The Score

 The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game, by C. Thi Nguyen, © 2026, 368 pgs.

Fascinating topic but was ultimately unsatisfying for me, despite a glowing blurb from Steve Wozniak on the cover. Nguyen, a philosophy professor, dives into his philosophy of games, breaking down scoring structures into a concept he calls "The Four Horsemen of Bureaucracy," which are Rules, Scale, Parts, and Control. These, he posits, are the key components in games but are also found in many disciplines in work and life. A basic example is the shoe cobbler versus a worker in a shoe factory. One is an artisan and craftsman, the other is a cog in a machine, doing a basic task in exchange for consistent work. Everyday we operate in a world of these kinds of rules in exchange for something for value, but with games it's different. When we play games, we operate in someone else's structure, but doing so creates a sense of 'play.' This sense makes a game fun--even if the game is not that good. Nguyen tacitly argues that we should approach other systems of control in a similar fashion--as a playground for ideas and learning. Ultimately, while there are a lot of good ideas here (and I think this is a great book for the non-philosophy-minded reader), Nguyen fails to land on a solid ending. What he really ends up doing is describing economics and the dangers of capitalism writ large. And even though the subtitle of the book is "how to stop playing someone else's game," he openly admits that he has no answer. I get what he's trying to say, but I wanted him to at least land on a conclusion, even if it was a challenging one. He was too indecisive, too afraid to tell the reader what to think, lest he be contributing to the same structures he's attempting to dismantle. Ending the book with a choose-your-own-adventure style ending only made it feel listless.

Rabbits

 Rabbits by Terry Miles, 448 pages. 

K is obsessed with the alternate reality game most commonly known as "Rabbits" or sometimes simple "The Game." This mysterious game is so vast that it uses all of reality as it's canvas, and so secretive that nobody really knows what it is or what the prize might be (although the rumor is NSA or CIA recruitment and a billion dollars). There are also rumors that playing the game can be deadly. But something is wrong with the game. K is approached out of the blue by Alan Scarpio, a billionaire and the rumored winner of the sixth iteration of rabbits. He says tells K that something is wrong with the game. Players have been disappearing at an unprecedented rate, and if K isn't able to fix it before the 11th iteration starts the results will be catastrophic. Then Alan Scarpio disappears and 11 starts. Now K must follow the signs and win the game in it's most dangerous form, or face terrible consequences.

This novel is set in the same universe as the podcast of the same name by Pacific Northwest Stories, which is why I picked it up. Although based on the same fictional game, they are both standalone stories, and don't seem to quite line up with each other factually (which has some interesting implications within the narrative). This novel is described as a "technothriller" which I would say is pretty accurate, although I would say that it is also obvious that Terry Miles has a background in writing horror. I found this book riveting and hard to put down, and found myself plowing through to the end. Unfortunately, the ending was a little disappointing to me. I won't get into specifics here (for spoilers reasons), but I feel like this books real strength was building mysteries. This strength falters a little when it comes to actually providing answers for those mysteries, and I feel like what was presented as "what's actually going on here" was not the most interesting option, or the one that goes best with the evidence we were provided. Overall I would say that this book is still definitely worth the read, even if it flubbed the landing a little.

Black Chalk

Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates, 346 pages

Fourteen years ago, six Oxford students started playing a game that focused on dares, consequences and general tomfoolery...or so they thought. As the game wore on, the dares got bolder, brasher, and altogether meaner, taking a toll on the students' lives and friendships. Told through a series of journal entries that bounce between the early days of the game and today, Black Chalk is a slow-burning, high-tension novel that hints at dire consequences for the players of the game. Throw in an unreliable narrator (the reader can't be sure which character's even writing it until a third of the way through the book) and you've got yourself a spooky story in the vein of The Bellwether Revivals or Donna Tartt's The Secret History.