So far this Prime Day we’ve pointed you in the direction for everything from the best gaming laptops to the best gaming chairs. Now, it’s time to take a look at the hardest of wares and hit the books. As much as we love art books, we’ve been longing for a fiction book that gets games right. Gabrielle Zevin’s novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow more than fits that bill, especially as you can pick up the paperback version for less than $12, and a hardcover edition for about $9 from Amazon.
The book follows dual protagonists Sam and Sadie across a decades-spanning narrative arc about love, art, and game development. Meeting in a children’s ward, the pair bond over The Oregon Trail and paper mazes, before weathering betrayal, and eventually becoming a complicated creative partnership in adulthood.
The course of neither love nor game development ever did run smooth.
The book doesn’t just make throwaway references to throwback titles. Instead, the games Sadie and Sam play (both video and interpersonal) are positioned as a thematic thread that punctuates and refracts their relationship.
For instance, Sam isn’t just tracing paper mazes to pass the time in the hospital; he doesn’t just want Sadie to solve the maze, he wants Sadie to see him in his creation. Of course, he doesn’t have the words to just say that—which makes the childish betrayal a few pages later all the more gutting.
I’m not going to say too much more about what tests Sadie and Sam’s relationship, but be aware that Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow’s mature exploration of toxicity towards game developers pulls absolutely no punches. Virtual violence bleeds out into reality, with devastating consequences for both Sam and Sadie.
Ultimately though, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is an optimistic book about connection through creation. That’s not to say ‘everything is okay in the end,’ but that the overall arc of Sadie and Sam’s friendship skews hopeful. To put it another way, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow will leave you looking ahead.
