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Jonny Nexus
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Game Night Kindle Edition

by Jonny Nexus (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.8 out of 5 stars 156 ratings
At the far end of creation, in a not so intelligently designed realm, five adventurers near the climax of an epic quest, upon which hangs the fate of their world. Sadly for them, however, they are but pieces in a roleplaying game being played by a group of bickering gods.

Epic events will unfold, only to then unravel. Secrets will be revealed and then forgotten. A much-abused reality will warp, mutate, rewind, and – on occasion – capitulate. Stupidity will birth tragedy; mischief will spawn chaos; malevolent arrogance will conjure forth genuine evil.

A story of myth and legend twelve thousand years in the making is heading towards its final chapter.

It’s game night.

What people are saying about Game Night and Jonny Nexus


“Game Night is gut-bustingly, rib-tearingly, bed-wettingly hilarious. It’s also sharply observed, cunningly crafted and decidedly well-written, but it’s the funny that leaves the impact ... The best novel ever written about gaming. One of the funniest novels ever written about anything.”
– Steve Darlington, gaming writer

"A Pratchett-esque debut novel of gods, roleplaying, and game-night kerfuffles. Buy Game Night. It's a fun, fresh, irreverent read that'll ring true to any gamer even if, unlike the protagonists, you happen not to be a god."
– John Kovalic, Writer & Artist (Dork Tower, Munchkin)

“Anyone who has gamed for more than 30 seconds will recognize the gamer archetypes displayed in "Game Night" (And if you don't, you're either extremely lucky or in denial). Nexus has turned these archetypes into TRUE archetypes - as in gods - as you watch them blunder and argue through a gaming session. "
– James R. Jenkins, Amazon

"This is the best work of gaming fiction I have ever read."
– Crothian, ENWorld Forums

"Start with a generous helping of Terry Prachett, add a dash of Douglas Adams, a pinch of Christopher Moore and season heavily with Dead Gentlemen’s Gamers. This is one of those few books that I actually laughed out loud when I read it. All in all, it's a fun look at life around the gaming table through the eyes of a group of slightly dysfunctional gods."
– The Geek Life Project
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  1. Print length
    214 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Accessibility
    Learn more
  4. Publication date
    22 Jun. 2011
  5. File size
    1.0 MB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
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  8. Enhanced typesetting
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Product description

Review

The best novel ever written about gaming. One of the funniest novels ever written about anything. -- RPGNet, April 2008

A Pratchett-esque debut novel of gods, roleplaying, and game night kerfuffles. A fun, fresh, irreverent read. -- John Kovalic, Writer & Artist (Dork Tower, Munchkin)

The writing is top-notch, the story is hilarious and the book is very reasonably priced. -- ENWorld, December 2007

The proverbial diamond in the rough. I recommend this book, especially to readers of KODT. -- Knights of the Dinner Table, Issue 145, November 2008

Review

The best novel ever written about gaming. One of the funniest novels ever written about anything.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0057JPZSG
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Wild Jester Press
  • Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ 22 Jun. 2011
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ 2nd
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1.0 MB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 214 pages
  • Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Customer reviews:
    3.8 out of 5 stars 156 ratings

About the author

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Jonny Nexus

Jonny Nexus

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Jonny Nexus lives in Greater Manchester, England with his wife, their daughter, a dog, and an array of chew toys that the dog invariably leaves on the top-most step but one.

He was the editor, co-founder, and chief-writer of the cult gaming webzine Critical Miss and has written both a book and a regular monthly magazine column for leading roleplaying publisher Mongoose Publishing.

His debut novel Game Night, originally published by Magnum Opus Press in 2007, was shortlisted for a Gen Con EN World Award (an "ENnie"). It is now published by his own imprint, Wild Jester Press, along with his three subsequent novels: If Pigs Could Fly; the Sleeping Dragon; and Sticks and Stones. A short story of his (“On Her Majesty’s Deep Space Service”) appeared in the "New Hero" anthology published by Stone Skin Press.

Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
156 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book funny and entertaining, with one mentioning it's particularly enjoyable for D&D gaming fans.

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5 customers mention ‘Humor’5 positive0 negative

Customers find the book funny and entertaining, with one mentioning it's particularly enjoyable for D&D gaming fans.

"Clever, funny and a rollicking good story. Seriously worth a read if you are a Pratchett, Adams or Fforde fan." Read more

"I thought it was a brilliant idea, and it was witty and entertaining... but, all the same, I got bored with it partway though and didn't finish it...." Read more

"Strongly reminded me of Terry Pratchett and the humour is spot on...." Read more

"Funny read!..." Read more

3 customers mention ‘Readability’3 positive0 negative

Customers find the book to be an excellent read.

"Clever, funny and a rollicking good story. Seriously worth a read if you are a Pratchett, Adams or Fforde fan." Read more

"...He gets it very right. Interesting book concept." Read more

"An excellent read, and for anyone who games this is a must read." Read more

Funny in the vein of Douglas Adams playing a D&D campaign
4 out of 5 stars
Funny in the vein of Douglas Adams playing a D&D campaign
Firstly i got the book for free as the Author is a friend of mine who i play boardgames with, so with that out of the way lets get on with the review This is a funny book, ive read funny books in the past, The Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy Series, the Red Dwarf books, and they have all managed to make me laugh out loud. This book is no exception. to anyone who has ever played any role playing games (either D&D or on on a computer) the jokes come thick and fast along with the situations the characters find themselves in. There was a point when i was reading this book on the Manchester Metro Tram, and i was laughing so often and so loudly, that i was making a girls journey rather unpleasant, hopefully she took note of the book i was reading and purchased it so she could find out for herself why i was laughing.
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Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • S. Summers
    5.0 out of 5 stars Seriously worth a read
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 October 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Clever, funny and a rollicking good story.
    Seriously worth a read if you are a Pratchett, Adams or Fforde fan.
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  • Jadziya
    4.0 out of 5 stars Witty and entertaining, but kind of boring at the same time
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 January 2017
    Verified Purchase
    I thought it was a brilliant idea, and it was witty and entertaining... but, all the same, I got bored with it partway though and didn't finish it. I think the problem is that the characterization seemed rather shallow surface-level (which, perhaps, was the intent), and, after a while, humour by itself gets dull. I think my attention also started to wane when the characters split up on their adventure. Still, don't take my review as the be-all and end-all - there may be some depth in the later chapters, and perhaps I'll read through all the way to the end one of these days and change my mind.
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  • Simon Mcdonald
    3.0 out of 5 stars Funny read!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 July 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Reminds me of all those awkward situations when DMing. He gets it very right. Interesting book concept.
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  • Mr. K. Lutener
    5.0 out of 5 stars Fun for D&D gaming fans
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 July 2011
    Verified Purchase
    Strongly reminded me of Terry Pratchett and the humour is spot on. For this price you really can't complain and people should always support up and coming authors :)
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  • A. G. Williams
    2.0 out of 5 stars but then given the fact that I genuinely didn't like it and gave up after 20 pages I left ...
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 September 2017
    Verified Purchase
    Honestly? I was leaving it at 2 stars for "it was OK".. but then given the fact that I genuinely didn't like it and gave up after 20 pages I left it at one star.

    Two star... didn't finish as I didn't like it.

    I could see where the author was going.. and in theory it was going to be very interesting, but honestly, after 20 pages I felt I just didn't care and it was too much hassle to keep stodgily ploughing through.

    Perhaps if the author spent a little time fleshing out the gods first I would be invested in their story, or indeed fleshing out the characters I would be invested, but it just didn't happen for me.

    Ultimately this is a matter of taste so your experience may be poles apart from mine. Personally I was very disappointed to have bought it in paperback, received it and looking forward to reading it on the sofa and then realising I would be better off going back to another book I had read before or even browsing Reddit. :-(
    One person found this helpful
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  • Kindle Customer
    4.0 out of 5 stars Did what it meant to do.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 October 2016
    Verified Purchase
    The gods play games with mortal lives. Quite literally. Also literally this is about a role playing game. There's that guy that shows up to fight things, that guy who is just there to steal stuff, the player that wants to be a noble savage and that guy that just never pays attention. Overseen by a games master who just gets bullied.

    I laughed, I cringed (a lot), it's very niche and is essentially an inside joke, but that's not a bad thing.
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  • Tim L
    3.0 out of 5 stars Guffaw or run for the hills, it all depends on whether you are already a gamer
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 November 2008
    I saw the book in a gamers shop, lying demurely amongst various other gaming materials. The tag line jumped up and hit me, albeit it with less force than a super-powered character with too many dice for whatever statistic is used to determine hit capability... I didn't even fully read the words on the back of the book, you know, the ones that are put there to help you make up your mind if you want to read the book. Not that it would have helped, the tag line had already sold the book to me. Oh, if you haven't already spotted it, the tag line is: "Six Gods sit down to spend an evening roleplaying. Really badly.".

    Having roleplay gamed for a fair few years now I reckon that I have a bit of experience to draw on when comparing this book to gaming groups, and I defy any experienced roleplay gamer to not associated someone or some event from their gaming experience with story.

    Most disappointing is the quantity of typos. Well, actually there are not too many actual typographical errors as such. Although any typos in a book are distracting, the most distracting 'problem' with the text is that there seems to have been trouble translating the "fl" and "fi" letter pairs into the text. In the 'old', lead type, days these letter pairs would have been produced using special individual 'characters' (referred to as ligatures). Unfortunately somewhere along the line this book fell through some sort of typo black hole as all of these particular ligatures resulted in gaps in the text, making it very distracting to read, even once I figured out what had gone on. This is a shame because I found the book otherwise amusing and can only be explained by either shoddy editing or a wholesale lack of proof reading the final product.

    I disagree that the book is Pratchetesque; but can understand why some others relate the two. Terry's style of switching between scenes is very similar to the way Jonny switchs between the dialogue of the Players and the actions of the Characters. Although in Nexus's book this is more from necessity to accurately reflect what goes on in many, if not most roleplaying sessions; if you've ever roleplayed for more than ten minutes you should know what I'm talking about. However, this is as near to comparing Nexus's ability to Pratchett's as I may dare to come; Mr Pratchett is magnitudes above Mr Nexus. It's not that I want to put Jonny's ability down, you just need to have a realistic expectation and this work is a far cry from Terry's best work.

    The 'in jokes' abound throughout the story, which if you have not yet gathered, centers on a group of Players and the Player Characters (PCs). The Gods are the Players, their PCs are 'mortals' in the game world. The story follows the PCs as they struggle to overcome the challenges set them by the Gamesmaster, in this case the 'Allfather', the God who created the world, as the Players know it. Or perhaps it follows the Players as *they* struggle to overcome the challenges...

    Experienced gamers will sit and nod sagely as they read, in between holding in various degrees of chuckles or just plain letting loose with great guffaws. The unitiated, however, may be put off ever getting involved with roleplaying gaming as Mr Nexus seems to have drawn upon the worst traits of all the worst gamers that one may have ever gamed with. Although I can both associate and sympathise with the situations and characters I believe that I can truly say that I've never known a group of players to ever include all of the players in this particular game.

    Although the book is set in what would traditionally be referred to as a Fantasy realm, sci-fi gamers will still be able to associate with the concepts of the story.

    Despite the shoddy editing, this book has a lot to offer, just don't try to use it to encourage a non-gamer a start gaming, you'll scare them away forever! I'd give this four out of five if they fix the typos.
    5 people found this helpful
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  • S M Wilson
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read, very funny
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 June 2015
    Verified Purchase
    An excellent read, and for anyone who games this is a must read.
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Douglas
    4.0 out of 5 stars Vielleicht nicht "nur" für Rollenspieler gut.
    Reviewed in Germany on 30 January 2013
    Verified Purchase
    Geschichte: Sechs Götter spielen ein Rollenspiel, nur dass das was sie beschreiben, in der Welt der sterblichen tatsächlich passiert. Interessant wird das ganze durch eine Vielzahl von Klischees schlechter Rollenspieler (Alles und Jeden töten der den Weg kreuzt ; alles stehlen was nicht niet- und nagelfest ist ; der Spieler der nie was sagt , usw.) die dafür sorgen, dass der Übervater, der das Spiel leitet, jede menge Mühe hat die Kampagne am Laufen zu halten und zu beenden.

    Das wars auch schon was die Geschichte angeht. Aber die Ausführung ist sehr Gelungen, mit tollen Einfällen, und ich musste ab und zu das Lesen unterbrechen um herzhaft zu lachen.

    Ich bin mir nicht sicher ob das Buch auch für Leute interessant ist, die keine Ahnung vom Rollenspiel haben, aber ich glaube die meisten witzigen Situationen werden nicht an ihnen vorbei gehen, da sie durch das Verhalten der Götter bzw. ihrer Spielercharaktere entstehen.

    Allerdings muss ich auch sagen, dass ich von dem Ende etwas enttäuscht war, dass relativ schnell da war und sich komisch anfühlte, auch wenn es zur Geschichte passte. Deswegen nur 4 Sterne.
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  • puggimer
    5.0 out of 5 stars A great, fun read.
    Reviewed in the United States on 6 October 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Full disclosure - I have not read nor even opened the Kindle version of this book yet. However I do have the paperback that is signed by Jonny Nexus from a gaming convention (Origins or Gencon, I don't remember which) several years ago. I bought the kindle version simply because my dead trees version is not again well - having read it several times as well as lending it to several of my gaming friends, it is fairly beat up and dog eared, which is a bit frustrating for a signed book.

    I have found that my reading time has grown quite limited as my children got older and I got busier with other hobbies - but it did seem that I would find time to read certain books that caught my eye. The newest Neil Gaiman novel for instance. And this one. The concept of gods playing an RPG where their characters are mortals is just brilliant. But even mores so is the interaction between them - if you have ever played a real pen and paper RPG, where a table of geeks sits around with snacks casting magic missiles into the darkness while one of them rumbles about in the kitchen looking for Mountain Dew, then you have played through so many of the scenes in this book.

    Watching as the players go through many standard RPG tropes, much like real players in the 'real world' do brought back so many happy memories of controlling my own 'mortal' and throwing the knuckle bones looking for successes. When they start taking back actions - "I didn't do that" and you can see how that would actually affect the mortals in the world - you just have to laugh out loud.

    If you are a fan of RPGs and can laugh at yourself (and your gaming buddies) then this is a book you will love. And it isn't like Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett at all (since that seems to be a death signal for books)
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  • Ryan McClintick
    3.0 out of 5 stars A fun adventure for a casual reader of fantasy but Game ...
    Reviewed in the United States on 15 September 2014
    Verified Purchase
    A fun adventure for a casual reader of fantasy but Game Night is very much for the in crowd of D&D and other pen and paper role-playing gamers. I'm not or have never been part of that so some of the in-jokes and parody was lost on me.It's a neat approach of gods playing a game and role-playing as mortals following an adventure planned by the Allfather who serves as game master. So basically the AllFather created all the gods and a infinite space so gods could create their own worlds as they see fit. While other gods create certain worlds like "Mr. Six Days" the AllFather has taken time to create a word of fantasy so he can tell an impressive tale at a upcoming gods summet. He has some lesser gods playing his game and his latest adventure does not go as planned as the other gods characters fight for the spotlight. The ideas in the adventure are fun and when the game is going the book is fun. But it derails as the players argue over rules and the allfather has to rewind or fast forward at times just to keeo the game moving. This soon becomes annoying as the reason to do so is repetitive. Its ruined by one of the gods player characters insist of attacking everything.

    I understand the book is making fun of those types of characters people make in D&D style games but the author keeps it as a focus for much of the story. He goes into some detail of the world all these gods live in, but misses a huge opportunity in not exploring it enough. If you like role-playing games ans play them you will likely enjoy it more than I did. This genre was a new experience for me and I only was ok with it.didn't hate it but didn't love it or like it really. Just blah after the midpoint. Dont read this if you have not played pen&paper rpgs or you will understand some of in-joke content
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  • Katsuhiro Otomo
    4.0 out of 5 stars Jonny Nexus hits again!
    Reviewed in the United States on 8 December 2008
    Verified Purchase
    Going into this, I had already read some of Critical Miss. While it does not help understand what is going on, it is a wonderful way to tell if you would like this author or not.

    Now to brass tacks: I loved this book. Believe it or not, I actually come off as The Jester when I roleplay, always making wisecracks and never really taking the game seriously. The characters were easy to identify with (well, minus The Lady, as the GM's girlfriend/boyfriend is usually a bigger danger and annoyance than the GM) and the plot moved along quickly, with four idiots, one girl, and a belaguered GM. I would say Discworld would be a close comparison to this-- Early Discworld, not the later stuff about the Night Watch.

    And now for the bad part-- the ending was not even okay. I did not enjoy it, and was left with a kind of "*shrug* well, that's it, I suppose" feeling. But, if you can get past that, this really is a joy to read.
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  • M. Robare
    2.0 out of 5 stars Terry Pratchett, This Isn't.
    Reviewed in the United States on 27 September 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Not horrible but not all that memorable. The plot is loosely based on a D&D-style game played by the gods, using mortals as their characters. Sadly, there's no investment in any of the characters and no real accomplishment...I finished the book and was thinking, "Okay, yeah...so? Where's the point?"

    Some enjoyable scenes detailing the gamer archetypes, but having played D&D since it was called Basic D&D (yes, I'm old), I can say I've never had the (dis)pleasure of enduring a game anywhere near as horrible as depicted in this book. No DM or halfway decent gamer I know would have put up with a modicum of that inanity. Sure, it can be argued that was the point: showing how inept the gods actually were at gaming, but ultimately it made no sense and had no point.

    My advice? Read it if its free and you're bored. Otherwise, spend your time actually gaming, or failing that, read the "Caverns & Creatures" series instead. Heck, read the webcomic "d20 Monkey"
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