Product Description

The first collection of poetry about video games ever published, BWIATD takes its readers on a psychotic and hilarious tour through the arcade and console games of the Eighties (and beyond). Funny, approachable, and beautifully illustrated by Warren Wucinich, BWIATD is sure to delight and thrill anyone who enjoys (or has enjoyed) playing video games.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #924407 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 30
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Review
"A perfect diversion" -- Gerry Tritz, Jefferson City News Tribune, February 5th, 2004

"A romp to read... poignant and funny." -- Heather Newman, Detroit Free Press, February 8, 2004

"Barkan extols the frenetic pleasures of consoles in prose as explosive [as the games themselves]... Plug in, reminisce, press continue." -- Britt Brown, Flaunt Magazine, Spring Fashion Issue, 2004

"If you've spent any amount of time with the titles covered, there are few things funnier in this universe." -- Game Informer Magazine, October 2003

Unlikeliest Muse of the Week -- Entertainment Weekly Magazine, March 5, 2004

From the Publisher
"Blue Wizard" covers the entire history of video games: from the 80’s through the present day, no title is left out. The book serves up a near-psychotic and utterly hilarious pastiche of pop culture iconography that is both warped, familiar, and (in places) strangely poignant. Pixilated heroes are undone by giant, end-of-level bosses. 8 year-old children gawk in awe and wonder at grown-up video game masters. Mario is portrayed as a Stalin-esque dictator who drives the princess to suicide. Ninjas from "The Legend of Kage" infest suburban carports. People die of dysentery and inscribe their own epitaphs on their tombstones in "Oregon Trail". Children of the 80’s are placed in charge of defending the world from nuclear holocaust in "Missile Command". "Pac Man", "Sinistar", and even a series of non-traditional haikus about the bosses from the first "Mega Man" game… The list is endless. If you remember the blue code screen from "Metroid", the end of level maze in "Kid Icarus", or the terror of being chased by a blocky scorpion in "Pitfall", then this book is definitely for you.

Barkan’s work has been compared to a disparate gathering of legendary creative talents ranging from Charles Bukowski and Tom Waits to National Poet Laureate Billy Collins. His approachable style and twisted sense of humor will keep readers in alternating states of nostalgic recollection and laugh-out-loud hysteria.

The book also features 30 pages of meticulously researched appendices listing some of the author’s all-time favorite games, a list of references contained in the poems (for non-gamers), an account of "Grue Hunting In the Great Underground Empire", and tons of commentary on the games themselves.

Beautifully illustrated throughout by Warren Wucinich, "Blue Wizard" is sure to delight anyone who has ever frantically dug in their pockets for another quarter as the "CONTINUE?" screen counted down.

About the Author
Seth "Fingers" Flynn Barkan is a lifelong video game enthusiast, Stride pianist, and amateur musical preservationist. He works as a bar critic and games columnist for Las Vegas CityLife and is currently working on a guide book about some of the seedier attractions of Sin City (Barkan is a native Las Vegan). "Blue Wizard" is his second book.

Warren Wucinich is currently working on several forthcoming graphic novel projects slated for release during the 4th quarter of 2004. He also lives in Las Vegas and occasionally enjoys pretending to be a caricaturist on the Las Vegas Strip.

Customer Reviews

May be the first, but far from good.
Blue Wizard is about to Die is not a good book of poetry. There, I said it. I know its taboo for a gamer to think that there is more to literature than cursing and really shallow writing but it is true. This book is the first of its kind, and the writer is the first to really go into Videogame Poetry, but once somone else comes along this book will fall into the unknown fast. [...] Will soon be the pioneers of videogame poetry and does a much better job of it.

Mario, the Evil Yoshi killer
A marvelous collection of poetry and prose on a subject often looked over---video games! And not just the oldies like Super Mario and Bubble Bobble, but also some based on newer titles such as Counterstrike and Onimusha. Many of the poems take you inside the head of a gamer doing what s/he does best, from the aggrevation of getting killed in the same spot repeatedly to the overwhelming rush of victory. Some pieces even seem to touch on the dark sides of games we normally presume to be happy and cheery. Every part of this book is connected tightly to the video game phenomenom. There's even a nifty index in the back with explanations and opinions of Seth Barkin on the games discussed in the poems. Great collection that is a must-have for even the gamer that can't put the controller down--trust me, for this book, they will!

Something Different.
BLUE WIZARD IS ABOUT TO DIE is heralded as being the first book of poetry written about video games. I really have no sure way of checking the accuracy of that claim, but as far as I know it's true. The poems in the book discuss all sorts of games, including computer games and interactive games, but many are from the classic era of video games: the days of Atari and classic NES. Subjects of poems include Super Mario Brothers, Pac Man, Joust, Kid Icarus, Paperboy, Doom, Dragon's Lair, Mega Man, and Oregon Trail. The poems are very post-modern and some are simply deconstructionisms of the games they are about. When I first ordered this book, I thought it might be interesting to use some of the poems in my English classes to illustrate how poetry can be written about anything. I'm glad that I bought the book because I enjoyed reading it, but I won't be using more than one or two poems from it in my classes: the book is filled with foul and inappropriate language. An interesting book of poems focused around a very interesting premise.