“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.

Happy New Year internet book chums! After a much-needed break, The Eloquent Page returns for its first review of 2020. To kick things off, I’m taking a look at The God Game by Danny Tobey.

When Charlie initially discovers G.O.D. it feels like the answer to all his prayers. A family bereavement has left him emotionally and psychologically battered, and he needs some way to escape. High school, where he once excelled, seems like a pointless exercise and all his relationships have become strained. The opportunity to regain a sense of control in his existence is too strong a draw to resist.

Starting small, the initial challenges the game sets appear to be innocuous. It soon becomes evident however that the virtual deity is working towards a much larger design on a far grander scale. Events start to spiral as other members of the local student populace start playing. Some embrace the chaos allowing the game to determine their every move, while others are far more wary. Who is in charge? Does G.O.D. control the players, or do the players control G.O.D? Is the game dishing out its own form of righteous justice, or has everyone become a victim?

Where the novel excels is the way the author perfectly captures the insecurities that eat away at Charlie and the other people in his life. Much like the rest of us, he is a jumble of conflicting emotions and uncertainties. The other members of the Vindicators, the group of geeks Charlie hangs out with, are just as well observed. There is a character called Alex who will resonate with anyone who has ever felt like they don’t belong.

I’m thoroughly ancient but I can just about remember how horrific it was sometimes to be a teenager. There is that expectation to conform, to fit in somewhere. It strikes me that in the 21st century this pressure has been amplified significantly by the rise of social media. Teens no longer have the luxury of being able to go home, close a door, and step away from the outside world. They are bombarded by opinion, by all the latest trends and “must haves” twenty-four seven. Cliques and peer pressure have gone viral. Tobey’s insightful writing deftly picks apart the many pitfalls of the modern teen experience*.

The God Game explores the darker corners of human morality. How far you are willing to go to get what you want? Would you be prepared for others to suffer in order to achieve your goals? It’s bound to promote an amount of introspection from any reader. How could it not, this is Big Brother on steroids and then some. I certainly found myself pondering how/if I would be able to cope.

As ever, I like to suggest some musical type sounds that you can enjoy whilst devouring the plot of a book and this case is no exception. In keeping with the neo-tech/hacker related theme of the story, my recommendation is the soundtrack to Deep Web by Pedro Bromfman. The tracks on the album are just the right side of sinister to perfectly dovetail with the novel’s gleefully intense plot.

The God Game is published by Gollancz and is available from 9th January 2020.

*I cannot begin to describe to you how happy it makes me knowing that I am so far beyond this chapter of my life. Social media and growing pains at the same time must be hell.

To begin with, I sighed at the seemingly stereotypical set up in The God Game, the group of "nerdy" boys with the "token" girl that one of them is probably in love with and that stereotype is definitely here to a degree but in a way that is done really well. It's not over the top or in your face and is barely mentioned but when it is it is done so to an organic way that's hard to explain without spoilers so I won't say any more but just wanted to give a heads up to those who might pick it up, read the first page or two and put it down because of that very overdone trope in these kind of books. This book is more than what it seems to begin with I promise. It's fast-paced, well interconnected, full of tension and it keeps you guessing at every turn.

So we start with these stereotypical characters and over the course of the story we inevitably get to know them better, they each have hopes and dreams, even if some of their aspirations aren't obvious even to them, o begin with. The character progression is interesting in this because we are naturally treated to more information about each of them as the story progresses and this is done very well, facts and histories are organically placed in the story and the progression to a degree is very much just seeing what was there in the first place but hidden, sometimes on purpose and sometimes not even known to the character. I found the whole process fascinating and the mortality and choices characters are faced with in this book feels very close to home in that they are easily decisions that feel visceral and real. The story itself is obviously interesting and I'll get to that next but for me, it's absolutely the characters, their choices and actions that make the God Game.

The plot for The God Game is not a new one but it is a good one. The idea of an A.I with a warped sense of perceived morality is something we've seen before in tv shows, films, books and video games and is an interesting concept because of the different takes on it and as with a fair amount of science fiction thrillers, the ease with which it can be imagined. It makes sense and true A.I's feels like a step that the human race will eventually make or at least be able to and that brings so much more into the discussion although there's not much of that in this book as our main characters are more worried about the consequences a bit closer to home than whether it should have been created or not although we get a little bit of background on "G.O.D" that is both interesting and vague enough to perhaps be a kind of urban myth itself. 

I could honestly go on about this book for ages, it was really thought-provoking in a lot of ways that I'm still thinking about almost a week after finishing it and that I think will stay with me for some time to come.

4.5 of 5 stars
https://lynns-books.com/2020/01/09/the-god-game-by-danny-tobey/
The short version of this review is that I really enjoyed The God Game. It was fast paced, a little bit crazy in parts, quite scary in others, totally addictive, in fact virtually unputdownable and it took me completely by surprise because whilst I liked the blurb for the book the combination of high school, geeky nerd squad and insidious AI just really wowed me.

So. The game revolves primarily around five characters who call themselves the Vindicators. They’re all slightly (okay very) geeky and their little club like to pull silly stunts, nothing too over the top and certainly nothing dangerous or that will threaten their future prospects in terms of college prospects and the like. The main character is Charlie and the rest of the club are Peter, Vanhi, Alex and Kenny. In fact, thinking about it now the characters are really what makes this read for me. They’re good friends but at the same time they all have secrets that are starting to see that friendship splinter slightly. There are small jealousies and insecurities and it’s these elements that are very much played on to propel the story forward. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Basically, the five become involved in a game known as G.O.D. This is a game that promises great rewards. All their dreams could come true. Of course – the COULD element of that promise is really the focus in my opinion. At the end of the day there’s no such thing as a ‘free lunch’ and the group are about to find out how easily they can be sucked into danger and how quickly their friendships will start to fray as they’re pitched against each other.

Like I said, the characters really made this for me. There are so many secrets and hidden agendas that the five of them are a foregone conclusion for easy manipulation. The game starts off with such promise. Played through their smartphones the five become hooked almost immediately to what they think of as a harmless game that shows things in a slightly different light, creeping vines and strange creatures inhabit this space and the virtual world that surrounds them is exciting and fun, at first. Well, having said that, the game is pretty sneaky and this can be seen almost from the get go, it works pretty quickly at splitting the group and giving them individual tasks and before they all know it, they’re deep in its clutches. This is when things go seriously pear shaped.

In terms of setting, this is a modern setting and easy to visualise, the majority of the story takes place in the high school setting with all the usual shenanigans that this brings. There are the usual cliques, the beautiful ones, the ones good at sport, the nerds, etc, and the story includes social commentary on various aspects of high school such as bullying, stress, exclusion, relationships involving abuse. Things are not always what they seem and the author successfully brings other characters into the story with ease.

The characters that make up the Vindicators are a mixed bag. Charlie seems to be the linchpin of the group. His mother died a year ago and his school work took a dive as he struggled to cope, particularly with his father suffering to hold things together. He shared a pact with Vanhi to try for Harvard but that dream seems to have long since broken. Peter is the mystery element of the club. Good looking and enigmatic he’s the most recent addition and has already caused a slight change in the hierarchy that hasn’t gone completely unnoticed. Alex is one member of the group who seems to be really struggling. He suffers from low self esteem and is constantly second guessing how everyone feels about him which is made worse by his home situation which is far from ideal. The only character that I got less of an attachment to was Kenny – not because he was unlikable at all but I just didn’t really come away with much strength of feeling for him as a character – but, there are plenty of characters to choose from here so Kenny could certainly be a favourite for other readers even though he didn’t really jump off the page for me.

The only real negative for me was a slight feeling of the game becoming too chaotic in the later stages. I almost become over soaked if you will. Things escalated quite quickly and as a reader it felt there was just too much going on – it gave me a feeling of ‘how come the adults are so unaware of what is really going on’ – but then at the same time there is a credibility to this – do parents always know where their children are or what they’re doing? And, do children always confide in their parents or go to them for help?

Overall however, and slight niggling issue aside, this was a gripping read that kept me hooked. The pace was great, the characters were flailing around like headless chickens as the game sucked them into it’s machinations and there was a great feeling of rising hysteria. I thoroughly enjoyed this and have no hesitation in recommending it, there is a definite need to suspend your disbelief a little but then I didn’t find this an issue at all, I read about dragons and dwarves so cunning AI is an easy stretch. And on top of that the ending is deliciously twisted – but obviously I can’t share that with you.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

An interesting and well written book, gripping and full of twists and turns.
It's fascinating, creepy at times, and it keeps you hooked.
I liked the idea of a God chatbot, the group of characters that are well thought and fleshed out.
The plot is well crafted and interesting.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

As many other people have said, this book felt like an episode of the show Black Mirror and it was actually terrifying. It was intense and twisted and kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time I was reading it. I have to say, I flew through it because it was just so addicting and I had to know what was going to happen to the characters and how the game would manipulate them.

This book is about an AI which thinks itself to literally be a God. As such, it invites our group of characters to play with it and either give them Goldz or Blaxx according to whether their actions pleases it or not. The only twist? If you win, you live, if you lose, you die. That sounds straight up dystopian and I was into it. What kept me captivated mostly was the constant feeling of being threatened and watched by this crazy AI acting just like Big Brother. It knows all, it sees all.

I do have to emphasize though that this book has really twisted themes as you can imagine with an almost sentient AI. I will not go too much into details because that would be spoilery but be warned. Nonetheless, I highly encourage you to read it if you're a fan of Black Mirror and this kind of show.

I unfortunately wasn't able to finish reading The God Game, and so I won't be posting a full review on my website or on my channel. I found the writing to be too jumpy, and I wasn't able to settle into the story. I didn't connect with any of the characters, and so I wasn't invested in the game - which is a shame because it sounded quite fun!

The God Game is the story of Charlie Lake and his friends who enter into a mysterious online game known only as the G.O.D Game. The rules are simple – if you win you win big but if you lose? You die. As the group of friends find themselves getting wrapped up in the dark mysteries of the game, they begin to wonder if they’ll ever be able to escape.

This book had me HOOKED. I picked it up expecting to read the first couple of chapters and before I knew it I was 120 pages in and I was running late. This is a fast paced wild ride and I definitely didn’t want the story to end. It’s a clever tale that blends virtual reality and real life. It’s Black Mirror meets Stranger Things and honestly I couldn’t get enough.

I loved everything about this book, the way the atmosphere starts off quite light hearted and becomes much more sinister, the misfit video game nerds that have to use everything they’ve got to survive. It’s a compelling tale which really kept me on the edge of my seat. The characters are particularly well executed and I loved the explorations of friendship, love and grief that were displayed in the story. I loved watching the characters growing and it was so interesting watching the group dynamics change as they delve deeper into the game. The science and technology is also really fascinating, and I loved the use of augmented reality.

If you’re looking for a dark and mesmerising tale that will suck you in deeper and deeper, The God Game is the perfect binge read, be warned though – you definitely won’t be able to put this one down.

The synopsis of this book was amazing and the story hooked me on the first page. I really enjoyed reading this. It was definitely a unique and an interesting story to read.

This is a very clever sci-fi fantasy for fans of Ready Player One and video games in general. A bit more of a young adult read than I was expecting but still an extremely entertaining and engrossing story with some surprising and original ideas. Recommended.

Charlie and friends accepted a game called G.O.D. which let them to certain scenarios in their private lives make them a pun in a dare game.

The story revolves with an AI G.O.D. that cites biblical representations and biblical banters that let the player questions their morality. I love the geekiness of the story the citations of programming and mathematical equations that pave way for the dares.

I was hooked in the first chapters but as the story goes on, the story felt apart from me. I hoped a thrilling one but it was good though. All I read was gorging teenage angst and teenage geeks meddling in a sarcastic and manipulative AI game. I expected a lot from it.

This is definitely an engaging thriller in its tension and pacing that compensates for the unlikeable and unbelievable lead characters; the scenes are well-written, though the lives of these characters are in their entirety empty tropes lacking in flaws and complexity. Many of the important story decisions were not believable and ultimately I found it difficult to root for any of these kids to succeed; instead I found myself cheering on the AI, at times, who was by far the most interesting character/aspect in the novel.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing and eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.


I have many conflicting emotions regarding this book. There were things that worked for me and I enjoyed, and things that made me cringe and shrug my shoulders.

Let's start with the premise. A group of tech savvy teens come across a game, The God Game, where the AI operating it pretends to be god, and it tells them it can make their dreams come true. But, cause there's always a but, if they do things wrong, they will be punished. And to die in the game means to die in real life. I was sold on that straight away. It sounded thrilling, if a bit crazy, and I wanted to know what happens.

I wasn't entirely satisfied with what followed that premise. Though the book was engaging and fast paced for the most of it, the plot itself felt disjointed, partially because of constant switches in perspective. The way the eARC was formatted didn't help with distinguishing where one POV ended and other started. Overall I found the story enjoyable, but somehow unbelievable (don't confuse it with me saying it's unrealistic - of course it's unrealistic, it's sci-fi after all).

The characters really didn't work for me. I couldn't sympathise with any of them, I had no feelings about any of them, if not a mild dislike for most. I think they're the weakest point of the book. I wanted them more fleshed out, I wanted more character development. All of them stay pretty much the same, throughout the whole book. Kenny and Vahni, the most diverse of the characters got very little "screen time" compared to the other 3 characters, especially coming towards the end of the book. I usually have no problems relating to at least one character, or rooting for them, but in this case, I had no one. They're a group of friends who essentially treat each other like family, yet shit on each other and try and ruin their future to save their own asses. I mean, if there was some commentary there about human selfishness, I missed it and I guess that's entirely on me.
There was a case of insta love in there, too which kinda brought the book down for me.

Lastly, the book could do with more editing. The dialogue was so clunky at times, and honestly that's an easy fix. Some sentences were atrocious, which again is just the case of editing, as the whole book was written quite well. There's one particular sentence I have in mind which is the length of a sizeable paragraph and I'm baffled how it ended up in the ARC.

People draw a lot of comparisons between this book and Ready Player One, and honestly this one is much better (RPO is garbage - nothing can change my mind about it), so I guess what I'm trying to say is... although I had issues with some things, I enjoyed others, and I would classify this book as a fun, thrilling and quite spooky read and I would recommend it to any VR, video game, sci-fi fans, especially fans of RPO.

This will go live at the link below (+Goodreads and Amazon) on 9 January:

At first, it’s just a game. Not even that. But very soon, it’s life and death…

Welcome to the God Game, come inside and play with G.O.D., everything to gain, even more to lose. God doesn’t ask a lot. Just for you to deliver a box. Or to trash a car. Or to a sacrifice a drop of your blood. Oh wait, did that get you into trouble? No worries, God will sort it out! At a price…

G.O.D. is an artificial deity, a program based on known religions. He is all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful. And it soon becomes clear that it’s not the gamers who play the God Game, it’s the game that plays with them and through them, and their lives, and the lives of the people around them.

With the players wearing some sort of augmented reality glasses, they become totally immersed in the game, and there’s no way out, no way to quit this game, except by dying or killing. Each of the main characters – kids in a tech club calling themselves the Vindicators – has their own demons: Charlie’s lost his mum to cancer, Vanhi wants to get into Harvard, for herself but also because she feels like she owes her parents as much, Kenny has had a strict, religious upbringing, Alex is often beaten up by his dad, Peter’s whole past is a lie and he’s basically a teenage drug dealer. When offered their greatest desires on a silver plate, will they take the easy way to get what they want, or will they take the moral highroad? All the while the game is manipulating them, and there are other players out there, trying to profit from the game themselves.

Some of the assignments, some of the events, felt rather arbitrary, but when I was thinking them through, trying to decide whether or not that actually annoyed me, it hit me: isn’t that exactly what deities are all about? Are they not fickle creatures, more often than not toying with their “human servants”? Look, like Charlie, I’m atheistic, agnostic at most, so I won’t turn this into a theological discussion, it’s just something that I enjoyed pondering, the similarities between the God in the game, and religion as we know it in its various aspects.

The God Game is a technological thriller, a cyber sci-fi thriller, in the tradition of authors like Blake Crouch. It is such an awesome read! I loved the premise and that made me a bit wary, because an excellent premise such as this creates expectations and therefore requires a flawless execution. To me, that’s exactly what it was. Part Black Mirror, part Jumanji, I flew through it like it was a novella (although at 460 pages it was much heftier than that). As the characters were sucked into the game, I was sucked into the book, and a huge part of me didn’t want to leave.

The characters are well-rounded and fleshed-out, the main characters as well as the supporting ones, and I loved learning about their backgrounds. The God Game is not (just) a thrill a minute, the characters matter. There is also a technical side to The God Game. The kids are very tech-savvy, they code and program and what not and while I might be a geek, I’m not that kind of geek. So I couldn’t tell you if the tech stuff adds up, but in any case, it’s very entertaining, even for tech dummies like me.

Original, immersive, high-octane, suspenseful, thought-provoking, recommended!

Many thanks to Gollancz (Orion Publishing Group) and NetGalley for the eARC! All opinions are my own.

Now here's a dilemma. How do we know that the reviews for this book are real reviews and not just the Game messing with us?

That's the kind of paranoia this title gives you. If it means anything, I can tell you that I am a really real person. But of course, the Game might say that as well if it was trying to fool you...

This is a great read. The POV is confusing at times; a section will be in someone's POV and then slip to someone else's, then back to the first person. I got used to that, though, and it didn't impact my reading too much. The story itself is fast, furious, and paranoia-inducing, with just a hint of a possible sequel. Brilliant. I recommend this one to anyone who enjoys a good techno thriller.

Having finally succumbed and got on the sci-fi/fantasy bus of genres I have been seeking out more and more of this genre to break up my usual crime fiction genre of choice. This book piqued my interest as it was likened to Ready Player One which I loved and also looked to be quite dark and intriguing.
Charlie and his friends are misfits, preferring to hang together, mostly in the computer lab of the school they attend. One day, Charlie is invited to play a game. The G.O.D. game, named for the AI that appears to be running it who claims to be God! When he shows his friends they also find the same invitation and the group decides to go for it! Initially they are tasked with light pranks to gain favour but it gets dark very quickly and it soon becomes evident that there is some heavy malice behind what is happening that not only affects the group but threatens everyone they know, family, friend and foe.
It's hard to say much about this book as to do so would inject spoilers into the review and that is something I don't want to do. But I can hint at some of the things to come. What happens to each of the group individually starts to divide them as they battle each other for the power that the game promises. Their families get involved for good and bad reasons. Their friends and colleagues also get all caught up in the mix again in good and bad ways. It all gets a bit convoluted and a tad muddled in the middle third and it did take quite a bit of concentrating to keep things on an even keel as I was reading. That could be more to do with my limitations with the genre rather than anything the author did but I did have to have all my wits about me all the time. But I was well rewarded for my trouble as it all came together very nicely at the end. A tad contrived but given the manipulation of technology that had gone before, which I accepted, nothing out of left field that jarred me.
The five main characters, Charlie, Alex, Kenny, Peter and Vanhi, are all completely different people who all come together well as a group, drawn to each other by their individual misfit matures. This makes for a great diversity between the ways that they handle both the tasks set for them by the game and their reactions to the fallout from them; theirs and the others. Other characters play their parts very well and add a different dimension to the emotional level the book employs.
The technology employed by the author in creating the world in which the game is played is easily understood by the layman (me!) and I was able to well accept the parts that went over my head not being as technologically versed as maybe other readers would be. What's a bit scary is that some of the things contained within could actually happen insofar as how our reliance on technology is growing in the real world.
The action and intrigue slowly ramps up as the game gets more intense, spilling off the page as it comes hit after hit. All leading to a rather shocking finale and aftermath. More than that I can't say here but I was both wholly satisfied at the end as well as being worried about the future...
All in all, a good solid read that held my attention nicely throughout. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange of an honest review.

The God Game is the most peculiar, exciting and brilliant book I've read in a long time.
The writing is perfect, the characters well rounded and so real, so relatable (Alex and Charlie were really perfect) it hurts, the plot captivating and chilling.
Everything starts with a chatbot, the God game, that answer any kind of question, an AI that claims to be God and starts sending messages on Charlie's and his friends' phones, asking them to do something. It's a game, a wild one where it controls everything, can access everything, from phones, to pc, to cameras and so on. It's God, He sees and knows everything.
Intrigued by the ad, Charlie, Peter, Vanhi, Alex and Kenny decided to play this peculiar game, using their phone, accessing, in this way, a cool and peculiar virtual reality. The Game is simple. If you do well, you get Goldz and something good will happen in your life. If you do bad, you get Blaxx and more Blaxx you got more likely the player will be killed. And if someone dies in the game, dies in the real life. Skeptic and curious, Charlie and his friends decided to try the Game and they started doing quests, following instructions, running around the school at night, discovering it, through the virtual reality, full of mysteries, gods and quests to accept or to buy.
The game inspired by the religion is a wild one and day after day they each found caught up with missions and with the Game. From simple request to dangerous one, to lies and cover ups.

I loved many things about this book. The game itself is creepy, brilliant, controlling, managing to use its players like pawns, using them and turning them against one other. In a game where the difference between reality and virtual one is really slim, where they can't trust anything electronic, the characters move and act, in a giant chessboard, without knowing exactly what's the Game real goal, where are the others players, what will they do, what are the purposes of their missions. It rewards them if the player do what the Game asks and punish them otherwise. It's a crescendo of missions, lies, revenge and so on, pushing and threatening them into doing things they wouldn't have done, otherwise.

What I loved more about this book are its characters. I rarely read characters so real, authentic and raw. So multidimensional. So relatable and well constructed.
Charlie is a young man, who lost his mother to cancer and since her disease and death his life, his grades and relationship with his father is spiralling out of control. He feels resentment for his father, who fell apart when his wife got sick, basically leaving Charlie to do the caretaker and bearing his suffering alone.
Vanhi is a brilliant woman, a bass player, an Hindu girl who's struggling against her parents' expectations and their desire she will go to Harvard, hiding a bad grade and a paper forged from them.
Kenny is a cellist, the philosopher, from a very religious family and he too, like Vanhi, has to suffer his parents' pressures to do better, to do perfectly.
Alex is a nihilist, a young man who is abused at home, depressed and lonely, bullied and feeling himself suicidal.
Peter is the golden boy of the situation, the rich one, the carefully hidden deranged one, doing drugs and dealing, with his absentee father and a mother who left him when he was young.
They found solace in their group, called the Vindicators, doing pranks, supporting each other and doing the Game, that tested their friendships, morals and lives.

Each one of this characters, the main ones, are beautifully written and I was able to feel their rage, pain and frustrations. What it impressed me was that the side characters were amazingly well rounded too. There aren't sterotypes, like the girl to win over or the bad guy. We read about Mary, the perfect and beautiful girl, controlled and with a big secret to mantain. Kurt, violent henchman, with an homophobic father. Tim, violent and controlling, with his stealing father. There are no absolutely good or bad people in this book, but incredibly complex ones. Even Charlie and his friends nurture feelings that could hurt one other, like envy or bitterness or rage, raging against each other, hurting each other.
The Game, knowing everything about them and their dreams, manipulated them and everyone else in a big chessboard, moving pieces like it wants. Or He wants, according to the Game.

It was amazing reading about the augumented reality, seen through phones or glasses, reading about missions, packages, quests and it was disturbing and creepy see the characters being controlled more and more, until they try to quit the Game and be free. Reading they being so controlled and observed was suffocating and I felt their emotions, their warring thoughts.
I loved the characters in The God Game, because they were flawed and human. Charlie with his rage, Alex with his depression, Peter with his need to control everything, Kenny and Vanhi with their desires and family's pressures. It was moving reading how Charlie was so lost after his mother's death and how Peter, in his own, maybe debatable ways, was with him or how Charlie was so caught up in his own grief to not want to reach for Alex's pain, favouring the carefree and unconcerned Peter. Or how Alex was so in pain to get involved so much in the Game, that used his suffering to manipulated him. Or Vanhi's and Kenny's ambitions, their fear of disappointing their parents, their need to do the right thing, to be honest.

This book put forward interesting and moral questions. If it someone or something offered me what I want, would I accepted it? Even if it hurt someone? Could I hurt someone to save someone else, maybe a loved one? Someone else's pain is worth my friends' or family's lives or could I sacrife someone to save myself or my loved ones?
During all the book, from small and innocent missions, the characters found themselves debating moral choices, which path take. If someone is a bully he deserved to be hurt and humiliated? Can I ruin someone's life to life mine better?
What will you do if your life isn't yours to control anymore? If you didn't ever have any control on it? What will you do when you're so caught up in the Game and you can't see any way out other than the worst one? And the Game, in his infinite power, manipulated, fooled and tricked all his gamers, until the ending, showing them the free will was a difficult thing to achieve, in The God Game, to be free from the Game itself.

Charlie and his friends grew in the book, I loved reading about their development, their choices, their desires, their healing each other. I loved their relationship, how they all are so fallible, human, torn between doing the right thing and follow their desires, their selfishness.

Besides pushing the reader to think about moral choices, grey areas and religion, it's a book about friendship and relationship, mostly between fathers and sons, from the complex and incredibly frustrating one with Alex and his father to Charlie and his dad.
About friendship, because it was absolutely moving reading they going to the great lenght to save and protect each other, notwithstanding their small fights and misunderstanding.
It was a book that gave me hope, because its characters, even though they are hurt and flawed and will do mistakes in the future, go towards a path of growth, forgiveness, another chance to liberation, like one of the character say.
That things may seems bleak and awful, but you could go on, pick yourself up, glue the pieces together again and try to be better, to try again and harder. Not alone, of course. With friends, family and help.

This book is absolutely brilliant, pushing the reader to ask questions, to seek answers, to be moved by friendship and love
And, to be honest, to fear how far the technology, any AI, could go and do.
An excellent read. A 5 solid star. Danny Tobey's writing style is enthralling and his characters are alive and pulsing with life and choices.

Two of my favourite quotes:

“I'm a guinea pig in a fucking morality play that stops when I'm dead?”

His mind was a house of pain, all exits locked.

I thought this would be similar to "Ready Player One" but it doesn't reach the same heights. Still quite entertaining in parts though largely forgettable.

Religion, a paradox; God a chat-bot.


A new take on what I have seen on page and tape several times before.


Despite that, I found this rather enjoyable to read. It is aimed more at a YA audience than my older age.


Take one group of social outcasts, put them in situations that they would never normally find themselves in. Add an AI god that appears to have put even the worst megalomaniacs to shame.


Do, as the GOD sees fit, and be rewarded. Go against its wishes, and be prepared for the consequences.


Fairly well paced, with a few unexpected bits thrown in to boot.


Well worth a read if your 15 - 20ish


Rated: 4.2 / 5.0


Status: Completed

Wow, this book was a spectacularly crafted, non-stop ride, though I'm taking away a star for casual sexism. I have no patience any more for token female representation in YA. Thankfully, the only girl was gay, though the main protagonist did have a crush on her at a time in the past, which would have ticked off another stereotype. She was also absent for much of the final denouement.
The plot, the concept of the God Game, the pacing, etc., were brilliant, even though some of the philosophy was lost on me. As a writer on tech, particularly cyber security, the premise of an all-seeing, all-knowing "intelligence" was quite fascinating to me.
(Review copy from NetGalley)

In all honesty, I requested this book mainly because the blurb said that it’s a lot like Stranger Things and they were right!

I wouldn’t call it a complete ‘fantasy’ but there’s some aspects of fantasy in it.

There’s a group of five friends each dealing with their own problems when two of them (Charlie and Peter) discover this “God Game’. At first they don’t think much about it, they think it’s just someone messing with them behind the screen but then it starts sending them messages which are very secretive and very personal.

Things get intense and it starts making them do these dark and different tasks and are forced to do all these things because they are kind of threatened to be killed if they stop playing the game.

In all of this mess, the group falls apart, they start questioning each other and things get very dark.

This was quite a thrilling book, It’s fast paced and it’s a bit of a mix of a lot of movies and books so I think a lot of people will enjoy this.

Many thanks to the publisher for providing me an ARC of this book.