The Devil's Game

(Original Review, 1980-11-09)

THE DEVIL'S GAME of course, is "follow the leader" played by seven people in a South American paradise for a prize of 1 million, tax free dollars. The prize will be split among everyone who lasts through the game. The challenge for each player is to devise tasks which will force the other players out of the game, either through failure to perform the task, refusal to perform the task, or death resulting from the task. The game's sponsor is Sunderland Haverner, a fabulously wealthy man who has come to depend on the whispering voice of Samael. A voice which has helped him amass his fortune, designed the game, and which may be demon, alien, or the product of Haverner's own mind. The point of the game is to show more observe how each of the following carefully chosen contestants of "this mongrel species called man" evolves in the game: a terrorist revolutionary, a god fearing military subcontractor, a flower child turned housewife, a playboy sportsman, a small time hoodlum, a would be boat-bum, and a mother fighting to save her child who needs enormously expensive, advanced medical care.

At this point it should be obvious that THE DEVIL'S GAME, like Anderson's THE AVATAR, is just another exercise in simply drawn stereotypes mouthing an author's arguments. However, where THE AVATAR incorporated an excellent novelette dealing with Joelle and mind/computer linkage with a universe spanning subway system to divert the reader's attention throughout the rest of the novel, THE DEVIL'S GAME has only the well-drawn characterization of the amoral Haverner to redeem it. The contestants remain cardboard cutouts which relate the story in first person during their turn as leader. Unfortunately, the lack of characterization is crucial because it leaves the novel's resolution implausible, without which Anderson fails to make his ultimate point.

In brief, THE DEVIL'S GAME is a mixture of Monty Hall's LET'S MAKE A DEAL with William Golding's LORD OF THE FLIES. Superficial and disappointing.

[2018 EDIT: This review was written at the time as I was running my own personal BBS server. Much of the language of this and other reviews written in 1980 reflect a very particular kind of language: what I call now in retrospect a “BBS language”.] show less

An odd book for Anderson, outside his usual range - and not entirely successful. With Sheckley's "10th Victim", one of those books that predicted 'reality' TV (In this case, "Survivor").