Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Sadie is visiting her very ill older sister in hospital when she inadvertently meets Sam, a very ill boy. They are both bored. Video gaming bridges their awkwardness and indifference, until suddenly it fuses their friendship into an intense, enduring business partnership. In Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin entrances us with the history, creativity, and genius of immersive games – first standalone and then online.
Sadie and Sam work in each other’s pockets. Their intuitive understanding of each other’s imagination and brain power compels them to create increasingly philosophic and technically complex worlds for players. Their irradicable friendship staggers on through periods of neglect, jealousy, and outright rage propelled by their inability to speak openly, listen, or forgive.
Marx is the easy-going, practical guy. Once Sam’s roommate, he takes on the role of producer, ensuring that the brilliant games get to market, have publicity, are manufactured. When he gives advice, he is not fazed if the two creative stars don’t take it. When something really needs to be done, he carefully maneuvers around the egos to get the needed result. His respect for his two friends is infinite.
Dov, on the other hand, is a jerk. He taught Sadie most of what she knows and seduced her to keep her close-by. Almost without effort he casts himself as angel investor and takes a good chunk of the new company in return. Nevertheless, his money, expertise, and contacts are necessary to lift Unfair Games into the top tiers of the gaming industry. Behind his casual, laconic spurts of advice is a sharp brain with startlingly accurate predictions.
Gabrielle Zevin paints a broad picture of the history of what we might conceive of as a relatively new phenomenon. The artistry that comes from Japanese paintings swells into a populated world inside Sadie’s games. As game platforms evolve and emerge, the creators change their patterns of thinking to encompass techniques unavailable in earlier times. The addition of online gaming pushes them to re-imagine their older game worlds with new possibilities. Sadie and Sam are both change-makers and change-responders, as we are all forced to be.
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