Michael W. Clune

Michael W. Clune is the dangerous combination of academic and doper rolled into one. Dopers love talking about dope and academics love talking, or writing, in this case. This book is about Clune’s love of heroin and his many attempts, ultimately successful, to quit it.

There’s doper philosophy salted among the tales of scoring dope, using dope, screwing up because of dope and trying to stop. Overall, Clune appears to be an asshole, on drugs or not, but he doesn’t try to hide it.

The book is interesting in parts, with some good scenes and memorable characters, but I’m not sure it’s deserving of a reprint.… (mais)

I spent half an hour trying to figure out the shorthand for this book. It's a description we try to come up with for all the entertainment we tell others about: Oh, this movie's like Batman but with zombies. That book is like Dickens if he got bored halfway through and just filled out the rest with random sentences (oh wait, that's regular Dickens).

I failed in this case. It's not really like anything. The best example I can give is it's the memoir equivalent of "literary fiction" - as defined as a genre novel that uses big words, flowing prose and a disjointed rhythm enough that people call it a work of "literature" instead of a book. It could just as easily have been fiction. The distinction really doesn't matter in this case.

It's the story of a childhood lived through videogames. It's a story that many probably relate to, though I hope to God not too much. Clune definitely writes with a voice that can keep you interested (in the way that someone grabbing you by the throat and pulls your face right next to theirs keeps you "interested"), and the man knows his way around a videogame. I was wavering the whole way through, but I guess it says something when my biggest complaint is that I really wanted to know what happened after it ended.… (mais)

This book had great promise. It reminded me of playing Zork and an all-text game based on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on my Commodore 64. But the nostalgia factor faded fast. Clune often waxes poetic about computer games (which is fine by me) but overdoes it and the writing is often self-indulgent. This would have been better without the middle-school parts (I'm a nerd, I'm isolated, etc., etc.) and if he had focused only on the games--and even then, only on the first few. We don't need to be told why people love Call of Duty.… (mais)