Vegas Arcana: Deck Runner's Gambit by James Anderson Foster; Las Vegas Setting and Interesting Concept Are Winners, But Average Plot and Dialogue Come Up Snake Eyes
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
This review is also on Reedsy Discovery.
Spoilers: Las Vegas is this year's Caribbean.
In 2023, the top setting was the Caribbean with its scenic beaches, beautiful plants and animals, troubled history, and intriguing myths and legends and was the center of some brilliant, wonderful works.
Well this year’s setting instead is an arid desert filled with neon lights, glitzy casinos, wild entertainment, and 24 hours of excitement, debauchery, and tackiness. Of course it’s a great setting for literature.Along with Jo Szewczyk’s Gen X and Richard R. Becker’s Third Wheel, James Anderson Foster’s Vegas Arcana: Deck Runner’s Gambit is the third book this year that has Sin City as its primary setting. It has also been the setting of previous books, Thunder Road by Colin Holmes, Psychonautic by Darren Frey, All Eyes on Me by Linsey Lanier, and portions of What Immortal Hand by Johnny Worthen. It is definitely a city of addiction, obsession, decadence, and the pursuit of temporary pleasure that feeds into tales of murder, violence, crime, lust, drug abuse, mental illness, unhappy home lives, and sometimes dark magic and supernatural night creatures.
Deck Runner’s Gambit gives us a great setting and an interesting concept. However, there are some serious flaws in the execution that turn a promising book into average.
Malcolm “Mal” Byrne is lured out of his dull cubicle 9 to 5 job by a series of psychedelic threads of light and cryptic text messages from a mysterious number. During his pursuit, he is followed by some sinister magic users who attack him. He is rescued by his friend, Jake, who is gravely wounded in the process. In his grief and guilt, Mal meets Jake’s friend, Eli Hawthorne, who is part of a secret organization called the Deck Runners, magic users who use their impressive supernatural powers of energy manipulation to fight against another group called the Peerage. Eli and the other Deck Runners also sense magic inside Mal and he signs up. Good thing too, because a Peerage member, Cassie Draven, has found a way to use dark magic to destroy the modern world and build a magically run one around it.
The strongest aspects of the book are the Las Vegas setting and the initial concept of people studying and using arcane magic in the modern world. It is a great idea to use Vegas as the primary setting because it is one of the American cities which typify modern life at its worst. Everything there is now, loud, bright, fast, and transient. Everything in Las Vegas from the games, casinos, food, entertainment, is a means to get rich and achieve personal pleasure. It would be the antithesis of studying something like magic which would require deep concentration, intellectual curiosity, solitude, and a deeper understanding into the subconscious beyond a quick win and a night of pleasure.
This strange dichotomy between the setting and the character’s pursuits is first explored in the opening chapter. Among the neon signs, the blaring games of chance, the excited screams and disappointed cries of gamblers, Mal sees the threads of magical energy leading him to the Deck Runners. Once he is attuned to the idea of magic, he sees it all around him. It becomes more real than the artifice that he usually experiences. This acceptance of the metaphysical world gives Mal purpose that a drab office life in such a glitzy city would not bring. He is excited and enraptured by this adventure. While it’s scary and ultimately filled with consequences, Mal sees that it is preferable to the previous life of quiet desperation he lived where he was surrounded by noise and longing to be heard. Magic gives him a voice and a drive that he would otherwise not have had.
Deck Runner’s Gambit is a book that is not without its flaws and oddly enough they become noticeable once Mal joins the Deck Runners and begins practicing magic. The powers are pretty interesting and some are even unique. For example, the Runners draw specific cards and bring forward whatever magic they need from them such as light, or fire, water, whatever is necessary. It requires thought, concentration, and some improv especially when the Peerage also has access to such powers. The concept of two competing teams of magic users is pretty interesting and raises the question whether which side is truly right or wrong, or if they are simply separate schools of magic with different philosophies but similar practices. But this world comes at the expense of the characterization within it.
Once Mal is introduced to the idea of magic however, his transformation from student to master is a little too rushed. This is a man who spent his whole life not believing, a skeptic, someone who probably never questioned or explored the unexamined life. He was just content to work, flirt, eat, go home, get money, hang out with friends, and sleep. It’s great that he is open to this new world and admirable that he wants to be a part of it. But it would also make sense for there to be more reluctance and timidity about his pursuits, a hesitancy to fully embrace or believe in what is in front of him. After all, living in Las Vegas, he would have seen plenty of illusionist acts and one would imagine that he would look for a nonexistent curtain, expect a lovely assistant to pop up, or wonder about the tricks behind the magic.
It could also work the other way as well. Mal could be so open to the pursuit that he acts recklessly. He could lose his temper or consider using his magic for selfish means before he wises up. But he adjusts and adapts too quickly to be believable. There should be more development in his steps between Magician Padawan and Magician Jedi Knight.
There is some cringy dialogue that borders on cliche. (“Welcome to the final act,” Cassie taunts. “..:Looks like your runner has run out of deck.”) It’s to the point where if you have read these types of books before, you can predict exactly what the characters are going to say before they say it. (“This isn’t over, Cassie!”) Some of it’s fun in a cheesy action fantasy sort of way but after a while it gets repetitive and makes one wonder if the book was written while watching too many movies or TV episodes. That may also account for some of the plot points that are meant to be twists that are all too easy to guess.
Vegas Arcana Deck Runner’s Gambit is aces when it comes to setting and concept but it needs work to really come up a winner.
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