Brock Wilbur

In a book about a game from 1997, Wilbur still manages to somehow dedicate a portion of the book to complaining about Donald Trump's presidency - y'know, the one that started nearly twenty years after the game came out?

Wilbur's clear disdain for a lot of things shows - and as he paints us a picture of Postal creator Vince Desi as a brash, unlikable guy who Wilbur heroically manages to find factors of interest in (thanks in large part to Postal 2 co-creator Mike J) - though not enough interest to speak to beyond a drunken evening, choosing instead to rush out in the morning - it ends up painting Wilbur as the less likeable character DESPITE Desi's clear attitude of not caring if you like him.

Contributions by editor Gabe Durham are in the same vein as Wilbur's writing - focused less on Postal itself and more on their perceived Postal player, a seeming white-supremacist neo-Nazi would-be-mass-murderer boogyman who wants to be, according to Durham's chapter, William Foster from "Falling Down" - despite Forester killing only about 8 people, almost all in self-defense (and at least one accidentally), one of who he kills because the victim IS a Nazi. Go figure.

Rabin's section - focusing on Uwe Boll's Postal film - is annoying in it's own way (though Rabin still manages to bring Trump's presidency in for some reason or another), as he spends far too much time talking about himself. Rabin understands Boll, we learn, because like Boll, Rabin is some sort of tortured artist whose dislike of the system (Hollywood for Boll, film criticism for Rabin) comes from their working in it and understanding it so deeply. Presumably Rabin is looking for more work, as he nearly writes a CV for himself in there.

The book has it's moments - Rabin has a few interesting (though not particularly novel) things to saw about Boll, and Wilbur's interview with Desi (when it's actually Desi and Mike J's responses in print as opposed to Wilbur's internal monologue) has some great moments of interest.

That said, it's not worth the $15 price of admission for paperback (or whatever I paid in the Kickstarter) nor the $5 for Kindle, and barely worth the couple hours it takes to read it (it's short, which is perhaps it's best quality). There is far better stuff written on every subject this book touches upon, no matter which side of any of the issues you stand on.… (more)