YouTube’s glassy-eyed ever-king MrBeast (real name James Donaldson) has partnered with prolific thriller author James Patterson to write a book about a version of his Beast Games show where it sounds like people probably die? Yes, that is accurate. That’s the world you and I live in now. We both let it come to this and did nothing to stop it.
The book is called The Most Dangerous Games and was announced a while ago, but its cover and release date have just been revealed. The deluxe edition, available for preorder now for $33, has a cover which boasts that it is co-authored by messrs James Patterson and—up top, in a larger font—”MrBEAST”. It is said to be “The book event of the year.”
“In a world on the brink of collapse, one hundred players face off in a ruthless, high‑stakes competition with everything on the line,” goes the blurb. “The reward? The chance to save humanity—and one billion dollars. The stakes couldn’t be higher… You’ve seen MrBeast break the internet. But nothing could prepare you for a competition this wild.”
Donaldson—who recently became the “first individual creator” to hit 500 million subscribers on YouTube—put out a statement to accompany the book’s announcement: “Growing up, I thought books were boring. As I got into my 20s I realized I was just reading the wrong books and they can be exciting if it’s the right match. Writing this book with James—who’s literally one of the greatest storytellers on the planet—was an opportunity to create a story that I would’ve been obsessed with as a kid.
“I wanted to make something that would draw young people in and get a whole generation psyched about reading again. I think we pulled it off, and I’m so proud of what we made. I hope our fans love it.” I am quite curious as to what books Donaldson would put on his personal top 10. He’s so associated with a plasticky pursuit of fame that I want him to secretly be an expert on Water Margin or something.
It’s worth mentioning that Beast Games is essentially a copy of the concept behind Squid Game, the popular South Korean thriller about contestants risking their lives for money. Squid Game is, itself, inspired by Battle Royale, the film and novel about Japanese teenagers forced to fight to the death on a secluded island. It all makes The Most Dangerous Games feel like a copy of a copy of a copy, which probably means it will be… really good? I think that’s how that works.
Patterson, meanwhile, is an extremely prolific author (though, as Polygon notes, he does cop to utilising a whole stable of co-authors to keep the pace up) that I mostly associate with thrillers, though he writes across genres. “Jimmy has the best storytelling instincts of anyone I’ve worked with,” said Patterson, “and we had a great time working in collaboration, going back and forth with ideas, making the novel better and better every step of the way.”
The Most Dangerous Games releases on September 1.
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