Item - Enemy of Chaos

[Rating: 0/10]
[Recommended? NO]

Let me try to explain something. When a work is good, it's right for one to offer it praise; in cases of a bad work, criticism is due. In fact, both praise and criticism should be offered under the right circumstances, be it constructive advice for an author to keep in mind the next time around or a helpful observation for readers of the review one might write. There are instances that show up once in a while, however, where the work in question is so irredeemably bad in every regard that it would be an absolute disservice to offer praise in any form. Really, honesty is the best policy when you find something you absolutely despise - and one shouldn't hold back when reviewing an awful work in a state of brutal honesty. And while Leila Johnston's "Enemy of Chaos" was universally panned when it came out by critics and audiences alike as one of the worst interactive works of all time, I don't think many individuals have truly come to understand why this shameless spit-in-one's-face is as rightfully despised as it is.

To make matters clear in no uncertain terms, let me put it like this: "Enemy of Chaos" is perhaps the single most ugly, mean-spirited work of interactive fiction ever written, and Johnston is perhaps the only gamebook author to date capable of giving the dreaded R. A. Montgomery a run for his money in the department of illogical mockery, pretentiously overdone smugness and disrespect to readers. The book is an open mockery - NOT a loving parody, NOT a lighthearted retread, and DEFINITELY NOT an homage - concerning the history of interactive fiction in all its forms. The writer takes herself SO seriously, ill-fatedly believes that she's SO clever and that gamebooks are SO outdated and worthy of making fun of. Which, to be fair, is an attitude that invites only scorn and nastiness, not honest or good-spirited intellectual consideration - just the hatefulness that Johnston personally has and wants to share with readers.

The book is a complete failure, and I deem it comparable - and I do not make this comparison lightly - to the disgustingly disastrous work of the Seltzer-Friedberg film duo: assuming the worst of others, not caring in the slightest, writing with the explicit intent to demean and talk down to the assumed-to-be-brainless "consumers". There are several truly awful human beings who have made it big in the publishing industry (ex. David Eddings, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Alesiter Crowley, etc.), and many of these individuals latched on to the most basic human desires in order to manipulate, desecrate and profane what is sacred to the mind, heart and imagination. In her own way, Leila Johnston thought about interactive literature, developed an impassioned contempt for it and decided to act upon that contempt.

The result? A lazy, greedy, incompetent mess that fails in the worst possible way. Not an ounce of love, creativity, warmth or kindness, and not a speck of truth or grounding in reality.

Do I support book burnings? As someone who's had stints in both the publishing and library archiving/cataloguing industries, not necessarily... but there are reasons I haven't outright ruled out the idea. I concluded long ago and still firmly believe that there are a select number of sincerely insulting-to-everyone atrocities which the world would certainly be better off without. And this is one of them. This is such an ugly, disjointed slap-in-the-face of an insult which never should have come into existence, utterly depressed with itself and merely meaning to tear apart what others had lovingly crafted and built; it wishes to needlessly profane what is loved by a select few - ironically, the opposite of the book's intended target audience.

With nothing in and of itself to convince others with, philosophically speaking, what is bad (and also what is worthless) aims to latch on to what is good, interesting, different (or at least not worthless in idea), and thus corrupt and deteriorate the very idea/appeal/promise of the original work. (This is to be distinguished from parody itself, which is often done in good fun. This book is anything but fun or good.) And so I come to my point: "Enemy of Chaos" stands as an intentionally bad - as in, evil bad - blot in the history of interactive literature, existing with the sole purpose of tearing apart the genre and destroying any positive memories one might associate with the books that gamebook veterans knew and loved. (To a first-time reader unfamiliar with the idea behind the format, this might permanently dissuade someone forever from giving an actual gamebook a try, I must point out.)

[Side Note: I do not wish to imply that Johnston, on the basis of this book, is as awful of a human being as Eddings, Bradley, Crowley, Seltzer and Friedberg, et cetera. Rather, I wished to call attention to the fact that her contempt for the whole literary medium is as volatile as the "contributions" of said individuals to their own respective forms of "artistic expression". My intention is not to construe an image of Johnston's character as such, but, rather, raise attention to how "Enemy of Chaos" is an unhealthy profanity against the common moral decency and legitimacy of gamebooks as a whole, both historically and sociologically. I offer my apologies if this distinction is not as clearly made as I intended it to be.]

Please do not consider reading this book. Some things in this world simply should be avoided, and I beg you at all costs to consider with me this book as one of those things to avoid. Trust me, both straightforward and lighthearted gamebooks are better done elsewhere; this book will merely leave you in a state of disgust and emotional despondency. In dead seriousness, ladies and gentlemen. Avoid, I say. Avoid. ^^

(Mysteriously disappears into the shadows.)

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