Otaku
by Chris Kluwe
Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted March 12, 2025
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Chris Kluwe has been in the news recently for his protest at a city council meeting last month, and his subsequent firing from his high school coaching job because of that protest. He is a former NFL player, a record-setting punter for the Minnesota Vikings, along with brief stints with the Seattle Seahawks and the Oakland Raiders. He was released from the Vikings in 2013, with his progressive activism a likely cause, since he frequently clashed with coaches and other players. He is also known for his knowledge of tech industries, and his passion for video and table-top games, both of which he put to good use in his debut novel Otaku, which I've had for a while. I finally decided it was time to read it.
I was inclined to like it because of his progressive ideals, and would have liked it more if not for one thing; I am not a gamer, something that has never interested me. I still wanted to review it since it should appeal to many other readers. I also acknowledge it would make a great action film, even if some of the elements might be a bit far-fetched, or seem cliché. Published five years ago, the prominent blurb is that it is reminiscent of Ready Player One, which I have neither read nor seen the movie, and Ender's Game, which I have read and seen. Video games are a large part of the plot, games which turn out to be designed to train soldiers, but with a very big twist. It is set in a post-apocalyptic future, one where a fanatical religious sect controls part of a balkanized former United States. That faction is euphemized as the gummies, a bastardization of a southern drawled "gummint" (government). That part somewhat mirrors our current situation of Christian Nationalists taking over, but another thing is different. The rivals of the gummies are the silkies, the tech industries of Silicon Valley, whereas in our world the majority of the tech world are the allies of the gummies.
Another element that is sadly too familiar is the way women and other minorities are subjected to abuse, both vitriolic threats and physical attacks, for having the audacity to participate in the gaming world, and to be good at it. The main character is Ashley "Ash" Akachi, a member of a gaming team known as the SunJewel Warriors. In the game she is known as Ashura the Terrible. Her teammates are Wind (Alhazred's Wailing Wind), real name Fatima bint al-Hajj, and Slend (Slenderwoman), aka Brynn. They are very high up on the leader board, with their latest game seeing Ash triumph over a dragon, solo, since her teammates had been sidelined. Another of the team, Brand, has been missing for a week, but they aren't worried about her since they all take breaks from time to time due to other commitments. For instance, Brynn's brother is in prison, and she visits him frequently. Ash has a side job delivering food orders from Johnny's, a noodle shop run by an old friend of her mother's, both of whom fought together in the Dubs, the WW, the Water Wars. Another side job is the occasional delivery or pickup of tech related items, most of which she gets from Johnny's adopted son Jase (Jason Tanner). The latest such gig is to intercept an incoming shipment of a new gaming hood, one which proves to be much more advanced than anything she, Jase, or Johnny have ever seen before. It is also how she finds out where Brand has been, working as a guard for that shipment.
I'll skip over most of the rest of the plot, but it boils down to Ash tracking down who is responsible for those gaming hoods, and who directed Jase to have them intercepted. The new hoods are not just enhanced heads-up displays, they incorporate neural implants which become permanent in the wearer's brain if worn for more than six hours. After that, attempted removal usually ends in death. Who invented them, who are their intended users (victims), and what is their purpose? The SunJewel Warriors are forced to work with a gummie general, a former commander of Johnny and Ash's mother during the wars. Their ops go from remote action similar to the games they had been playing, to actual combat with real weapons, in the real. Can three young women, with Jase and Johnny as backup, defeat the superior forces of the silkies, or whoever is controlling the soldiers wearing the new hoods? There are injuries, and fatalities, but I won't give you the details on that. Even though the gaming parts didn't interest me, most of the action sequences are well written, propulsive, and exciting. As I said above, it would make an exciting movie too, with lots of special effects, explosions, and mayhem. Even if that never happens I would welcome another book from Kluwe. Anything I've said should tell you whether this would appeal to you.
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