Rating: 
Summary: When you don't have it, you don't have it...
Review: I tend to disagree with most posts, and I also have been a gamer with a very similar passion for video games as the main character. The battle between the corporates and the artists is no lie, and this book shows what every developer goes through on any video game project, even though that has nothing to do with the actual message the writer is trying to give.D. B. Weiss seems like an intelligent person and has the writing skills of anyone I'd expect to be in the video game industry, but if this is any proof, he is not a novelist...at times, the symbolism was so obvious it was embarrasing and it didn't really contribute or solidify the message he was giving. In one instance, the big evil boss sits down and starts slapping a dog in the face, and the dog doesn't do anything but growl...just seemed entirely obvious and out of place, for lack of a better phrase... In a few words, if you were not a gaming nerd in the "golden days" of the arcade, or don't know anything about the development process of the gaming industry, this book really puts a light on the culture. I found the book to be the first of it's kind, and the message rings very clear to arcade fanatics...it was also tedious to read and the characters are flat and mysterious. Problems like this can only attributed to the inexperience of the writer.
Rating: 
Summary: High Fidelity for Gamers
Review: I've always liked videogames, and always felt a little bit embarrased when my more "intellectual" friends would make fun of me for it, like it wasn't something as worthwhile as reading books or even seeing movies. (I like those things too, but whatever.) Now I've got something I can give the "intellectuals" to let them know that videogames are just as worthwhile a thing to consider as any other form of entertainment. That thing is Lucky Wander Boy! But really, the heart of this book isn't in its elaborate and hillarious (and just possibly correct!) videogame theories. Lucky Wander Boy is about Adam Pennyman, a guy of about thirty years of age who is starting to realize that his whole adult life has been spent doing, well, nothing in particular, and he's starting to freak out about it (sound familiar?). Because he doesn't want to be a slacker or a loser: he wants to DO something with his life, something worthwhile. So the search for the long lost videogame Lucky Wander Boy symbolizes something very important for him, it's the thing that will provide meaning to his life. Anyway, it doesn't quite work out the way Pennyman would like it to, mostly because what he wants (and the game Lucky Wander Boy itself) is totally impossible.....but impossible in the coolest possible way, which I won't spoil for you by telling you about it. Definitely check this book out. You won't regret it.
Rating:
Summary: Weird, different, Great!
Review: I've tried explianing this book to people, and it just never comes across as making any sense. How do you explain a character who thought he saved his grandmother's life with the power of an Atari? That has obsessed over the same video game for 20 years that he never managed to beat? That finds some kind of convergence in philosophy and Donkey Kong? It makes more sense than it seems, and manages not to insult your intelligence while entertaining, which is becoming a more rare occurrence by the day. I hope more books come out like this.
Rating:
Summary: major letdown
Review: If D.B. Weiss had a target audience for this novel, it would be me. I share so much in common with the main character that I couldn't help but buy this book. Furthermore, it starts off pretty good. His metaphysical analysis of common videogames is quite amusing. I was sure I was on to a new favorite. However, by the time I was done with this novel my opinion had changed completely. The main flaw in this novel is the weakness of the characters. Except for certain non-vital situations, we are left with a very dim picture of who the characters are. Even the protagonist in this story is a mystery, which makes all of his random behavior even that much more agonizing. Of course, some novels with very flat characters can get away with it if there is an exciting plot, but this book goes nowhere. I know he was trying to be clever with the ending, but it just contributes to my distaste for this book. Actually, that is how I would summarize this novel: Although there are a few successful attempts to be clever, this book is lacking some of the basic literary foundations that would make it readable.
Rating:
Summary: A Dot is Worth a Thousand Words
Review: If you are reading this review, you no doubt share fond memories of the classic arcade games of the late `70s and early `80s with your fellow readers. For some this renewed interest can be satisfied by playing a few games from the past on a console or emulators such as MAME, but for others these games and the memories with which they are intertwined become no less than a detrimental obsession.
Enter Adam Pennyman, the main character in the D.B. Weiss novel, "Lucky Wander Boy." Adam, a moody self-absorbed copywriter and sometimes charlatan graphic-designer, has an epiphany of sorts when a colleague introduces him to the MAME emulator. Childhood memories of a dingy arcade in Illinois and other trappings of his teenage years engulf him as he witnesses the rebirth of Frogger on a laptop screen. While this book details the epiphany of Adam Pennyman as he rediscovers games from his past, there is much more presented to the reader than just 80's nostalgia.
D.B. Weiss delves into a study of the inexplicable and unpredictable occurrences that we all experience and looks at the paths that these events put before us. Weiss uses non-fictional games such as Pac-Man to illustrate this study in passages such as this discussion concerning our voracious yellow friend and his penchant for the dots in the maze:
"...each dot will possess a snowflake's uniqueness, and the acquisition of each-no, the experience of each-will bring the Pac-Man a very specific and distinct joy or sorrow. The dots all rack up points equally, of course; in retrospect, however, some are revealed as wrong choices, links in a chain of wrong choices that trace out a wrong path leading to a withering demise beneath the adorable and utterly forgiving eyes of Blinky, Inky, Pinky, or Clyde."
The protagonist's quarry, the fictional Lucky Wander Boy arcade game, exemplifies this concept in that its rewards are earned through a random chain of events within the game. While most games I played as a youth had a predictable set of actions and outcomes due to an obvious path towards success such as the repeatable movements in Dragon's Lair or the rudimentary artificial intelligence in Pac-Man, Lucky Wander Boy might be described as a surrealistic foray into random chaos and reward. No particular sequence of events can be repeated that appear to lead the avatar towards reproducible success. Rewards tend to appear through random actions of the player, but also these rewards and sights offered to the gamer will vary by individual. Of course, in an environment of such flux, one might begin to question natural laws and make otherwise obviously illogical choices.
Weiss uses the common junction of classic arcade games in many of our memories as a starting point to show how divergent our life experiences and results truly are. Like the pixilated hero in the Lucky Wander Boy game, our fate is left to many dimensions of chance and coincidence, our own action in the face of these events, and an infinite number of other forces at work around us. The ensuing and seemingly random threads; events, connections, experiences, and acts lead each of us to certain, but infinitely individual endpoints. Along these threads, we tend to have milestones of sorts that many of us share in our collective experiences that provide points of reference much like a trail of breadcrumbs. For Adam Pennyman, his memories of the classic gaming era renewed by his experience with MAME, become defining moments that he believes mark the beginning of his wandering from childhood naiveté to adult disillusionment. He attempts to retrace these breadcrumbs in order to find peace for himself as well as bring his arcade epiphany to life for the world to see.
James McGovern
www.retroblast.com
Rating:
Summary: awesome
Review: Lucky Wander Boy takes the reader down the spiraling descent of its obsessive-compulsive protagonist, Andrew Pennyman. DB Weiss' first page-turner drips with nostalgia for the video game age of the '70s and '80s that formed the better part of a nation. Weiss weaves a complex and surreal, yet highly entertaining, tapestry of one man's search for the meaning of life through his techno-geek art form. His ornate descriptions of the games brings the reader right back neon haze of his childhood arcade. I can't wait for the movie!!!
Rating:
Summary: awesome
Review: Lucky Wander Boy takes the reader down the spiraling descent of its obsessive-compulsive protagonist, Andrew Pennyman. DB Weiss' first page-turner drips with nostalgia for the video game age of the '70s and '80s that formed the better part of a nation. Weiss weaves a complex and surreal, yet highly entertaining, tapestry of one man's search for the meaning of life through his techno-geek art form. His ornate descriptions of the games brings the reader right back neon haze of his childhood arcade. I can't wait for the movie!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Great, insightful, witty....to a point.
Review: Lucky Wander Boy was the novel I'd been waiting for for awhile. When I first heard about it, I was psyched there was a novel coming out about video games. Little did I know that LWB was the TurboGrafx of new literature. The first half of the book is truly commendable. Weiss has a great writing style and an intelligent way of writing life through a gamer's eyes. We want to like Pennyman, and do, until he completely loses grasp on reality and spirals into this selfish, self-pitying stupor. It's even difficult feeling sorry for the guy, because he's so ridiculously hung up with his past. I can be overly nostalgic too- we all can- but there's a line. I don't regret reading it, because there is merit to the story. Thoughtful insight may be taken away. Some of it's actually very funny. It just could have ended a lot sooner.
Rating:
Summary: More than meets the eye
Review: Quite frankly, this book is far better and far more intelligent than it has a right to be. I read it in one sitting, constantly astounded that what was packaged as "High Fidelity for Atari fans," was actually a genuine piece of literature and social criticism. The book is hilariously funny, but without any of the cloying sarcastic sensibilities of most Gen-X novels. Instead, the author uses Pennyman to depict a kind of isolation and obsessiveness that's very familiar nowadays. He's a truly fascinating psychological portrait, an overly smart man who cannot cope with the inanities of the everyday world. So he finds solace in something seemingly even more inane, yet invests it with the entire weight of his scientific intelligence. He reminds me of those people with IQs too high to fit into everday society--the people who wind up bagging groceries while they muse about philosophers and string theory. But what's most remarkable is that the novel is never pretentious, never forced, never desperate. Weiss is a very assured writer, who unravels his complicated plot with patience, and who shows great empathy for his lead character. In short, this brightly packaged book, this tangle of wires put out as a concept--might just be one of the best books of the year. I can't think of another book that so effortlessly seemed to capture the zeitgeist.
Rating:
Summary: Its Super!
Review: Sarcasm aside, this novel is great. A prime example of what I label Existentialist Fiction, the protagonist is a self-accepted geek who finds the meaning of life to be a metaphor located in video games. But not contemporary ones where you are allowed, almost, the same intellectual wandering as with TV, but rather the arcade classics of his youth: Pac-Man, Space Invaders, etc. These, according to him, were the pinnacle of human entertainment. The novel proceeds through the standard motions of the postmodern angst novel, boy meets girl, boy tries to figure out what life is about, boy loses girl giving his life definition, boy finds new girl, etc. However, the ending is quite unique: instead of one concluding chapter, there are four, all called Replay. All four are different though, and it seems to be a case of pick whichever ending you like the best. While quite arrogant, the ending actually works, for some reason that I can't quite understand. It's arrogant and conceited, but it works and it is fun. The book was really good with some very witty observations on life. I highly recommend it. It is a worthwhile read, and I think that anyone who likes Existentialist Fiction will enjoy it. Buy it, read it, share it, and enjoy it.
Harkius
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