Hi everyone, I've been looking for this book on and off for almost 5 years now and I remember reading it probably well over a decade ago. I believe it can be classified as a YA+ book since I remember there being some scenes not suited for a thirteen year old. Non-FictionI remember the title or the blurb being related to the number of hours, on average, it takes a person to complete a video game. I thought this concept was really interesting when I first picked it up and this facet of the book stuck with me ever since. This was also a big plot point of the novel since the story's main protagonist was forced into a survival game of epic proportions and given the same amount of hours it takes to complete a video game, to complete the survival game's objective or die. I'm not entirely sure on this part but I believe that he at first did not care for the game or the consequences and decided to ignore it (the survival game starts out with the forced contestants being located wherever they were when the timer started counting down, thus some were at their homes, offices, etc.) until he got into a gun fight or something similar. Finding out that his ex-girlfriend/wife/lover was also part of the game, he resolved himself to actively participate and rescue her from the game master.I remember a scene where a large group of participants eventually converge onto what I remember was a mountain range during which the perspective switches to that of the ex's. A man attempts to either sexually assault her or another woman that she befriended only to fail due to circumstances I don't recall. At this point a heavy downpour starts and the game master releases rabid hounds or something of a similar nature and the participants attempt to escape and find protection/shelter. The female protagonist and her friend find a shack only to be once again encountered by the would-be assaulter. They are able to prevent him from entering the shack (I think he was stuck in the doorway) and is left to be mauled by the hounds. Eventually, the two protagonists meet up and decide to complete the game and get to the bottom of why they were selected and to find the overall purpose of this game. They enter a cave filled with antiques and treasure along with hundreds of lifelike statues (which turn out to be taxidermied humans) and encounter the game master. I don't remember much of the details at this point but that the place they were at used to be a town that committed mass suicide (or someone poisoned all of them like in a cult) due to the belief that the end of days was coming and that by doing so, they would be granted passage to heaven. This end of days was supposed to happen in the 1800s (I think) and was something that was prophesied several times in the past already (I think). The game master had a room full of monitors overlooking all of the contestants and I believe that the two protagonists later on escaped in a helicopter after the entire cave collapsed. If anyone could figure out which book this was, I would be forever grateful! I don't believe it was a long book, probably only three hundred or so pages. Thank you!Everything is completely involuntary.I do remember that the first conversation the main protagonist had with the main antagonist was about the time limit and how it refers to the number of hours it takes to completely finish a game though.I'm pretty sure that the book I'm referring to is a stand-alone novel since the story wraps up in its entirety. I'm sorry I don't have any more details that could help. Thank you for your help!
David Morrell’s Creepers was a publishing event in 2005, a powerful, edgy, dark thriller by a master of the genre. A New York Times best-seller, it won the prestigious Bram Stoker Award and earned numerous critical raves. Scavenger, Morrell’s latest novel, takes us in a harrowing new direction: a desperate high-tech scavenger hunt for a 100-year-old time capsule. Frank Bal David Morrell’s Creepers was a publishing event in 2005, a powerful, edgy, dark thriller by a master of the genre. A New York Times best-seller, it won the prestigious Bram Stoker Award and earned numerous critical raves. Scavenger, Morrell’s latest novel, takes us in a harrowing new direction: a desperate high-tech scavenger hunt for a 100-year-old time capsule. Frank Balenger, the resolute but damaged hero of Creepers, now finds himself trapped in a nightmarish game of fear and death. To save himself and the woman he loves, he must play by the rules of a god-like Game Master with an obsession for unearthing the past. But sometimes the past is buried for a reason. Scavenger is a brilliant, frightening hunter-hunted tale that layers modern technology over the dusty artifacts of earlier times. The result is a surreal palimpsest, one that contains the secret of survival for Balenger and a handful of unwilling players who race against the game’s clock to solve the puzzle of the time capsule, only to discover that time is the true scavenger. Morrell’s trademark action sequences are embedded with fascinating historical clues that make Scavenger a thrill-a-minute page-turner as well as a mesmerizing literary experience. ...more