Master of the Game – by Sidney Sheldon

I have been planning to write about this novel for many days but couldn’t find enough time. Though I posted many other things during that time, whenever I tried to focus on this book, what happened next? I open it from some random place and start reading again. The interesting thing is it took me nearly two years to finish it the first time; I read it in many sittings, with a very slow pace, but once it was done, I revised it many times. One of two novels I really liked. One is The Alchemist, and the other is Master of the Game.

Master of the Game is a novel by Sidney Sheldon, first published in 1982, spanning six generations in the lives of the fictional MacGregor/Blackwell family. It starts from Kate Blackwell’s ninetieth birthday celebrations in 1982, and then we move in the past, back to a century.

The best thing I found in this novel, and in fact in all other works of Sidney, is that the story moves at a constant and fast pace. No long, complicated dialogues. After every few pages, you find a turn that puts you more inside the novel. The same is true in Master of the Game: Sidney covers the lives of six generations in such a way that at every step the curiosity to get to know the next turn increases. I’m sorry I can’t give references from the story because it’s all worth reading; I don’t want to lessen the charm of the story.

The date when I had this novel: the next two images show the start and end of the novel; in between, we pass 6 generations; click to enlarge.

In the first term, the end wasn’t as per my expectations; in fact, in reality, I was a little disappointed. I was expecting some big turn from Sidney’s unique style of story weaving. i.e., making unpredicted things happen in jaw-dropping fashion. But after 2 or 3 revisions, it starts looking exactly as it should be. What it was, I’m not going to tell you; you must read it till the end, and I’m sure if you start once, you will not give it too much time to end.