Incredibly imaginative, Black Chalk, the debut for Christopher Yates, is one of the most compelling works of fiction put out this year.
The story centers on a group of freshmen students attending Oxford College in 1990s England. The odd collection of a half dozen friends includes an American farm boy, an orphaned Goth and a popular son of working class school teachers, among others. The crew decide to join an on-campus games group and create, with the oversight of their nameless mysterious game’s committee, a serious of dares that lasts well into the next decade and a half with sometimes sinister and dark consequences.
But far from being just another paint by numbers thriller, Yates injects plenty of dark humor into the book and each character is fleshed out fully with compellingly original characteristics. With various characters weighing in on their own interpretations of the experience, the reader is kept guessing until the last few pages. A fantastic debut from start to finish.
Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates/paperback/352 pages/Picador/2015
John Sargeant, writing on NeuFutur as Sargeant, is the founder and editor-in-chief of NeuFutur Magazine, where he has covered independent music, PC hardware, consumer tech, and gaming culture since 1998. With over 25 years of continuous digital publishing experience, he has written thousands of hands-on game and record reviews, conducted in-depth hardware field testing, and analyzed digital media monetization trends. His work prioritizes first-hand evaluation and long-term product testing.
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