The Crossed Keys Chronicle

Polybius

Polybius books cover

As a general rule, I am not a fan of the horror genre. Whether it’s in books, TV, or movies, the genre is just not my thing. I am much too easily jump-scared or grossed out by gore. Despite this, I still gave Polybius a shot because the title and subject matter—video games—are near and dear to my heart.

The name Polybius is taken from a real-world urban legend that has been circulating on the internet since at least the early 2000s. The general gist of the story is that there was an arcade game named Polybius that mysteriously appeared in the Pacific Northwest in the ’80s and caused a variety of ailments in those who played it, up to and including insanity. For those interested in the real-world history behind the name, there was a good Radiotopia podcast series about it in 2017 that delves deep into the history and the lore.

With all that background out of the way, on to the novel version of Polybius. This version of the story starts in 1982 in a Northern Californian town named Tasker Bay. The town is Silicon Valley–adjacent, so it’s experiencing an influx of new residents due to the tech explosion happening at the time. Our protagonist, Andi Winston, is a recent transplant to the town following her parents’ separation. She is the stereotypical loner kid, with a penchant for tech hardware hacking learned from her now-absent father. Andi spends her afterschool time working at “Home Video World,” a combination video rental/arcade store.

The store’s unscrupulous owner, Mal (definitely no foreshadowing there), purchases a salvaged video game cabinet which, of course, turns out to be Polybius. I’m going to drop some relatively self-evident spoilers here, but let’s just say bad things happen to the people who play the game. The novel does a good job of slowly ratcheting up the tension and weirdness in the town as more and more people become affected by it. There's a very Stranger Things vibe to the storytelling, which is a show just on the edge of what I am ok with horror-wise.

Where it goes off the rails a bit for me personally is that, despite the slow-burn start, the novel eventually dives deep into horror territory. There are lots of descriptions of gruesome deaths, horrific mob violence, and people doing very horrible things to one another—some of which are caused by the game’s brain-breaking effects, and some simply by human nature at its worst.

The level of gore and violence, while probably nothing higher than what is common in a Stephen King style novel, was still higher than I enjoy in a piece of fiction. I finished the book mostly skimming the last fifty or so pages just to find out the resolution to the plot and I can’t say I’m too upset about that. If you do enjoy standard horror plots and are looking for one set in the ’80s with a video game theme, then this could be the book for you!