An adult role-playing novel where the reader can choose different narrative options which can result in very different plot resolutions, highlighting our existential lives, where seemingly small decisions have monumental consequences.
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Amazon Review
Movie pundit Kim Newman's first novel was the cinematic SF thriller The Night Mayor (1989). Life's Lottery is a tour-de-force construct, built like a "choose your own adventure" gamebook, whose 300 numbered sections explore many possible lives of protagonist Keith Marion--born, like Newman, in 1959. You, the reader, must make Marion's decision at each split in this garden of forking paths. Seemingly meaningless choices have unexpected consequences. The first branch-point is a school-playground question about the TV show The Man From UNCLE: "If you like Napoleon Solo, go to 3. If you like Illya Kuryakin, go to 4". Long life and happiness lurk along some paths; others end early with the death-sentence "Go to 0", or the flat epitaph "And so on", when life's choices have run out and nothing new awaits. Schoolmates reappear in new roles in different strands, often to ironic effect when alternate stories are compared. Occasional SF timeslip opportunities let you switch stories or rethink old decisions. Some lives are touched by spidery horror, featuring Newman's diabolical newspaper mogul Derek Leech ... see especially The Quorum, 1994. Others encounter magic, madness, cancer, violence or prison. It's a lottery--except that you can always turn back, perhaps noticing the scenes not reachable by any official route, and try again. Inventive, frustrating, compulsive. --David Langford
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From the Publisher
Who do you like Napoleon Solo or Illya Kuryakin?
You’re six years old, you’re name is Keith Marion and depending on how you answer this question about The Man From UNCLE your life can have thousands of possibilities. And it’s only the first choice of your many possible lives.
You’re six years old, you’re name is Keith Marion and depending on how you answer this question about The Man From UNCLE your life can have thousands of possibilities. And it’s only the first choice of your many possible lives.
If you choose the right possibilities you may live a long happy life, or be immensely rich, or powerful, or win the lottery. If you make other choices you may become a murderer, die young, make every mistake possible, or make no impression on life at all. The choice is yours.
And by making the choices you do, you will change forever the lives of your family, your friends, your enemies, and your lovers. You can even change the fate of the world; all you have to do is pick one…
LIFE’S LOTTERY is an interactive fiction, you the reader are Keith Marion, the decisions you make will affect everything or nothing, but you won’t know until you choose. You can read LIFE’S LOTTERY like you live your own life, or make more interesting, more dangerous choices and if it doesn’t work out you can always start all over again and see what life has in store for you this time.
Every reader will create their own version of LIFE’S LOTTERY all you have to do is choose … open the book or leave it closed?
PRAISE FOR KIM NEWMAN AND LIFE’S LOTTERY: -
‘As rich and as revealing as you care to make it’ - Time Out
‘Unsettling but always gripping…like nothing you have ever read’ - The Times Metro
‘Strong characterisation and effective plot devices make for an intriguing read’ - Arcade Magazine
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By dangermash
Format:Paperback
I tell you what makes this book unique. In a normal novel, you get to know characters as you make your way through the story. But in Life's Lottery, you only really get to know the characters when you've read through every possible branch of the decision tree and can see all the different ways they would develop if different things happened in their lives.
It means that this isn't really a book to dip into occasionally while on the loo - you'd be missing out on so much that way. After a few reads through to different endings you come to the conclusion that you need to follow through every possible thread, however sad that sounds.
It also makes me wonder how well I know my friends. I've only seen them live the one life in this universe. I haven't seen what they would make of their lives had things turned out differently.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Owen Gard
Format:Hardcover
A fantastically exciting book/concept, as soon as you think you know what it is Life's Lottery shows another side.
How many novels start with a contemplation of choice & chance on the first page, and potentially kill you twice on the second? Not enough, because it's gripping stuff. It may start strongly, but, amazingly, it improves as the story(s) develop and the genres shift widely.
The density of plot lines means that absorbing the full picture will take several weeks (unless it keeps you up all night every night as it did me).
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I found this book incredibly moving, but perhaps that's because I'm from Bridgwater - the town which inspired the Sedgwater of the book - and so every page had a special resonance for me. Anyone who wants to understand growing up in a small town in the West Country should read this. A little self-indulgent, perhaps, but excellent nonetheless.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Life's Lottery
I stumbled upon Life's Lottery while trying to track down a 'choose your own adventure' book, and this seemed like an interesting one. Read more
Published on 22 Nov 2010 by Flom
5.0 out of 5 stars
everywhere i look it's a darkness
it's always gratifying when you see a book by an author as compelling as kim - who nonetheless remains a cultish figure - for sale dirt cheap at one of your ten a penny, one in... Read more
Published on 11 July 2007 by radio atlantis
3.0 out of 5 stars
Be Wary
This book depressed and frightened me like no other, I felt it was judging my own life, and the judgement was not good. Read more
Published on 17 May 2002
4.0 out of 5 stars
A great book for several reasons
You are Keith Marion as life starts. Every few pages you must make a choice. At this point the story splits as you're referred to new chapters depending on which you've chosen. Read more
Published on 25 Oct 2001 by Mike C
5.0 out of 5 stars
innovative
You always sense that Kim Newman is having a ball when he's writing, whether he's inventing a vampire-populated alternative world in Anno Dracula or in this latest fiendish web of... Read more
Published on 24 Sep 2000
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you don't play, you can't win
This is actually a perceptive, compassionate, and truly intelligent insight into what it means to be human, described as one of the most entertaining books of the year. Read more
Published on 18 Sep 2000
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable and involving
Life's Lottery is certainly an interesting book, and there's not much chance that you'll find it boring, because you're constantly involved in making choices, and you get used to... Read more
Published on 8 Jan 2000 by aidan@obscurity.freeserve.co.uk
4.0 out of 5 stars
First time sharing a book is more fun than reading it alone
Compulsively written - I took this book on holiday with 8 friends - we all read it and each of us in the role of the character made different life choices - dated different... Read more
Published on 14 Sep 1999
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