ISBN: 0-441-79804-7 Order from: Amazon.com
Unexciting story of cyberspace and virtual fantasy world, with pedestrian plot and a bit too politically correct.
Reviewed by David on July 23, 1998
Genre: Science Fiction (Cyberpunk, Virtual Reality, Game Playing)
Synopsis: In the near future, a group of hot-shot game designers create a virtual fantasy world more realistic than any other on the market. Unfortunately, there are some serious bugs in the game, and the race to troubleshoot the virtual world becomes as important as life and death.
Full Review: Will Shetterly created a prequel to his earlier novel Cats Have No Lord. This book is a sort of frame, explaining the creation of the universe as a virtual fantasy, which accounts for the rather game-playing nature of Cats: eves, wizards, arbitrary rules, etc.
Unfortunately, this trick only makes the earlier novel less believable. The alternating sequences of the programmers' lives and the adventures in the increasingly self-propelled Lands of Adventure game do not add to the solidity of the plot.
The fantasy continues to be artificial, and the historical and psychological problems of the programmers seem hardly more real and are visibly added in an attempt to make them three-dimensional. The plot tries to infuse the value into the game by making it worth human lives, but this reader was not convinced.
The slight feeling of political correctness, reflected in overly careful handling of relationships and gender roles, is not particularly obnoxious but does not add verisimilitude to the narrative.
In addition, while the computer technology is handled in a fairly deft and vague manner suitable for cyberpunk, the periodic references to obsolete (now) computer models jars a modern reader.
On the whole, this book is below average. I would have preferred a sequel to Shetterly's Witch Blood.
Universe: Lands of Adventure
Overall: 4; Plot: 3.5; Characters: 3; Style: 4; World-building: 4; Originality: 4;
Copyright date 1989, Berkeley Publishing Group (Ace), December 1989, Mass-market, 247 pages
ISBN: 0-441-79804-7 Order from: Amazon.com