Genius: The Game: Free Chapter Sampler

By Leopoldo Gout

Read the first three chapters of GENIUS for free!

The Game: Get ready for Zero Hour as two hundred geniuses from around the world go head to head in a competition hand-devised by India's youngest CEO and visionary.

The Players:
Rex: One of the best programmers/hackers in the world, this 16-year-old Mexican American is determined to find his missing brother.

Tunde: This 14-year-old self-taught engineering genius has drawn the attention of a ruthless military warlord by single-handedly bringing electricity and internet to his small Nigerian village.

Painted Wolf: One of China's most respected activist bloggers, this mysterious 16-year-old is being pulled into the spotlight by her father's new deal with a corrupt Chinese official.

The Stakes: Higher than you can imagine. Like life-and-death. Welcome to the revolution. And get ready to run.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Mar 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781250117267

Leopoldo Gout

Leopoldo Gout is a filmmaker, writer, and visual artist from Mexico City. He studied contemporary art at Central Saint Martins in London and has shown his sculpture and paintings in galleries and museums around the world. Leopoldo lives in New York City with his wife and two children.

Book preview

Begin Reading

Table of Contents

About the Author

Copyright Page

Thank you for buying this

Feiwel and Friends ebook.

To receive special offers, bonus content,

and info on new releases and other great reads,

sign up for our newsletters.

Or visit us online at

us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

For email updates on the author, click here.

The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

From: Rex_n_effex@lodge_revolution.com

Subject: Welcome aboard

Albert Einstein once said, The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

He’s right. The people I know, they always led with their creativity. And they didn’t let age stop them, either. Kim Ungyong studied astrophysics at NASA when he was eight. Taylor Wilson built a nuclear fusion reactor when he was fourteen. How insane is that?

As for yours truly, I created a computer program that can find missing people with the click of a button. Oh, and I’m still under the two-decade mark.

They call us special, but we’re still like you. We go to the movies, we get in fights with our parents, we have crushes, we wish we could skateboard better. We also just happen to have brains that the white coats have dubbed organic computers. Wasn’t like we chose to be this way.

And here’s the kicker: We’re the ones everyone else threw away. Twenty years ago my friends and me would be forgotten. Me because my family’s poor, my friends because they come from places nobody cares about or everyone hates. What’s different is now we have the tech and the tech sets us free.

Give me a computer and I can build you any program you’ve ever dreamed of. Give my friend Tunde some spare watch parts and he’ll build you a working cell phone. And my friend Painted Wolf, you give her a problem, any problem, and she’ll solve it.

The world our parents grew up in is history. All the old rules, we’ve thrown them out. We’re the ones making the future. We’re the founding fathers. Hand us unlimited bandwidth and honey garlic chicken wings and we’ll fix the world.

We’ll get to all that good stuff a little later, though. Just wanted to send this while I had a second. See, there’s a reason my status online is: Running for my life.

Thing is, when you bake a cake you have to break a few eggs. And there’re some people who really hate it when you break eggs. A few of those people have Taser shotguns and are chasing my friends and me across the world at this very moment. And, frankly, that’s the least of our problems.

The revolution’s already here. Welcome aboard. And, uh, get ready to run.

See ya,

Rex Huerta

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

—ARTHUR C. CLARKE, PROFILES OF THE FUTURE, 1961

PROLOGUE

THE VANISHING

0. REX

The night Teo disappeared started off just like any other.

I was at my desk, trying to finish a few projects before I got too tired, when the front door opened. The hinges were rusty and the screech they made was like nails on a plate. Ma had begged me to put some oil on them but that would’ve defeated the purpose. Those hinges were our alarm system.

Just hearing the door creak open wouldn’t normally have given me pause.

A lot of people came over to our house. Sometimes they’d even show up before breakfast. But this was near midnight. The town was asleep.

It was silent.

It took

Reviews for Genius

[janarose1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When a self-made technology industry leader decides to hold a competition, he invites 200 young geniuses from around the world. Rex, Tunde and Painted Wolf have long connected on-line, but this is their first opportunity to meet in person. The competition pushes everyone to their limits, but these three never give up.I think this is a great book for teenagers. The characters were interesting and well flushed out. My only complaint is that the ending was quite abrupt. I always hate when an author does this. Overall, well worth picking up.

[kateprice88 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I wanted to love this book, but, somehow, it fell a little short for me. Genius: The Game is a young adult story with a tech/sci-fi feel. The characters were great. I liked all of them. Even the minor characters, and there were a good number of them, had something memorable about them. The book was fast paced, with a number of sub-plots, but not so many that it felt out of hand. It's written in first person point of view, and switches between our three main characters Rex, Tunde, and Cai. And, unlike other books I've read, it does so very smoothly. The scene transitions and pov transitions are all handled very well. However, there were a number of things which forced me to give it a lower score.

First, the graphics bothered me, which is odd as I'm a huge fan of graphic novels and manga, and studied Art History (basically, I really like pretty pictures). However, many if not all of the graphics in this book felt unnecessary at best and, at worst, in the way. One graphic didn't even agree with the description in the text - a picture drawn on a napkin with pizza grease on it. The picture of this clearly has a coffee ring, or a sweat ring from a cup of soda on it. Maybe it's a little pedantic, but it bothered me to no end.

Also, the ending posed some problems as well. There was little closer. Almost none. In fact, the book opened up more new questions than it closed. The only subplot that I felt had even a modicum of closure was Tunde's, and even that's not really finished yet. Clearly, this is supposed to be the first of a series, though it isn't really stated anywhere on the book that I could find (it's an ARC). If there was more closure to this book, I probably would have given it another star.

I received a free ARC copy of Genius: The Game through Goodreads Giveaways in exchange for an honest review.

[seasonsoflove_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book or my review itself.This is essentially the middle grade version of Ready Player One. No, it's not as well-written, but it is a good read. And it carries the message of doing the right thing, fighting against those who abuse their power, and how you can be true best friends with someone you've never met face-to-face.The three main characters of the story, Rex, Tunde, and Painted Wolf, are in fact best friends who physically meet for the first time in The Game, a competition meant to bring together the best and brightest youth of the world. Up to this point, these three have known each other through their communications online. The internet has made it possible for these teenagers, separated physically by thousands of miles, to come together as The Lodge, essentially the Three Musketeers of cyberspace.The Game itself is interesting, though again not as interesting as the central game of Ready Player One (and the story line of Genius practically begs for comparison to its predecessor). This is one of those young adult reads that I think I would have enjoyed more as an actual young adult. While adults can certainly find it a fun read (I did), it doesn't have the same adult appeal as many other young adult books do.

[mrslabraden · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Leopoldo Gout is a new author for me, so I didn't know if I would like this book, but it is really very good.Rex, Tunde, and Painted Wolf are known as the "LODGE" to computer hackers, bloggers, and code writers all over the world for using their skills to right wrongs and stand up for the little guy. All three have their own reasons for attending "The Game" hosted by the youngest CEO in India's history and computer genius, Kiran Biswas . As the game goes on, the three realize that the other competitors aren't their biggest problem, and the game may just be a front for something sinister going on behind the scenes at Kiran's company called OndScan. Soon they are all fighting for their lives and the lives of their families as the pressure to win the competition becomes a life and death battle.Clearly there will be at least one sequel to this book based on the way that it ended. A lot of the technical jargon is way over my head, and the technical drawings and diagrams interspersed throughout the book add interest, but none of it is necessary to understand the story. The three main characters are all flawed individuals, but they are easy to like because they are always doing what they think is right. I'm looking forward to the sequel to find out what happens to these three likeable characters.

[velmeran · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I appreciated the characters in this book. Yes, as teens the characters often act impulsively, but they are some darn smart less experienced adults. Put into challenging situations, these characters are going to do their best to do the right thing despite the systems in place to stop them.

[kevn57-163679 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'd hoped for another 'Ready Player One' but this first book doesn't live up to the charm of RPO. Still it's a very interesting look at the near future, and I'll be reading the next book ASAP. The characters are great beacuse they are so diverse, being from all over the globe. Painted Wolf is my favorite as the strategist directing the tech geeks. I love the Tunde can only work with junk parts, given an MIT like lab he instead heads for a Boston Junkyard to gather the parts he can use.

[ftbooklover · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Leopoldo Gout is a new author for me, so I didn't know if I would like this book, but it is really very good.
Rex, Tunde, and Painted Wolf are known as the "LODGE" to computer hackers, bloggers, and code writers all over the world for using their skills to right wrongs and stand up for the little guy. All three have their own reasons for attending "The Game" hosted by the youngest CEO in India's history and computer genius, Kiran Biswas . As the game goes on, the three realize that the other competitors aren't their biggest problem, and the game may just be a front for something sinister going on behind the scenes at Kiran's company called OndScan. Soon they are all fighting for their lives and the lives of their families as the pressure to win the competition becomes a life and death battle.
Clearly there will be at least one sequel to this book based on the way that it ended. A lot of the technical jargon is way over my head, and the technical drawings and diagrams interspersed throughout the book add interest, but none of it is necessary to understand the story. The three main characters are all flawed individuals, but they are easy to like because they are always doing what they think is right. I'm looking forward to the sequel to find out what happens to these three likeable characters.

[hootowl1978-396919 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I loved the book.... Until the ending... I got no closure....

[liscarey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Rex Huerta is an American teenager, and a coding genius. His brother Teo was, too, but Teo has disappeared, and Rex is working on a way to find them. His parents reported his disappearance, but an older teen, one old enough to have simply decided to leave, with no evidence at all of foul play, is not a major priority. The elder Huertas, unlike their two sons, are undocumented, and without real evidence, they can't afford to push harder and annoy the police.So Rex continues with his schoolwork and his blogging activities, while working on software that will enable him to find Teo. Oh, his blogging activities--a blog called the Lodge, where he provides brilliant coding solutions, his friend Tunde, in Nigeria, answers questions about how to build practically anything out of, essentially, junk, and Cai, a Chinese girl they and everyone else only knows as Painted Wolf, exposes corruption. Her research skills and surreptitious videos have brought down some powerful figures.Among their other activities, Rex is trading coding services to a company that makes, among other things, really high-end cleaning supplies for the school janitor, who enables him to have unauthorized extra time on the school mainframe. Tunde built, out of junk, or as he prefers to say, "repurposed materials," a solar power generator to provide electricity, cell service, and some internet access to his tiny village. Painted Wolf, we should not be surprised to learn, is an ace student in China's demanding system, and a expert at making tiny, high-end, remotely controlled cameras.And then their tech guru hero, Kiran Biswas, announces a contest. The Game. Details not provided until competitors are at the Boston Collective, and there is no application process. It's invitation only.Rex needs access to a quantum computer to run the program he's written to find Teo. Tunde has unhappily caught the attention of an ambitious and ruthless Nigerian general, who wants him to build a GPS jammer powerful enough to be a weapon. He needs the help of his friends to make some thing that will work, and save his now-hostage family and village, without helping the general become an even more dangerous monster. Painted Wolf is busy uncovering a new and disturbing corrupt plot, which may affect her father, and would rather skip the whole thing--but then she discovers that both Kiran Biswas, and Tunde's problem general, are both involved.But only two of the three get invitations. They all need to be there.We get the story in alternating sections from the viewpoint of each of the three teenagers. They are smart, interesting, each motivated and principled in their individual ways, and yes, convincingly individual characters. Although, of course, add the caveat that I've never known teenagers living in China or Nigeria. Only smart young people of Latino background, whose parents might or might not be documented, fall somewhat within my experience.But I like them, and found them believable.It's fast-paced, intriguing, and while you are asked to suspend your disbelief, I don't find it beyond reasonable suspension of disbelief. This is a lot of fun.Although, in fairness to the reader, I should mention that while the main story of this book comes to a reasonably satisfying end, there is also a significant cliffhanger. I assume there's more to come.Recommended.I received a free electronic galley of this book from some source I don't remember and can't quickly find in my email. I'm reviewing it voluntarily.