The Impossible Fortress Book Review: 1987, Floppy Disks, and the Best Love Story About BASIC Programming

Rating: ★★★★★

"The Impossible Fortress" Book Review:

The Impossible Fortress is set in 1987, and it absolutely nails it. Jason Rekulak wrote a coming-of-age novel about a fourteen-year-old boy named Billy Marvin whose initial goal — stealing a copy of Playboy from the local convenience store — accidentally leads him into a friendship with the store owner's daughter, Mary, who is the best computer programmer he's ever met. What follows is a novel about first love, betrayal, and the Commodore 64 that is far better than it has any right to be.

Billy and his two best friends hatch increasingly elaborate schemes to steal the magazine, but each plan requires spending more time at the store, which means spending more time with Mary. She's building a video game — the Impossible Fortress of the title — and when she discovers Billy can program in BASIC, they start collaborating. The programming scenes are genuinely detailed and specific. Rekulak was clearly a Commodore kid himself, and he writes the experience of building a game in BASIC with the same romantic intensity other authors reserve for first kisses.

And it is a romance, though the novel earns it slowly. Billy and Mary bond over code and 8-bit graphics, and their creative partnership becomes the most honest relationship Billy has ever had. Which makes his inevitable betrayal — when his friends pressure him to use his access to Mary's house to steal the magazine — devastating in the exact way that fourteen-year-old betrayals are devastating: small, stupid, and unfixable.

The 1987 setting is immaculate. Reagan, Challenger references, cassette tapes, the specific texture of walking into a convenience store that sells everything from soda to VHS tapes. Rekulak uses nostalgia without being consumed by it. The period details serve the story rather than decorating it.

Dan Bittner narrates with a warmth that captures Billy's earnestness without making him precious.

Four stars. The best novel about programming I've ever read, and I didn't even see the love story coming.

If You Liked The Impossible Fortress, Try:

• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline — Another love letter to 1980s nerd culture, bigger in scope but with the same nostalgic DNA.

• Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell — First love across a social divide, set in the 1980s. Different subculture, same emotional precision.

• Shogun by James Clavell — I know this sounds unrelated, but it's the same structure: someone enters a foreign world, learns its language and customs, falls in love, and has to choose between loyalty and belonging. Just swap BASIC for Japanese.

From Luke Stoffel's Bookshelf

If you enjoyed this book review, check out How to Win a Million Dollars and Shit Glitter — a queer memoir that reads like a novel, following one person from Iowa to Broadway to Paris to a game show stage, learning at every stop that reinvention is the only survival skill that matters.

Learn More: How to Win One Million Dollars and Shit Glitter

How to Win One Million Dollars and Shit Glitter by Luke Stoffel