The Game

First titled Invitation to the Game this is the story of a futute world where jobs are scarce and new graduates band together to survive in a ghetto-like city. Invited to play a virtual reality game, the six friends become enmeshed in using their talents to win at the game. The game turns real and they all must work together to survive. Not as gory as Hunger Games, the theme stresses the value of building community. Not as esoteric as The Giver, the story has just enough ambiguity to keep you guessing.

Was Searching for this book for years! Was one of my favorites growing up that I read in school and for the life of me I couldn't ever remember the name or find it until now. Highly highly recommend this book! Its about middle school/teenage reading level but even as an adult I look forward to reading this story many times over. Thank you for the excellent quality with no marks, cover bends or broken spine as well as excellent shipping! Would shop from this buyer again.

I read this book as a teenager and it enthralled me so much that it stuck with me for years. I tried searching for it years later, only knowing the title but not the author, to no avail. Finally found it, nearly 3 decades after initially reading it as a teen! Reading it as an adult was a bit different; teen-me must have read it with rose-colored glasses on, as I now found the character development a little lacking, and was often left with questions I didn't think to wonder about as a kid...for instance, why are most of these kids just dropped off at government schools as 8-year-olds (I assume from clues in the book that's about the age they would have been), never to see their families again, where others (Rich and Benta) had family farms/businesses that they went back to after school ended, fathers/parents they loved enough to be devastated when they were eventually ripped away from their comfortable lives to join the others in their Game quest. That was another thing unexplained; why was Rich mistakenly left out in the first place? It seems these kids were carefully vetted for the Game during their 10 years in school, and it seems highly unlikely that they would miss a doctor in their midst; it was only when during the Game someone mentioned that they wished they had someone with medical training with them that Rich was suddenly basically air-mailed to their doorstep like the gift they never wanted. With things like 'mind police' all over the place, this seems like a huge oversight! It also struck me that we know next to nothing about the main character. No visual description even, much less any personality traits. Where did she come from, and why doesn't she remember her family, or at least mention them? An 8-year-old should have well-formed memories of their life before that. She even questions her 'purpose' in the Game when everyone else has a skill to contribute...a question that is never really answered in the book. Did she not study something specific in school? Why was she selected in the first place if she had nothing to offer, when Benta was passed over initially, despite having farming knowledge? I didn't question these things as a teenager, but now they rattle around in my brain a bit. The visual description of the dystopian city was better; some of the things that stuck with me long after reading this book the first time was the desolation of a seemingly empty city during the day, but with the unsettling feeling that it has 'eyes' as the kids pass through, looking up at broken or dirty windows, descriptions of a seedy opium den, or the visually vibrant but derelict night-life as the city comes alive after dark in full flamboyant costume and raucous behavior and crime. I'd probably give this book 3 stars if I were reading it for the first time today, but given that it is indeed young-adult fiction, it is still a good sci-fi read. I've always been a fan of dystopian fiction, and this one gave me some food for thought over the years. It was fun to revisit it for nostalgia's sake!

Was just going through my Amazon account and looking through everything I've purchased since they started really tracking it (I don't know why, blame the boredom), so I decided to review this one. The caveat is that I purchased and read this two years prior to writing this review. I don't remember a ton about it, so this won't be much of a review, but I do remember a few standout details about The Game, it's purpose, and definitely the resolution. There were parts I found boring, I admit, and I don't remember thinking all that much about the writing. As I recall, it was a bit simplistic and not very lyrical or descriptive. It was functional and overall fine, but nothing that made me think I immediately needed to check out the author's other works as I have with other authors I enjoy. The whole game and its purpose was shrouded in mystery for most of the book. That alone probably should have annoyed me more than I did, but think of it like an Ender's Game type twist - once the resolution is revealed, it makes sense that it was kept secret for the entire story. I don't recall much about the characters other than they were not terribly developed and they were kind of bland. That they are so utterly forgettable should say something. What I can say is that this is a dystopia published originally in 1991, long before the glut of dystopian novels we are seeing currently, and when I read it, I wasn't yet burned out on the genre. Speaking from that perspective, I found it refreshingly different. Moreover, I found the author's choice of world-building - machines and computers replace the need for humans in various jobs, leading to a collapsed economy, poverty, and myriad other problems - quite visionary, prophetic, and realistic. These days, some authors seem to inflate any old trite problem into a society-collapsing calamity to create their universe (sometimes they just make it all up entirely) and they do so without concern for whether its plausible or realistic - they never scratch beyond the surface of their "idea" to determine whether it could truly result in a broken world. By contrast, this book used very real concerns as the backbone for her broken society, bringing to my mind the sci-fi authors of yore (like Bradbury or Clarke). Given that this was 1991 and (modern) technology and computers were not remotely mainstream yet, that the author chose that as the subject for her society showed real thought and insight into the dangers of our advancing tech. I appreciate that she took time to really think her idea through, something I think is sorely lacking in many of our modern dystopian novels (and I've read loads of them - it's one of my favorite genres). In any event, I recall liking the book, and I liked some of the thought-provoking ideas it raised about our future as we continue to advance, but by the same token, I also found it at least somewhat forgettable in that it didn't stick with me terribly long after I'd finished it. It was a short read, though, so maybe I will pick it up again someday and revisit the matter.

Invitation to the Game / 0-671-86692-3 I read this book as a little girl and spent the next ten years looking for it in book stores because it stuck with me so strongly. "Invitation to the Game" is in some ways standard science fiction fare: the earth is overcrowded with unemployed people, none of whom can find a job because robots can accomplish most tasks more cheaply and efficiently than humans can. When a group of young adults are dumped directly out of their high school graduation into the government run slums to "enjoy their leisure years" as unemployed adults, they despair that they will ever be happy again. Their "leisure years" are anything but, as they stave off simultaneously crippling boredom and the perils of extreme poverty in their "Designated Area" where gangs roam free at night and the other unemployed adults party themselves into an eternal stupor to dull the pain. When a mysterious organization offers the group a chance to participate in a virtual reality game for a mysterious prize, they leap at the chance, anxious to do anything to brighten their existence and bring meaning to their lives. Yet as the year goes by and their visits to the gaming center become more frequent, they speculate as to the true motives of this organization and what the real meaning of "The Game" truly is. "Invitation to the Game" is a fascinating exploration of a future where inertia prevents the necessary changes to society that are so terribly needed, and where brilliant young minds are in danger of being wasted in order to allow the system to continue unchallenged. This is not "action scifi" - much of the book is devoted to daily scrounging and survival without the help of adults (a sort of futuristic "Boxcar Children", if you will) and to periods of discussion over the nature of society and their own uncertain fates and futures. Hughes does a remarkable job moving the story as a fast clip, and her contrasting drab future society and vibrant virtual reality escape are wonders to behold. While the story sounds depressing and frightening, the Hughes maintains a light touch, providing nurturers among the group to act as a surrogate mother and father, and the young adults are remarkably self-sufficient and dedicated - teaching themselves karate and instituting a fun and healthy exercise regimen to protect themselves both within and without "The Game". While their world has hardships and privations, these are seen as challenges to be overcome rather than impossible burdens. While the individual members of this thrown-together group often do not get along, they nevertheless learn to respect each other and they solve conflicts realistically. The end result is that the reader relishes in their small victories and the privations of the world around them only make the victories that much sweeter. And when the prize of "The Game" is revealed, we see that the solution to their problems is both bitter-sweet and exquisite. ~ Ana Mardoll

Short and Sweet: The Game starts out as your regular every day dystopian, and then does a complete U-Turn into something different. There is so much that I would love to say about this book. But most of it would give the "surprise" away. So in steering away from that.. what I can say is that The Game is completely different than what I expected. Some of it good.. some bad.. most of it, completely unexpected. Final Verdict: There are books that are completely original and surprise you with said originality. The Game is one of these books. A fun bunch of characters are thrown in together for a wild ride. A twist that is out of this world. The only thing that drags the book down is the ending. Everything has built up to this pivotal moment. You get the twist.. then the novel wraps everything up as quickly as possible and you are done. I really wish that Hughes has spent more time developing the ending. But as it stands, The Game is going to be a hard book to forget.

This book was listed as like new, but it is good condition. The edges of the cover are bent and torn. It had spots like water damage/mold on the edges of the pages and back cover. It would be fine if I purchased the book for myself. Since I bought this as a Christmas gift, it’s disappointing.

The publication date may be misleading. This is a reprint. The author wrote most of her sci-fi books from the 70's to early 90's. It's been a long time since I read this, but as a teenager I was amazed. While the book is about an impoverished girl joining up in a crazy game to survive, that's as similar as it gets. While virtual reality stuff has not developed as much as predicted, it's still a very interesting plot and worth reading if you are into sci-fi. I loved all of Monica Hughes' books.