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User unfriendly -
Vivian Vande Velde.
San Diego : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991.
244 p.
Annotations:
- Fourteen-year-old Arvin and his friends risk using a computer-controlled role-playing game to simulate a magical world in which they actually become fantasy characters.
Horn Book Guide:
- 1991 Fiction Rating 3, Recommended, satisfactory in style, content, and/or illustration.
Reviews:
- Sally Estes (Booklist, Dec. 1, 1991 (Vol. 88, No. 7))
He knew he was really eighth-grader Arvin Rizalli, but he "felt like Harek Longbow of the Silver Mountains Clan, an elf warrior of the fourth level" with all the knowledge that Harek would have as well as the appearance of an elf. Arvin (the youngest of six teens) and, to his dismay, his mother (a decidedly amateur gamer) are hooked up to a pirated computer game, in which cerebral stimulation, instead of a dungeon master, sets the parameters--planting memories and providing an image of a place that feels, looks, sounds, smells, and tastes real. The group's quest: a five-day journey to rescue the kidnapped 10-year-old daughter of King Ulric the Fair. Violence becomes the norm as the gamers meet the usual fantasy creatures--wolves, trolls, goblins, giant rats, unfriendly humans--and acquire the expected magical amulets, but the questers are also threatened by voids in the program, made possible because no one is monitoring the game, and they also are confronted by an alarming illness suffered by Arvin's mother almost from the beginning, an illness unlike anything usually found in gaming. Although the presence of Arvin's mother, who doesn't quite fit in, and her illness, which turns out to be a real-life near-fatal aneurysm, are minor irritants, the story as a whole can be praised for the characterizations, an intriguing and believable mix of real-persona and assumed game identities, the well-realized setting, and the quest's surprise ending. Category: Older Readers. 1991, HBJ/Jane Yolen, $16.95. Gr. 7-10.Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, 1991)
Trapped in a pirated version of a simulated-reality game program, a group of friends nearly have a real tragedy. Arvin plus his mother and six of his ninth- and tenth-grade friends awake in a land of magic and ores, pledged to rescue a princess. Actually, they're asleep in the basement of computer-whiz Sheldon, who has pirated a quest program. At first, their game follows familiar lines as characters wield their powers to defeat the enemy. Then trouble looms: the program has bugs, while Mom shows signs of a real-world illness that incapacitates her game character and threatens her life. Even so, there's no choice: the game goes on. Continually skirting disaster, the troupe defeats a mock princess, releases an ensorcelled chief mage, and is finally allowed to return home--just in time, since an aneurism in Mom's brain is near breaking. Simulated reality, first seen in adult "cyberpunk," is becoming a trendy plot device in YA fiction (see also recent books by Gillian Rubenstein and Monica Hughes). This succeeds better than most: though there is little development of the technology, the details are ingenious, and having the teen personalities show through their game-character facades is entertaining. The beginning here does hold more promise than is ever realized; Mom's illness and the computer bugs prove to be mostly distractions. Still, the adventures are vivid and diverting. 1991, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, $16.95. © 1991 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, 1991)
An unusual and original story tells of seven friends and the mother of one who enter a computer fantasy role-playing game. Their adventures get more and more bizarre; the mother becomes seriously ill; and they are desperate to return to the real world. Not just intriguing for game players - an exhilarating fantasy for all. Category: Fiction. 1991, Harcourt/Yolen, 244pp.. Ages 14 to 18. Rating: 3: Recommended, satisfactory in style, content, and/or illustration. Subjects:
- Fantasy.
Computer games--Fiction.
| Language | Call Number | LCCN | Dewey Decimal | ISBN/ISSN |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| English (eng) |
[Fic] |
0152009604 $16.95 9780152009601 |