkward and adulthood varied. Old age gets skimped on, but maybe that's just because of the paths I took, if things don't get cut short by the Grim Reaper, Keith's life can fall into a pattern (for good or ill) that ends with And so on. There are a few hidden treasures as well, for those with the patience to go back and try different lifelines, or just read passages at random. I could spend days digging through this book to find where X marks the spot. Hell, I probably will. If I had to find something wrong with LIFE'S LOTTERY, it would be that one of the earliest decisions (the first decision that isn't rigged) leads through childhood but skips adolescence completely. The other path covers it in detail but the other thrusts you straight from child to adult. The other adolescence can be lived in myriad different ways of course, but I still felt like one of my Keiths was missing out. It can be gauged as a measure of success on the writer's part that I just talked about the Keiths like they were my children. For those who grew up on the ZORK and FIGHTING FANTASY novels like me, this book has the bonus of nostalgia, and it gives you something heavy for hitting those people who sneer at your copy of the Cavern of Doom. But even if you've never read a pickapath in your life Newman still has more to say about life than most authors cram into three books, interactive or otherwise. Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Life's Lottery