Lucky Wander Boy, by D.B. Weiss
Plume, 2003. 276 pp.

All human expression is subject to interpretation and critical scrutiny. Even early 1980's video games. Especially early 1980's video games.

Lucky Wander Boy chronicles the troubled, late-twenties world of Adam Pennyman, an underemployed dot.com copywriter with an obsession: the composition of an encylopedic tome, The Catalogue of Obsolete Entertainments.

An attempt to document the vital essence of every video game ever produced, Pennyman's entries in the Catalogue are sodden with philosophy. "Donkey Kong" takes on themes of societal structure and bestial sexuality. "Pac Man" becomes a treatise on rampant consumerism.

But Pennyman's effort is crippled when he attempts to research an elusive game created by a Japanese visionary -- "Lucky Wander Boy."

It's an interesting book, but not nearly as enthralling as the back cover suggests.

" . . . the debut of an original new voice that will captivate wanderers of every description."

This is the sort of copywritten crap that Pennyman is forced to churn out at his dead-end position. Despite its claims, the book won't be of interest to everyone. Those who didn't waste their formative years sitting before ColecoVision, Nintendo, or similar electronic stimulus may well find the book tedious. It's hard to get excited about "Frogger" if one hasn't spent hours guiding a pixilated frog across an interstate.

Nearly all readers, however, will be disappointed by the decidedly uninspired climax. It's as if Weiss, in a hurry to get his first novel to press, simply tacked on a slew of half baked ideas and poorly thought out plot twists. It's sad to see this from a graduate of the famed University of Iowa Writer's Workshop.

But this can be forgiven. For those with sufficient levels of geek, Lucky Wander Boy will be quite fulfilling.

Fig1. Lucky Wander Boy contemplates the fire hazards posed by that tangle of cords.

The Middle Stories, by Sheila Heti
McSweeney's Books, 2002. 144 pp

I was biased from the start.

In the interests of a fair and balanced review, I should admit to being involved -- albeit in a very limited fashion -- with the production of this book.

Attending a reading at Chicago's Hideout, I was issued a series of stickers, a permanent marker and instructions to follow rules written on a dry erase board at the foot of the stage. They were as follows:

1. Use only the markers provided.
2. Don't use words in your design.
3. Go easy on the fat guy.

Depicting images of a 70's prom night, something involving Gary Coleman, and a corpulent bearded man, the stickers were destined to adorn The Middle Stories itself. Each one unique, the audience was designing covers for the book.

As my skillfully crafted stickers are out there somewhere, the book had better sell.

Fortunately, Heti's clean, unadorned prose should do very well. A collection of modern fables, The Middle Stories are at once joyful, pensive, and tragic. They're tales that would be suitable for children were they not so brutally honest.

In this, Heti departs from the rest of the McSweeney's field. Without sacrificing sophistication, she writes with a beautiful simplicity at odds with the often self-indulgent manuscripts of those huddled in the shadow of Eggers. It's refreshing.

The Middle Stories are beautiful. Take them with you to the beach and enjoy them with your toes in the sand.