God Is A Gamer – Book Review

Author: Ravi Subramanian

Paperback: 324 pages

Publisher: Penguin Books India (September 12th 2014)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0143421395

ISBN-13: 9780143421399

Genre: Thriller

About The Book:

Set in the world of digital currency and the clandestine realm of the Dark Net.

Aditya runs a gaming company that is struggling to break even. A banker slips off a highrise building, plunging to her death. The finance minister has made some promises that he is finding hard to keep. The LTTE has unleashed terror in America that sends the FBI on a wild goose chase, bringing them to Mumbai. Enter Varun, parttime drug dealer and fulltime genius. He turns around the gaming company before disaster strikes. Meanwhile, the investigators plunge headlong into the shady world of bitcoins and the Dark Net, websites that only exist for illegal transactions—drugs, sex and money. God Is a Gamer culminates in a stunning climax where money means nothing, assassination is taught by the ancient Greeks, and nothing is as it seems.

About The Author:

Ravi Subramanian, an alumnus of IIM Bangalore, has spent two decades working his way up the ladder of power in the amazingly exciting and adrenaline-pumping world of global banks in India. It is but natural that his stories are set against the backdrop of the financial services industry. He lives in Mumbai with his wife, Dharini and daughter, Anusha. In 2008, his debut novel, If God Was a Banker, won the Golden Quill Readers’ Choice Award. The Incredible Banker won him the Economist Crossword Book Award in 2012.

My Take:

The cover vividly asks a question “Is Revenge A Crime?” You start reading the book, you find only crimes but no revenge, so is it misleading? Nah, wait till you reach the end of the book. It starts slow with seemingly unrelated events happening in different parts of the world. Every chapter adds layers to story, slowly building up the tension and the mystery. So initially the plot takes time to build up but during the second half the book becomes unputdownable. And when you think it’s the end, wait, for the last page will twist it once more! For a person like me with nil knowledge of finance it took time to be understood in the starting else it’s a smooth read moving through the ups and downs of the corporate world.

Characters and their personal lives aren’t much described for the reader to relate to any person but description is enough for the story to move quickly leaving the details to reader’s imagination.

Novel seems to be a well researched book relating a few real life events too. It introduces the reader to relatively new concept of bitcoins. All the necessary information required is nicely incorporated through the dialogues so the reader doesn’t feels lost or runs a Google search for each new term that comes up. Once in a while it did educate me too.It doesn’t create a world of its own but keeping the reader in reality it shows him/her what all happens in the world not-so-known. It perfectly mixes up various colors (even the darkest shades) of the corporate world, be it finance or technology or politics. Random revelations about the personal lives of the characters surprises the reader. It covers all- love, lust, lies,murders, scams and scandal, plans, crimes, theft and REVENGE! The book is, hence, a perfect blend of fact and fiction. A perfect page-turning thriller.

In a single line I would say: A wonderful read after a long time. A page turner.

My Rating:

4.5/5

And now I’ll leave you with a few lines from the book…

“If you live, you get to fight your battle another day.”

“Even if you have to quit, it’s important to quit on a high. That’s when the world will respect you.”

“Our real wealth is not in our bank accounts.”

“Clarifications caused complications.”

“The problem with theorizing on the basis of incomplete facts is that we end up twisting the facts to suit the theory. We should be doing it the other way around.”

“When you stop chasing the wrong things, you give the right things a chance.”

“Reputation has no insurance.”

“Success is not always measured in terms of dollars earned or turnover. It is measured in terms of the difference you have made to the people around you.”

“A white lie to catch a pink elephant is acceptable.”