PositiveThe Los Angeles Review of BooksWhile tales of ineffectual bureaucracy, contractual confusion, and commercial hoodwinking over computerized configurations of squares stuck together may not sound like a page-turner, Ackerman doles out intrigue worthy of Robert Ludlum or Tom Clancy. It’s a behind-the-Iron Curtain nail-biter ... there are moments in The Tetris Effect when the certainty of the author’s knowledge seems suspect. These are not histories, exactly, but dramatized recreations of history. Ackerman’s writing is serviceable if occasionally crude, but the simplicity of the prose only makes the book read even more like a supermarket thriller, which suits it.
Michael W. Clune
PositiveLos Angeles Review of BooksClune’s book is about Clune, and that turns out to be much better than Clune’s book being about computer games ... It is its own thesis and antithesis: a song of praise to the world of numbers that can never fully earn that praise, except by entering the world of letters.
