Periodically governments play games, exercises where a scenario is postulated and civil servants will discuss what to do - sort of like a murder mystery party, except that the subject might be nuclear war. Such a game is the subject of 'War Book'; which is well-acted and intelligently-enough scripted at the micro-level, but whose ultimate purpose is unclear. There's one story here about colleagues letting their personal stuff intrude upon their working relationships: this is quite plausible, but also quite uninteresting. But probably the main theme here is reminiscent of the Stanford Prison Experiment: give people power, even in role-play, and they become intoxicated with it, even to the point of bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war. The problem is, because it's all game-play, and (unlike at Stanford) there's no opportunity for the infliction of actual harm, it's hard to feel too invested in the story (or to see why its participants should feel invested either); and the eventual outcome (the decision to launch the warhead) is both cheap (because, of course, it's not a real decision to launch a warhead) but also effectively determined by the script (because, at each point in the plot, the group basically just follow the advice of their briefs). Ultimately this feels like writing around a theme, but for no ultimate purpose; or like one half of a potentially interesting story whose other half has not been conceived.
Review of War Book
