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The Gamer Chronicles
LET THE GAMES BEGIN!
Roll the dice, choose your avatar, strap on your virtual reality goggles, and get ready for the ride of your life.
In this title in the acclaimed Future Chronicles series of speculative fiction anthologies - created by USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Samuel Peralta - eleven authors break the rules in worlds of gaming adventure!
The Gamer Chronicles features stories by Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award-winning author Ken Liu (Star Wars: The Legend of Luke Skywalker and the Dandelion Dynasty series), Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning author Seanan McGuire (Every Heart a Doorway and the Wayward Children series), plus work from nine more of today's top authors in speculative and science fiction.
The game is on!
Roll the dice, choose your avatar, strap on your virtual reality goggles, and get ready for the ride of your life.
In this title in the acclaimed Future Chronicles series of speculative fiction anthologies - created by USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Samuel Peralta - eleven authors break the rules in worlds of gaming adventure!
The Gamer Chronicles features stories by Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award-winning author Ken Liu (Star Wars: The Legend of Luke Skywalker and the Dandelion Dynasty series), Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning author Seanan McGuire (Every Heart a Doorway and the Wayward Children series), plus work from nine more of today's top authors in speculative and science fiction.
The game is on!
280 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 15, 2019
53 people are currently reading
89 people want to read
About the author
Samuel Peralta
70 books104 followersSamuel Peralta is a physicist and storyteller. He is most well-known in publishing as a poet, short story writer, and creator of the "Future Chronicles" anthologies, with over 20 bestselling titles to date.
Peralta's writing has been spotlighted in Best American Poetry, selected for Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, and has won multiple awards, including from the UK Poetry Society and the Palanca Memorial Foundation.
He is a supporter and producer of independent films, one of which was nominated for a Golden Globe and another garnering an Emmy Award.
Peralta is the founder of the Lunar Codex, launching the works of 30,000 writers, artists, musicians, and filmmakers from over 155 countries, to the Moon.
Peralta's writing has been spotlighted in Best American Poetry, selected for Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, and has won multiple awards, including from the UK Poetry Society and the Palanca Memorial Foundation.
He is a supporter and producer of independent films, one of which was nominated for a Golden Globe and another garnering an Emmy Award.
Peralta is the founder of the Lunar Codex, launching the works of 30,000 writers, artists, musicians, and filmmakers from over 155 countries, to the Moon.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
February 16, 2019
Absolutely enthralling.
You don't need to be a video gamer to read this anthology. Anyone with love of a good story will find this collection AMAZING! I think each and every tale is fan'freakin'tastic. But I'm going to pick Christopher Boore's Gam3rGurl as my favorite. It is has stuck with me since I originally read it. Saul Tanpepper's story is a superb addition to his Gameland series.
Take a chance. You may just find some of your new favorite authors here.
You don't need to be a video gamer to read this anthology. Anyone with love of a good story will find this collection AMAZING! I think each and every tale is fan'freakin'tastic. But I'm going to pick Christopher Boore's Gam3rGurl as my favorite. It is has stuck with me since I originally read it. Saul Tanpepper's story is a superb addition to his Gameland series.
Take a chance. You may just find some of your new favorite authors here.
February 17, 2019
Okay. I’ve got to say this up front: this is, by far, the best Kindle book I’ve read in a year. And I’m a voracious reader, as the cliché goes: I’ve been doing it since I was two and a half, and writing almost as long, but I’ve been discouraged lately by a whole lot of books with a whole lot of potential that have been... a whole lot of disappointing. But not this one.
The fact that I’ve also been an obsessive gamer since Pong was a thing, but really starting in with hours of Atari 2600 — yeah, I’m showing my age, shut up — and am fascinated with the leaps and bounds the technology has made in my lifetime, pretty much sets me up as the perfect audience for this, tbh... but even if your knowledge is only passing, it’s worth the read. I found this book so fantastic that I finished it in one unbroken six-hour sitting, smoking cigarettes and drinking soup so I wouldn’t have to stop to eat.
Standouts? All of them. But my favorites are “Dupe” — which is just terrifying enough to kick in that adrenalin rush I get from good horror and perfectly sculpted to create an incredible mental image. (As an opener it was fabulous, and quite frankly I expected it to have set such high expectations that the rest of the stories would struggle to live up to; happily, I was surprised.) — “Hacking Dad”, which hit me in too many feels in an unexpected place, “Sick and Tired”, which, as a chronically ill person enraged and gratified me by turns, “Game Chat”, whose ending made me laugh out loud and cheer; “The Clockwork Soldier”, whose plot echoes thoughts I’ve had for years about what defines a person, what makes free will, and who decides, “The Sandbox”, Jon Frater’s unabashedly detailed journey into the algorithms behind the game — and the world — that most of us can only guess at, and their dark sides; and the closer, “But We Were Heroes Once, in Empty Places, After Dark”, that hit me with a one-two punch of plot twist that I thought I’d predicted only to be... partly wrong, and happily surprised, with a surprisingly optimistic ending.
But ALL of the stories here are spectacular: there’s no filler, no “Oh, I usually skip that one” that you find re-reading some anthologies. If you’re a gamer, a techie, a fan of sci-fi — even in the most casual way — or just someone looking for an antidote to badly-written, poorly-edited reading fodder, get this book: buy it, recommend it, pass it on. Share it with your Guild, your party, your squad: but by all means, give it a try. The questions here are surprisingly deep, the answers unexpected, and the journey to get there ABSOLUTELY worth taking.
The fact that I’ve also been an obsessive gamer since Pong was a thing, but really starting in with hours of Atari 2600 — yeah, I’m showing my age, shut up — and am fascinated with the leaps and bounds the technology has made in my lifetime, pretty much sets me up as the perfect audience for this, tbh... but even if your knowledge is only passing, it’s worth the read. I found this book so fantastic that I finished it in one unbroken six-hour sitting, smoking cigarettes and drinking soup so I wouldn’t have to stop to eat.
Standouts? All of them. But my favorites are “Dupe” — which is just terrifying enough to kick in that adrenalin rush I get from good horror and perfectly sculpted to create an incredible mental image. (As an opener it was fabulous, and quite frankly I expected it to have set such high expectations that the rest of the stories would struggle to live up to; happily, I was surprised.) — “Hacking Dad”, which hit me in too many feels in an unexpected place, “Sick and Tired”, which, as a chronically ill person enraged and gratified me by turns, “Game Chat”, whose ending made me laugh out loud and cheer; “The Clockwork Soldier”, whose plot echoes thoughts I’ve had for years about what defines a person, what makes free will, and who decides, “The Sandbox”, Jon Frater’s unabashedly detailed journey into the algorithms behind the game — and the world — that most of us can only guess at, and their dark sides; and the closer, “But We Were Heroes Once, in Empty Places, After Dark”, that hit me with a one-two punch of plot twist that I thought I’d predicted only to be... partly wrong, and happily surprised, with a surprisingly optimistic ending.
But ALL of the stories here are spectacular: there’s no filler, no “Oh, I usually skip that one” that you find re-reading some anthologies. If you’re a gamer, a techie, a fan of sci-fi — even in the most casual way — or just someone looking for an antidote to badly-written, poorly-edited reading fodder, get this book: buy it, recommend it, pass it on. Share it with your Guild, your party, your squad: but by all means, give it a try. The questions here are surprisingly deep, the answers unexpected, and the journey to get there ABSOLUTELY worth taking.
February 20, 2019
I am a gamer. Have been since 1980 (yes, you read that right). RPGs (role playing games - yes, I promise to continue translating game-ese for those who aren’t gamers) like D&D and GURPS then MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing games). You name it I’ve done it. As has my hubbie and our two now grown kids. No surprise then that I love LitRPG and that I really enjoyed The Gamer Chronicles (Future Chronicles Book 19). Most of these stories were pure catnip enjoyment. One, however, particularly stands out. This is Virtual Hero by Anthea Sharp. It’s s story that does indeed include an online RPG element as the hero here, Rod, plays a PC (player character), Rodimas, main tank (a type of player designed to withstand punishment) for the top raiding guild on the North American servers of a top-rated MMORPG, Barratica. Virtual Hero is broken up between a battle online in the game and what happened the next days at his school where Rod is something of a nerd (hey, I was a nerd-girl at school so I’m qualified to recognize the type). This is where the story gets powerful as Rod gets caught in a dangerous active-shooter situation in the middle of the school cafeteria. How he tries to deal with this, and how his background as a gamer of all things helps him, makes for a truly chilling story that totally grabbed me in many ways. The anthology is more than worth getting just for this tale, but frankly the others in the collection are loads of fun so I’d have recommended it based on them alone. But for the fact that I’m literally dictating this review to my husband from my hospital bed I could go on and on with praises. This anthology definitely deserves it. Since I can’t do that I will simply note that the anthology is most definitely one to read, and it is easy to highly recommend.
March 25, 2019
It's uncommon to find an anthology where each story is engaging, where I don't feel like I'm slogging through even ONE story, but this one gets it! Maybe it's the subject matter, I'm a heavy gamer and have long thought about the impact of games on driving technology and their social/mental/moral implications on society.
Many different types of games were featured here, including how games might iterate into the future: RPG, FPS, Sandbox style, MMO, VR, LARP, text-based, present-day, close future, distant future...so much diversity! The story selection did a bang-up job covering this very broad genre! I guess you could probably "genre" this as "science fiction" but each story is a combination of sci-fi and something else: coming of age, horror, military, fantasy.
Many different types of games were featured here, including how games might iterate into the future: RPG, FPS, Sandbox style, MMO, VR, LARP, text-based, present-day, close future, distant future...so much diversity! The story selection did a bang-up job covering this very broad genre! I guess you could probably "genre" this as "science fiction" but each story is a combination of sci-fi and something else: coming of age, horror, military, fantasy.
February 23, 2019
I received this book as a giveaway from the SFWA, so I cancelled my existing pre-order. I find it common that the quality of the stories varies tremendously. For example, for me, the Seanan McGuire was head and shoulders above most if the other stories. There were the usual is life a game itself trope in different manners but really only skimming the ideas and implications. Yes it is a short format but some authors handled the format better, for example, Ken Liu managed more real emotion in only a few pages than most books manage in 350 pages.
The series is a good idea, for this episode the lower quality of the not better known authors dragged to nook down for me, hence three stars from me.
The series is a good idea, for this episode the lower quality of the not better known authors dragged to nook down for me, hence three stars from me.
March 23, 2019
Excellent! This is a great collection of stories! I'm not a gamer, but I do love good science fiction. There's plenty of it in this book, and no experience with gaming is required to enjoy it. I can usually choose a couple of favorites from any anthology, but not this time. Nine out of the eleven stories are my favorites. I'll just leave it at that. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
December 24, 2019
Not a big gaming fan
Much of the book was about gaming and that alone made me wonder: what am I even doing here?? I didn't understand half of the lingo but I'm sure it was well-written. All Sam's anthologies are top drawer! So, ENJOY! Maybe some day one of you can translate for me!
Much of the book was about gaming and that alone made me wonder: what am I even doing here?? I didn't understand half of the lingo but I'm sure it was well-written. All Sam's anthologies are top drawer! So, ENJOY! Maybe some day one of you can translate for me!
February 19, 2019
Superb collection
Unlike many anthologies, these are truly self-contained stories and fully-realized environments, not teasers for other books or series, no cliffhangers - though some surprising twists.
Unlike many anthologies, these are truly self-contained stories and fully-realized environments, not teasers for other books or series, no cliffhangers - though some surprising twists.
March 10, 2019
Short stories are my jam
There is always fun in exploring a bunch of new worlds some by authors I know who pointed to this book, others I have yet to discover. My gaming days ended around Super Mario World so I am sure I missed a lot of MMORPG references, but I still enjoyed it.
There is always fun in exploring a bunch of new worlds some by authors I know who pointed to this book, others I have yet to discover. My gaming days ended around Super Mario World so I am sure I missed a lot of MMORPG references, but I still enjoyed it.
February 17, 2019
I loved this book. It was much than Cats, I'm going to read it again and again.
June 2, 2019
👍
This is a good collection of short gamer stories. And it has a nice variety too. A fairly quick but good read.
This is a good collection of short gamer stories. And it has a nice variety too. A fairly quick but good read.
March 27, 2022
“But We Were Heroes Once, in Empty Places, After Dark” by Seanan McGuire
February 19, 2019
It should be no surprise by now that I am not only a big fan of anything gaming, tech, hacker/jacker, kind of books, but also any Samuel Peralta Chronicles, so put the two together and you know I am right on it. This particular Chronicle brought eleven authors together under one title, some of my favorites stories are:
Gam3rGurl by Christopher Boore - Grace's life is falling apart but a chance to go to a all gamers school comes along so she snags it and dives head first into the online world but is it to real?
Game Chat by Ernest Egher - Harry just wants to find a planet where he and his friends can build there own little kingdom in the game world but this person N00BK!LLA68 keeps killing them no matter what they do. So how do they win against this guy or can they and who is it?
Virtual Hero by Anthea Sharp - Rod is a top ranked raid leader on the servers but actually he is in high school but soon his skills will be tested in real life will he be up for it?
Love, Virtuality, and the Good Kill by SaulTanpepper - Eric pilots a remote ground drone and for extra money his wife decides to beta test a computer holographic game. Eric noticed how realistic it is and how much she was playing it, but thought it was good for their relationship since he was being deployed for several months. How good is it really for their relationship?
The Sandbox by Jon Frater - What would you do to get the best and baddest ship in the game you are playing so you can find people to play with? Would you spend all your money on the best gear, best lootboxes? Steal money when yours run out? From who, your family, work other people?
There are even more authors I didn't mention and they have great stories as well so this is a great time to either read some of your friends work or meet some new authors and maybe find a bunch of new friends, either way I don't think you will be disappointed.
Gam3rGurl by Christopher Boore - Grace's life is falling apart but a chance to go to a all gamers school comes along so she snags it and dives head first into the online world but is it to real?
Game Chat by Ernest Egher - Harry just wants to find a planet where he and his friends can build there own little kingdom in the game world but this person N00BK!LLA68 keeps killing them no matter what they do. So how do they win against this guy or can they and who is it?
Virtual Hero by Anthea Sharp - Rod is a top ranked raid leader on the servers but actually he is in high school but soon his skills will be tested in real life will he be up for it?
Love, Virtuality, and the Good Kill by SaulTanpepper - Eric pilots a remote ground drone and for extra money his wife decides to beta test a computer holographic game. Eric noticed how realistic it is and how much she was playing it, but thought it was good for their relationship since he was being deployed for several months. How good is it really for their relationship?
The Sandbox by Jon Frater - What would you do to get the best and baddest ship in the game you are playing so you can find people to play with? Would you spend all your money on the best gear, best lootboxes? Steal money when yours run out? From who, your family, work other people?
There are even more authors I didn't mention and they have great stories as well so this is a great time to either read some of your friends work or meet some new authors and maybe find a bunch of new friends, either way I don't think you will be disappointed.
July 11, 2025
Excellent Anthology
I picked this book up because a few of my favorite authors had written stories for it. Sometimes with anthologies, you get one or two stories that aren't your cup of tea, but every story in this one is a winner. And even better, I found some new authors whose writing styles I enjoy. I highly recommend purchasing this book.
I picked this book up because a few of my favorite authors had written stories for it. Sometimes with anthologies, you get one or two stories that aren't your cup of tea, but every story in this one is a winner. And even better, I found some new authors whose writing styles I enjoy. I highly recommend purchasing this book.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews