4.25 out of 5 stars.


Andi's mother, Rachel, moves them to the small northern California town of Tasker Bay, which was once a fishing town, but now has more people coming in and taking advantage of their stagnation. Andi is not happy. All she wants to do is ignore everyone in town, graduate, and get back to her father, Devon, who taught her to love the intricacies of computer and code.

In order to get money, though, she takes a job at the local arcade under sleazy Mal who fancies himself the mob boss of Tasker Bay. She ignores him, too, and does her job.

One day, a new game cabinet is delivered. The outside is plain white, no markings. The game: Polybius. In the game, the player must run from a shadowy figure always outside the periphery, and makes their way through caves.

But the game itself doesn't seem to be nearly as important as the terrifying way that people who play change. From seizures to catatonia to violent outbursts, Andi sees the strangers she's kept at arm's length in her town change. Ro, who finds Andi fascinating and believes they might be cut from the same outlier cloth, forces his way into her life, despite Andi's attempts to ignore him, too.

She doesn't quite convince him of her crazy theory, but he believes in her. Together, they try to track down the maker of the game, and find the reality so much more siniter than Andi's initial conspiracy theory.

Excellent read. Video review coming soon.

Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the eARC.

I really was so intrigued by the premise of this book and video games taking over people and the horror of it. But this book really never took off for me, I am not sure why.

DNF at 19%: This book sounded like the exact type of horror book I’d liked but sadly, the author spends the whole time telling instead of showing and introducing too many characters without giving them any depth whatsoever…I just couldn’t connect with the book at all.

Polybius takes the urban legend of the same name and turns it into a wild ride packed with 80s nostalgia. We follow Andi, who is counting the days until she can leave the small town of Tasker Bay to pursue her dreams of working and living in Silicon Valley. She works at the local, rundown arcade named Home Video World with her smarmy boss. He purchases an unusual game, called Polybius, of unknown origins. The game seems to be very popular among the arcade patrons ... perhaps too popular? It starts to become bizarre. Almost overnight, the town is overtaken by rage, acts of violence, paranoia, hallucinations, you name it. Andi is determined to get to the bottom of what is happening, and her mission culminates in a discovery that chills her to her core. Thank you so much to Lucy at Gallery Books for sending me an ARC. Please check this out when it publishes April 29, 2025! I will be following up this review with a more in-depth dive that will be published on The Fandomentals, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

This novel takes the urban legend of the mysterious arcade game and pushes it out to a wild conclusion that was impressive in its scope and commitment. I had a fun time with this novel and enjoyed it and the characters, especially once it got started. The very first novels felt like they were doing more telling than showing, presenting us with the characters and then narrating their experiences to us instead of letting us experience them, but once we fell into a comfortable groove with the characters that went away. Eventually the portraits we get of the main characters end up being complicated enough to be interesting and not feel rote but also playing with expected archetypes and tropes enough to feel familiar. The writing was comfortable and direct, it didn’t ever feel superfluous or over the top, but balanced description with the emotional states of our characters in an effective, fairly conventional style.

That said, some of the plotting felt a little bit slow. Obviously the readers know something is going on with this arcade cabinet, so the amount of time it takes for the characters to realize it feels drawn out and not particularly satisfying. When they do figure it out the actions they take make sense, and the final act’s climax both make sense and are engrossing, but it felt like spinning some wheels to get there. It never felt bad or boring, the writing was good enough as were the characters and their slow development and inner transformation, but at the same time I wasn’t ever chomping at the bit to pick the story up again, at least not for the first 2/3, during which things did happen, and we do witness an escalation, but it still didn’t feel as propulsive as I would have wanted. I think in part this is also because the “mystery” of the arcade is pretty non-existent. Not only are there no real red herrings or wild conspiracy theories to track down and prove or disprove, but the answer to the mystery also feels like the simplest and least exciting (even if most plausible in the real-world) solution. What happened as a consequence of that is, like I said, delightfully unexpected, but the journey to get there felt like being told something you already knew.

There are certainly parts of this book that surprised me, and some of the character work, especially as it deepened and became more emotive in the back half of the novel, was exciting. There are a small handful of ancillary characters who we see breakdown and go on their own side-quests because of their exposure and those were fun, I wish there had been more, that could have increased tension and the emotional stakes. As it is, it is competently written and it is willing to follow some suggestions to their unexpected consequences, but it didn’t have any a strong sense of discovery or surprise for me, which I was hoping for. If you’re looking for a thriller that combines conspiratorial thinking with teenagers trying to find themselves then this novel certainly delivers on that front.

I want to thank NetGalley, the author, and the publisher Gallery Books, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

To begin, a thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the opportunity to read an eARC for this title.

In his first novel, "Polybius", Collin Armstrong brings us back to the early 1980's for his take on the origin story of the urban legend for Polybius. As a kid growing up in the 80's, I can remember hearing rumors of an arcade game that was really cutting edge, with gameplay that was downright addictive, and that playing too much lead to headaches, violent outbursts, paranoia, and all kinds of other psychological problems. As I remember it, after only a few weeks, government "men in black" rounded up the few cabinets of the game, and it was wiped from the annals of gaming history since it was actually some sort of government psy-ops experiment and not a game at all. Working a brief stint in the video games/electronics industry at the turn of the millennium, I can remember the story getting some press within the industry and was the first time I remember a name finally being associated with the story -- Polybius.

Armstrong has taken all the little bits and pieces of the urban legend of Polybius, and, other than moving the origin point from Oregon to California, he has put together an interesting tale of the accidental acquisition of the famed Polybius game cabinet and the unchecked effect the game has on the residents of the sleepy town of Tasker Bay. We primarily follow the actions of Ro, the son of the local sheriff who has become somewhat of a disaffected loner in town, and Andi, daughter of the town doctor and a recent transplant to Tasker Bay who dreams only of returning to the tech heavy world of booming Silicon Valley. When the Polybius game cabinet arrives at the video arcade that Andi works at, its addictive nature starts to effect everyone who plays or even sees it played. Unfortunately, Armstrong tried a little too hard to give us a small town population-worth of characters, and as a result, many of the characters are exceedingly one-dimensional. Even the "main" characters are mostly cardboard cut-outs acting in the most predictable ways. And when the action starts going, the motivations for many of the myriad characters remain as mysterious to the reader as the cause of the "outbreak" is to all the characters in the story beyond Andi and Ro. I disagree with the description of Stranger Things meets the Walking Dead, but rather I would equate it to a stage-dressing version of Stephen King's "Tommyknockers" with the Polybius game cabinet taking on the role of the alien artifact.(sorry if that was a spoiler for a nearly four decade old Stephen King novel). The story and concept were good, but too ambitious without another 100-200 pages to better develop the cast.

Overall, "Polybius" was a fine, if somewhat cliché, horror novel -- the type of story that would make a solid B-grade movie on the SyFy Channel. It was interesting enough that I will keep an eye out for additional works by Armstrong in the future, and I only wish the best of luck to his future titles.

This was such a great read!! Combining some of my favorite elements of horror into this. Whoever said it had a tinge of stranger things had it so right. Was so nostalgic. I loved it!

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Polybius.

The premise drew me in, primarily the 1980s setting and arcade games and I was stoked my request was granted.

First, the writing is good, but dry and flat, written in what I called a summary format.

As I kept reading, I was reminded of the "Wetwired" episode of the X-Files, which dealt with subliminal messages far better than Polybius and in less than an hour.

Second, there are too many POVs, and as a result, the narrative tends to drag as we switch from one individual's crisis to another. It's not hard to lose track of who is who and what is going on.

Third, there's a ton of violence, gore, and blood as people who have beefs with neighbors/colleagues/friends come to a head and the town edges nearer to the apocalypse.

Third, I understand the author is trying to build suspense with all this exposition but the multiple POVs ends up slowing everything down and in this way, it takes too long to get to the meat of the story.

I didn't like or dislike Andie; maybe because she sort of reminded me of myself. She was a moody teen not happy at having to move to a new town, and missing her dad, who she was closest to.

What I did like: Andie and Ro's parents belief in their children to figure out what was going on and believing they were on to something about Polybius.

Some readers note how dissatisfying the ending is but I feel the ending is realistic. There's no other way it could have ended.

This is not Stranger Things meets The Walking Dead-just so you know. Yes, it takes place in the 1980s and yes, there is violence, but that's as close as this comes. Having said that, Polybius can stand on it's own without favorable comparison to mega hits. Having grown up throughout the 80s I remember the tale of the mind altering video game making it's rounds during a time when the Satanic Panic was at an all time high and parents were convinced everything from music to comic books to videogames were possessing their children. Polybius does a fantastic job of marrying technology, government conspiracy, and mayhem into a cohesive story with intelligent characters, interesting interpersonal dynamics, and enough murder to satisfy any thrill seeker.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Gallery Books for allowing me to read an EARC of this book.

I was initially drawn to want to read this book for the nostalgia of arcade games, and the fact that it was compared to Stranger Things and recommended for fans of Stephen King. So I was hooked in, and hoo-boy this book did not disappoint!

Polybius gets off to a grisly, start right out of the gate, and then snowballs into a full-blown chaos apocalypse! The story doesn't slow down for a single second and will cause you to binge-read all the way through to the end.

The plot centers in the small town of Tasker Bay, near San Jose. Teenager and tech-whiz Andi is working at the local video store/arcade when a new and strange game arrives. It gets put out on the floor, and immediately becomes a huge hit with the town gamers. But this game is not what it seems, and slowly bad things start to happen in Tasker Bay, and one person after another starts to become afflicted with weird and violent symptoms. Ro, the Sheriff's son and also a gamer, hangs out at the arcade to spend time with Andi, and falls victim to the game's dangerous lure. When things go from bad to worse to anarchy in Tasker Bay, it becomes up to Ando, Ro, Sheriff David, and Andi's Mom to save the town. Failing that, the four must try to just get out alive.

This book is crazy good! There is so much going on, and non-stop action and blood. If you are a fan of thrillers, vintage video games, and government conspiracies/psyops, then this book is definitely for you. I loved the atmosphere and impending sense of dread & doom that persists through the book.

I will definitely be recommending this book to my book clubs and 80s-friends. It for sure has Stranger Things/Walking Dead vibes and is very much worth the read!

Okay so hear me out—Polybius had SUCH a cool concept (creepy arcade game? government conspiracy? 80s vibes?? yes pls), but the execution didn’t fully land for me. It felt like it was trying to channel Stranger Things and Stephen King, but ended up more like a spooky episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark stretched out a little too long. The nostalgia was fun, and there were moments that really hooked me, but overall the pacing dragged in places and I didn’t connect as much as I wanted to with the characters. Not bad, just not one I’ll be thinking about for long after the final page. Solid for a quick, eerie read though!

The whole time I was reading this, I wanted it to be a movie or miniseries. It has such a good, creepy feeling of impending doom and the pacing really allows the reader to get sucked into things as they unfold and get worse. The slight let down is the end, which came on rather fast, and although the tone of it is successful with the story.

Note: ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

First off, would you look at that cover! Whoever designed this awesome cover deserves a raise. Second, this is a nostalgic trip down memory lane for me because I was born the year this novel takes place. I had high expectations for Polybius, but I knew there was a chance the plot would go over my head. This novel is about video arcade games and psychological warfare, two themes that sound interesting, but ultimately is a risky move as well. I liked the protagonist, Andi. She’s a smart and capable teenage girl, but sometimes her inner monologue came across as a little neurotic and desperate. Even so she made for an intriguing character. Her relationship with Ro was sweet but highly predictable. This is a good book, but have been a bit too ambitious for my personal taste.

**Thank you NetGalley and Gallery Books for this ARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own.**
Posted to: NetGalley and The StoryGraph 
Posted on: 20 March 2025

3.4 (rounded down to 3) out of 5 stars.

I usually try to take notes while I read to remember thoughts I had or just points that I want to remember/come back to (especially considering that I usually am juggling 2-4 reads at a time…). For ‘Polybius’, I made a *lot* of commentary on the writing style and the way the book is written (they’re different things, I swear), mostly in general/broad terms rather than specific nit picky bits. I think I had the same issue as other readers did in that there’s SO many POVs being offered. Normally, I *love* to see what’s going on in a book, but this one offered, in my own opinion, way *too* much a look into the world of Tasker Bay with little to no breaks/indications as to *when* the point of view was changing nor quite letting the reader create that eerie air as a lot was already hashed out for us. It just made the book seem…. ‘Messy’ isn’t quite the word I’m looking for, but for lack of a better one that’s what I’ll say.
On the flip side, however, I want to say that these multiple POVs lended the book an air of reading like a TV series almost. I don’t know if I want to say I loved that or hated that about it, but it was definitely… interesting. For the storytelling, I think it almost made it more *immersive* somehow. I could almost imagine where the scene switches would happen and *how* it would go about doing so. The writing itself grew on me over time. I think it was crisp enough to know what was going on, but I almost wish there was more ambiance to it somehow. There was detail where detail needed to go though, and for that I cannot complain about. We got all the gory details on the killings that happened, yet at the same time, we are told what emotions and energies are surrounding characters/settings/scenes in a sort of ‘tell not show’ kind of way.

This book, in my opinion, is very comparable to ‘Small Favors’ by Erin A. Craig in that we have a small town with mysterious outside influences that lead to the town’s undoing. Sure, they are set in different time periods and within different environments, but it’s no secret that both small towns are inflicted by *something* that’s making its citizens turn on each other. It’s been a while since I last read ‘Small Favors’, but if I recall correctly, I remember enjoying the scene setting and the voice we follow as she watches her world fall apart around her (not to confuse this against my qualms of characters too, but that’s all in another review). Whereas here in ‘Polybius’, the characters felt flatter in a *different* sense- because we have so many trying to share the spotlight to the point that some names got blended together or we simply just weren’t given enough time with one storyline over another to form clear enough attachments to anything. We get weak threads to characters, but they *are* there. I almost just wonder how it would’ve gone if we’d been limited to simply Andi and Ro’s points of view? Or maybe a character list? I’d recommend making one of your own if only to remember who is where and does what (or to note who has been killed and who is still inflicted)

With this comparison lingering in the back of my thoughts, I can say that I’m being a tad too unforgiving against ‘Polybius’. It’s unfair to hold Armstrong’s debut to the same standards of an author’s second full novel (but third published story considering Craig’s ‘Together, Apart’ short story anthology feature but I digress). It sounds like I’m just complaining about ‘Polybius’, but it was actually enjoyable. There were some bits where I couldn’t put it down! I should be infamously known by now for my habit of reading at the gym, and this book pushed me past my usual warm up time simply because I kept reading on to the next page instead of putting my phone away. I think there were too many moving characters to let me fully enjoy this though. The plot, however, is *good*. This book is for all the people who grew up with some weird obsession on Creepypastas and YouTube horror Let’s Reads (hi, hello, that’s me, I’m that kid with the weird obsession). I remember reading about the Polybius conspiracy SO much since it fell under ‘Weird Government Conspiracy Stories’ (but personally, I always loved a good forest horror or old god/eldritch being/good ol’ demon one when the government alien cover up didn’t quite hit).
So yes, this book was good if not a little dragged out in places like my review. I think it’s interesting and the ending features one of my absolute *favorite* things to do/happen in stories (which I mention in my StoryGraph review). I just think it’ll fall short for some readers because of -vaguely motions to the above review-

I know Collin Armstrong has written for other outlets, but I will be keeping my eye on him as an author. ‘Polybius’, for all its faults, was still pretty good and *did* successfully hit the itch I was hoping it would in regards to a whole novel being written about old stories that I devoured even despite being afraid of things that go bump in the night.

CONTENT WARNINGS:
Death, animal death, murder, gun violence, drugs, drug use, violence, suicide, fire, fire injury, death by fire, death by drowning, eye injury, alcohol, alcohol use, very brief and infrequent mention of cancer, mildly discussed instances of racism (also does not come up as frequently)

It’s 1982, and a mysterious arcade game has appeared at the local video store. While any good game is somewhat addictive, this game is downright entrancing, unleashing horrific and far reaching trauma on an unsuspecting small town. Prior to this book, I had not heard of the "Polybius" urban legend, but wow, what a fascinating concept for horror/scifi/mystery. I can remember the real-life hushed conversations of adults in the 80s and 90s, convinced that video games were the source of unknowable, unspeakable evil, so it is little wonder that an urban legend like this appeared from the ether.

Armstrong did a masterful job capturing a dark, mysterious 1980s atmosphere. With this, as well as the incorporation of teenage protagonists, I can see why there are comparisons to Stranger Things. If you are an elder millennial or young Gen Xer, I think you will really enjoy this aspect of the book. Get ready to rediscover forgotten 1980s gems, like old arcade games you haven't thought of in years, and for us computer nerds, the old, "pre-www" internet bulletin boards (Usenet, in this case). I was never a Usenet member, but I was a member of several other bulletin boards, and it is something a special, niche group of 80s kids will remember with fondness.

The reading experience of this book was smooth and enjoyable for the most part. Admittedly, the pacing was a little tough for me initially; the first half feels a little bit slow, perhaps even repetitive, but the action picks up considerably in the second half. The second half is also where the majority of horror elements are unleashed, which you know is what I was waiting for. Similarly, at the start of the book, the characters were not my favorite aspect, but I will admit that they grew on me throughout the book. Part of my initial reticence, perhaps, is that I am just not a fan of romantic subplots; maybe that is on me.

I noticed that some reviewers were not fond of the ending, but I thought it was perfect. Without giving anything away, this is a horror novel, so horrific happenings are to be expected, that's why we love the genre right? Horror devices include technological, psychological, apocalyptic, and body horror.

Hey man, this was a debut novel! What an incredible first impression. I'm following this author to see what happens next.

Thank you NetGalley, Collin Armstong, and Gallery Books for sending me an ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
The premise of the book drew me in but once I started reading it, I just couldn’t get into it at all.
I wish the author, publisher and all those promoting the book much success and connections with the right readers.

I was excited to read this one as I was familiar with the urban legend. However, the book fell a little flat for me. There was very little character development which made me not feel invested in their story.

2.5 stars

I really really really really wanted to like this one more. Once I was approved for an ARC through Netgalley, I started it immediately. It seemed like something right up my alley and would be something that I would read with fervor. Except that it wasn't.

My partner is a bit of a conspiracy theory nut so I had peripherally heard about the conspiracy theory/urban legend/creepypasta regarding Polybius but really didn't know many details. All I knew was that it was a video game produced by the government for mind control in the 80s. Everything I had heard or read about this novel was that it was a fictionalized account of that story. It kinda gave me Stranger Things vibes which is always going to be a win for me. Except that it didn't.

I decided on a 2.5 to put it right smack in the middle of the 5 star rating scale. I really enjoyed the premise of this story and there were things I really dug, however the execution was really bad. The writing was not polished nor was it suspenseful or thrilling. There were errors EVERYWHERE. There was no chemistry between any of the characters nor were they interesting or dynamic in any way. This was really problematic for me since by not having a connection to any characters automatically makes me ambivalent about what happens to them which eliminated a lot of tension that could have amped up the suspense factor. The action was also seen through way too many character viewpoints which further watered everything down in my opinion. In essence, I think this novel suffered from telling rather than showing way too much and the stylistic flaws made me disinterested in the outcome. The author did a weird thing also where he switched viewpoints constantly, not just after a break or chapter. It sometimes happened mid-paragraph and even mid-sentence which was an odd stylistic choice and was confusing. I also found the ending to be anticlimactic and forgettable.

I wish there was more tension, more suspense, and more discussion of the governmental conspiracy behind it rather than pages and pages and pages of crimes that people who had played the game were committing. I enjoyed the horror parts the most, but also found a lot of it was thrown in for shock value and didn't add much to the plot.

So 2.5 rounded down. I was disappointed, but it wasn't the worst book I've read. Not sure this author's style is for me though.

Polybius, as a debut novel from Collin Armstrong, is a fun, occasionally explosive exploration of the legend of Polybius, the government psy-op video game alleged to have existed for a brief window in the '80s and subject of much public speculation over the last few decades. As a novel, it's full of some fun moments, but the narrative itself wears its debut nature quite prominently in its prose and structure.

Part of what holds the book back from exceptionality is its over-reliance on simply stating what characters are feeling and how they interpret the book's story, meaning that characterization feels really thin and detached from the story's big action. The book swings all over its setting, focusing in on a number of different conflicts, but without a strong commitment to building scenes full of rich characterization and interaction, everything feels like stage blocking more than it does convincing, immersive storytelling. I know it's often a cliché to suggest that it's always better to "show, don't tell," but it's a maxim for a reason, and it's an element of craft that this book is sorely missing consistently throughout the narrative.

But even in spite of its lack of conventional novelistic craft, the story itself is big, blockbuster fun, with some supercharged moments of explosive violence and converging, pulpy storylines that make the back half of the book hit a decent stride. Polybius isn't the strongest debut I've seen in 2025, but it was just enough fun that I would definitely pick up Armstrong's first book.

Disclosure Statement: I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher. My thoughts and reflections on it are entirely my own and have not been influenced by either publisher or author in any way.

I really, really, really wanted to like this book. The concept was great and the beginning had me hooked, it just fell kind of meh the rest of the way and it made me sad. Too many povs and the characters were pretty thin. I wasn’t a fan of the ending but that’s just my own opinion. I hope the next time we get a book concept like this, the author just sticks to main character pov.