None
2 stars
I really wanted to like this. I'm a huge Tetris fan, and was already pretty familiar with the Tetris origin story. I'm also a huge graphic novel fan, and was primed to enjoy the combination of the two. In fact, I lay down and read the book in an hour or two the night I got it, and immediately rated it 5-stars on Goodreads, even though I knew at the time I had some reservations. But I didn't write a review. I didn't think about it deeply enough to articulate those reservations to myself.
I had a chance to re-read it this morning, and realized immediately what was wrong. Two things: 1. the story is barely about Tetris. It is some parts about Tetris, in the middle mostly, but it has a beginning that makes all kinds of statements about games and the origins of games that is written in …
I really wanted to like this. I'm a huge Tetris fan, and was already pretty familiar with the Tetris origin story. I'm also a huge graphic novel fan, and was primed to enjoy the combination of the two. In fact, I lay down and read the book in an hour or two the night I got it, and immediately rated it 5-stars on Goodreads, even though I knew at the time I had some reservations. But I didn't write a review. I didn't think about it deeply enough to articulate those reservations to myself.
I had a chance to re-read it this morning, and realized immediately what was wrong. Two things: 1. the story is barely about Tetris. It is some parts about Tetris, in the middle mostly, but it has a beginning that makes all kinds of statements about games and the origins of games that is written in a very declarative style. These statements are written as if they are fact: some about the origins of senet (one of the first board games); some about which came first, art or games; and some hasty conclusions about the motivations of people as they play games. I would go so far as to say that all of these statements, written as if they are absolute truths, written as if they are well-researched facts, are entirely subjective at best and downright incorrect at worst.
Much later, after what I consider the best parts of the book in the middle, about the actual origination of Tetris, the book becomes primarily about the IP rights battle(s) that plagued Tetris for years. Don't get me wrong, there are many interesting stories in there, but I feel like they're so much less interesting than the origin of games and why we play games, ideas that the book begins with, makes poorly drawn conclusions about, and then abandons.
The entire book is written as if there is nothing subjective about it. These are depictions of facts. History. And after those first 30 pages about ancient history... pages with lots of statements I found suspect, I found it hard to read all the rest without a hefty suspicion. My skeptical hackles were up. The seeds of doubt had taken root. It's entirely possible the rest of the book is well researched, but I wish the book hadn't started as it did.
The second thing I disliked about the book was far more subjective. I loved the art style. The drawings in the book are awesome. But they are not, with a few pages of exceptions, at all inspired by Tetris.
Now maybe this is weird, but I'm a Tetris connoisseur. I've played every Tetris variant I can get my hands on. I've got ALL of the Tetris board games. I've got a collection of Tetris tee-shirts. So... I like Tetris art. And I really expected to find a bunch of it in this book. Overall, I was pretty disappointed. For the most part, pentominos are really only found on pages that depict the actual game itself. The cover is an exception, it is not what we find inside.
