Sidney Sheldon’s ‘Master of the game’ – So bad it’s good

Trigger warning: Rape, Suicide, (Male author writing women?)

Back in 8th or 9th grade (2008-2009), a lot of my friends were reading Sidney Sheldon and praising his works. I myself was engrossed in Harry Potter and didnot find the time. Last Friday, I saw Master of the Game on the shelf of my local bookstore. I bought it, thinking it was time I saw what the fuss was about. I specifically remember my friends taking about this particular book. I was not ready.

**The plot:**

Master of the game follows the lives of the McGregor – Blackwell family across 4 generations. The story begins with Jamie McGregor, a fortune seeking Scotsman that heads to Africa during a diamond rush. Jamie is betrayed by a businessman, cheated out of a fortune and left to die. He survives, gets his revenge and builds a giant Conglomerate.

In the second portion of the story, Jamie is succeeded by his daughter, Kate, who marries one of her father’s most trusted men and gains the surname Blackwell. At this point Kate becomes the central character of the story. She takes the company to new heights and wants her son to take over the business.

In the third part, Kate’s son Tony attempts and fails to become an artist. He struggles with his mother’s controlling nature and constantly falls for her manipulation. Tony has twin daughters, who make up the final arc of the story.

**The good:**

I have to give credit where it’s due, the pacing of the book is flawless. It is a page turner. The author has a clear talent for managing how much time and for how long a character appears. Before a new character is introduced, we get just enough information to know what’s going on. Characters never overstay their welcome.

The language is simple and efficient. There’s little to no fluff. The story jumps across different times but does it smoothly.

**The bad:**

Oh god, where do I begin. I have to bust out a numerical list for this.

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1. **One dimensional characters**: It takes a special amount of talent to have so many prominent characters star in an almost 500 page book and make all of them dull, lifeless and one dimensional. The good characters are unbearingly, mind numbingly good. They contribute nothing, they exist purely so that the evil characters can drive the story forwards. The evil characters are cartoonishly evil. There are two ‘major’ villians in the book. The first one is a scumbag businessman with an incestous attachment towards his daughter. He also rapes an 11 year old African girl, impregnates her and then kills her. As only evil men would do, he then takes the girl’s brother into his wing and makes his operate his business. The second is a psychopathic, serial killer/ rapist with a fetish for extreme sexual violence. You know where I’m going with this…. the characters are so exagerrated they make you roll your eyes.
2. **Deus Ex Machinas**: Among the four story arcs, the first is entirely solved with Deus Ex Machina scenarios. The ambitious Jamie McGregor just randomly finds a diamond pit where thousands of others fail. He miraculously survives a murder attempt. When he’s about to die in a diamond heist, he miraculously evades capture and escapes with a fortune. Once is acceptable, when it happens multiple times you have to wonder whether the author is actually interested in his book.
3. **Plot-twists**: There are supposed to be multiple plot twists in the book. I say supposed to because you see atleast 90% of them coming. The book wants to create an ‘aha’ moment, only you will guess what’s coming long before it arrives. It’s a clear problem for a book that poses as a bit of a thriller.
4. **Wasted potential**: The book touches on the issues of racial segregation, colonization and oppression of the African people. This is really strange because these issues are simply touched upon, provided very little context of and then discarded. One of the most interesting characters of the book; Banda is related to this plotline. We get to see far too little of him.
5. **The treatment of women**: Oh god, some of the stuff here made me wanna puke. One of Kate’s grandaughter named Eve is a pyschopath, who from a very early age tries to kill her twin sister. When Kate learns that her grandaughter is sexually promiscious and manipulative, she disowns her. During her quest to earn back her birthright, Eve is brutally raped by a man she meets at a party. Then, it’s as if the rape never happens. Eve immediately decides that her rapist can be manipulated to help her own cause. She begins sleeping with him again, and the author takes great pleasure in mentioning that Eve felt a great sexual thrill in being with him. Why? Because Eve is evil, and in the author’s mind, the first two adjectives he uses to define a character is all there exists about them. Eve’s rapist is a sexual deviant. He sleeps with young men and women, prostitutes, anyone really and he always beats them up, mutiliates them and leaves them be. Eve, because she’s evil decides that her rapist should marry her twin sister, inherit her wealth, kill her sister and then share the wealth with her. The marriage goes through. At some point in the marriage, when Eve’s plan is coming to place, her rapist/brother-in-law rapes her again, brutally beats her up, fractures her jaw, singes her body and genitals with cigarettes. What does Eve do? She decides, minutes after this violent episode,, while she’s immobile in her own bed, that the police should not get involved because her plan is almost complete. She goes to a plastic surgeon, miraculously makes a full recovery. Once again, her horrific rape simply flies out the window. There is no monologue, no thought process, no recovery. She just gets over it, because she’s evil and desperate for her plan to go through. She then instructs her rapist to ‘do whatever you want’ with her sister and kill her. Yes, really. So as the story comes to a close, Eve is coerced by the surgeon who fixed her disfigured face and body into marriage. Eve does, then she starts sleeping around with other men. As another fuck you from the author, her surgeon husband then horribly disfigures her face during a routine procedure to keep her trapped with him. Because the author seemingly hates women, as a final fuck you, he mentions that Eve is a slave to her husband now, because she is ugly and fearful that she willnot find another man again. When Eve’s grandmother learns about her grandaughter’s brutal rape, she has no reaction, really. The intent of the author isn’t lost here.

**Conclusion**:

When I asked my dad if he’d ever read Sidney Sheldon, he told me he wrote cheap fiction. I was a bit young to understand it then, in 8th grade. But having read it, I totally get it now.

Would I recommend this book to someone? Yes. Because it’s so bad its good.

by Puk-_-man