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What’s on your bookshelf?: Dread Delusion and The Night is Darkening’s James Wraggread-only
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Image credit:oldbookillustrations.com
Image credit:oldbookillustrations.com
Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome back to Booked For The Week - our regular Sunday chat with a selection of cool industry folks about books! Words are amazing, aren’t they? I once put in a cover letter to a creative writing university course that I’d “even invented several of my own words” before my mate talked me down from it. Spoilsport. This week, it’s the creative director ofDread Delusion, maker ofThe Night is Darkening, and Lovely Hellplace director, James Wragg! Cheers James! Mind if we have a nose at your bookshelf?
What are you currently reading?
The conceit is that Buddhist reincarnation is enforced through tech. When someone nears death, their ‘Karmic record’ (a brain-scan) determines their new body. Of course, because the so-called gods are really just tech bros, morality becomes politicised. It’s like if Elon Musk could turn you into a snail.
What did you last read?
Harrington does a fascinating job of deconstructing the medieval justice system to reveal why punishments were often so brutal. In a time when a single arsonist could burn down a city or bereaved relatives could incite a riot, executions were a way for the burgeoning state to project the illusion thateverything is under control, honest.
What are you eyeing up next?
I also want to grab Technofeudalism when it’s out in paperback. It’s Yanis Varoufakis' argument that tech monopolies have become our new feudal overlords, because they extract all this wealth from the world economy without giving anything back.
What quote or scene from a book has stuck with you?
It’s an obvious one, but at uni 1984 just blew my mind. Specifically, how O’Brien crushes Winston’s individualism at the end. He argues that “If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable”, then the Party’s version of Truth is absolute. It’s kind of an indisputable argument, and it chilled me to the bone. It’s also why Half-Life 2 is rubbish 1984 fanfiction - because it doesn’t end with the player’s entire worldview being smashed to bits.
What book do you find yourself bothering friends to read?
What book would you like to see someone adapt to a game?
“I was pretty sure I had listed every book ever written, but then I read it back and I’d only listed 11,” James wrote in his email to me. I’m sorry James, but what might have been a great series of responses in any other column is, here, simply an utter failure to name every book in existence. The fact you’ve cottoned on to this most secret of objectives might actually make it even more of a miserable failure, since you can’t even hide behind a veil of ignorance. Can’t be helped, I suppose! So, pop back next week for another cool industry person telling us about their favourites.
