POLYBIUS Book Review: Mysterious Video Game Turns Deadly

In the fall of 1982, Tasker Bay, a small town north of San Jose, California, U.S., finds itself at the crossroads of new money and old values.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Home Video World, a combination video store and arcade, where older customers rent new-fangled videotapes and young customers play games on used arcade cabinets that the owner, Mal, buys on the cheap at auction. Andi works at Home Video World as Mal's trusty arcade mechanic and counter assistant, but the teenager yearns to escape the small town where she was forced to move with her mother after her parents split and return to Silicon Valley, with the idea that reuniting with her father will allow her to pursue a career in new technologies.

Published today by Simon and Shuster, Polybius, the debut novel by Collin Armstrong, first introduces the idea of a mysterious video game with a powerful effect upon everyone who plays it, before introducing a cast of characters who easily come to life through a combination of realistic dialogue and empathetic motivations. These are not just characters: they feel like neighbors, the citizens of a small town that have been dealing with the tensions that come from long-time residents forced to commingle with a flock of newly-arrived strangers who want to change their way of life.

Andi's mother, Rachel, is the town's only medical doctor, and thus welcomed by the local folks, yet Andi herself is reserved, always holding herself back from drawing close to anyone in town, focused on what she views as her inevitable departure as soon as she graduates from high school. Even so, she finds herself attracted to Ro, a fellow student and the son of the town's sheriff, David. Andi and Ro have similar dispositions, and it's no wonder that they make a connection.

Timing is everything, however, and the town is soon plunged into increasing terror, all tied to the arrival of a mysterious video game, housed in an anonymous arcade cabinet, that Mal buys for Home Video World. The game quickly draws a line of eager players of all ages. Simultaneously, random acts of violence, uncommon in the small town, began small before slowly ramping up.

Collin Armstrong, who once upon a time contributed to our site, creatures an environment that feels familiar -- early 1980s, small Northern California town, video games -- that initially evokes many easy comparisons, such as John Carpenter's The Fog, Tommy Lee Wallace's Halloween III: Season of the Witch, and the Netflix series Stranger Things. In the opening prologue, however, Armstrong feints towards the jugular, suggesting that this story will not tip toward the mythical or the supernatural. That's borne out by the manner in which the narrative develops, which is singularly distinctive, even as it evokes even more influences and/or comparisons.

Armstrong has his own style, though, which is also established early: his writing is lean yet muscular, with every word chosen carefully. Early in my reading, some sentences jumped out for their clever turn of phrase, as did certain clever couplets. Those examples quickly multiplied as the stream of the story plunged onward, in a manner that makes it easy to read and increasingly gripping.

The town of Tasker Bay comes vividly to life: the diners, bars, markets, and shops, as well as Home Video World, which feels like every video store I've ever visited in my life. More than the town itself, though, it's the characters who come vividly to life that makes Polybius such an engaging read. Armstrong sketches every character, including all the supporting cast, in a true-to-life fashion, and digs deeper into his lead characters.

By the time the action fully revs up, sympathies for individual characters have already been established. I turned the pages, eager to see the fate of favorites, while dreading what I might read. Polybius has the heart of a pulp thriller and a head that knows what makes people tick, making for an exciting debut novel by Collin Armstrong.

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