Once Adam Pennyman rediscovers the classic games, he soon finds himself obsessed with his childhood entertainment. In secret, he begins to work on a project of his own, a project that he believes will also keep the memory of the golden age of arcades alive, The Catalogue of Obsolete Entertainment (COE). Pennyman quickly gets to work going through games from his past, but soon finds himself focusing on one game in particular, Lucky Wander Boy.
And as soon as this game wanders back into his life, Pennyman meets up with an old friend of his who works for a production company that just bought the rights to the obscure arcade title. Claiming to be a writer (with the rationale that he is writing the COE), Pennyman takes a job at the company and his obsession increases a hundred fold, even the entries that he adds to the Catalogue of Obsolete Entertainment show his lack of focus on the overall project and Pennyman's new obsession.
As the story line progresses, Pennyman's goal to meet the creator of Lucky Wander Boy and to find out what lies within the secret and seemingly unreachable third stage, takes precedence over everything else. D. B. Weiss does an excellent job of portraying Pennyman and developing his character as much as possible, while the other characters in the book seem to be a little two-dimensional, but this makes sense, because a majority of Lucky Wander Boy takes place within Pennyman's head. To the main character himself, all of the other characters are 2D and removed because they don't matter as far as he is concerned, at least not as much as his obsessions do.
For anyone who remembers the classic games, this book will leave you reminiscing and wanting to hunt down an ATARI 2600, Intellivision or look for the closest arcade that still carries that one game you grew up on. This is a must read.
