Reviewed January 1, 2003.
A Sonderbooks' Best Book of 2002
(#4, Young Adult and Children's Fantasy and Science Fiction)
Harcourt, New York, 2002. 315 pages.
Available at Sembach Library (JF VAN)
I didn’t intend to check this book out, since I’m trying to turn in my
library books before we move to a place closer to the base.
However, the dedication caught my eye, and I found I couldn’t
resist. It reads: “This book is dedicated with affection
for but no patience with those who would protect our children through
humorless moralizing and paranoia about fantasy.”
Ever since computer games were invented, there have been stories about
someone getting caught in a computer game. From “Tron”
on down, most of these stories are pretty hard to believe. Mixing
some kind of magic with technology generally seems a bit silly.
Vivian Vande Velde pulls it off in a funny and actually believable
story
of a girl caught in a computer game.
The book starts with 14-year-old Giannine Bellisario trying to get to a
Gaming Center on an artificially intelligent bus. This way, the
author neatly tells us that we’re a few years in the future. The
bus doesn’t want to let her off because there are protestors from
Citizens to Protect Our Children picketing the Gaming Center.
Giannine crosses the picket line and enters the Gaming Center to use a
gift certificate from her father. She chooses “Heir Apparent,” a
total immersion computer game, one that directly stimulates your brain
so that you experience the game as if you were actually there.
You see, hear, feel and smell everything your character would
experience. Unless, of course, you die, in which case the
adventure starts over
as long as you still have time left.
It’s no surprise to the reader when the protesters from CPOC attack the
center so that Giannine is stuck in the game. Her
only way to get out is to win. And (as we would expect in this
sort of book) if she doesn’t win fast enough, her life is in danger.
So, it’s a book about playing a computer game. Yet, believe it or
not, it’s great fun. She’s a believable, likeable character, and
we enjoy watching her try to figure out how to survive and avoid
mistakes that killed her in the past. The scenario of the game
makes
an interesting puzzle, which it’s fun to try to figure out along with
her.
This book will appeal to a wide age range. I put it with
children’s books, since the character is fourteen and in eighth grade,
but older kids will enjoy the story as well. There’s no sex or
graphic violence (She only gets a fizzy feeling when she dies), and
nothing objectionable for a child to read. Unless, of course, you
want to protect them from fantasy.
Reviews of other books by Vivian Vande Velde:
User Unfriendly
The Rumpelstiltskin Problem
Cloaked in Red
Frogged
Three Good Deeds
Wizard at Work
A Hidden Magic
A Well-Timed Enchantment
Dragon's Bait
23 Minutes
Copyright © 2003 Sondra Eklund. All rights reserved.
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