Tournament Trouble

Chiang, Sylv, with art by Connie Choi. Tournament Trouble. Book 1 of the Cross Ups series. 2018. 188p. ISBN 978-1-77321-008-7. Available at FIC CHI on the library shelves.

Jaden loves video games, especially the Cross Ups franchise, but his Taiwanese mother finds it too violent and does not let him play in the house. His older brother Jay and him sneak games when their parents are out working, and they have to be careful not to get caught. Now in seventh grade, Jaden and his two best friends Devesh and Hugh are fans of Cross Ups, and they play as much as they can. Jaden is very good, good enough that when he defeats one of the best players in an epic game, he receives an invitation to play in the city’s Top Tiers Tournament, with a $2,000 prize for the best Cross Ups player.

Cali shares a duplex with Jaden. They have lived next door to each other since they were born, and, being of ethnic Chinese heritage, Cali gets along splendidly with Jaden’s mother. But Cali’s mother is sick, and she ends up in the hospital. She will need to stay in a wheelchair for a few months, and because their house has four steps and they can’t afford a ramp, Cali will need to go live with her father in Montréal. Jaden loves Cali like a sister, but recently his friends have started pointing out that there may be more there than he thinks. The three of them are also the target of two bullies in their math class, and the measures taken by their math teacher to solve this problem only make things worse.

As the tournament nears, Jaden has to figure out how he can attend without his parents knowing that not only does he play violent video games, but he’s really good at it too. And that $2,000 would be perfect as it would pay for a ramp for Cali’s mother, and she wouldn’t have to move so far away. With the pressure mounting, can Jaden triumph in the T3 tournament and help himself and his friends?

Sonic the Hedgehog / Mega Man: Worlds Collide, Vol. 1

Flynn, Ian. Sonic the Hedgehog / Mega Man: Worlds Collide, Vol. 1. 2013. 102p. ISBN  978-1-61988-887-6. Available as an eBook from Overdrive.

Two worlds collide in this graphic novel. Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends have been fighting against Dr. Eggman’s evil plans to take over their worlds. Mega Man and his friends have been fighting against Dr. Wily and his evil minions. When both Dr. Eggman and Dr. Wily manage to get in touch with each other, they realize that their plans dovetail perfectly together, and that each other’s nemesis may be the key to destroying their most hated enemy.

Armed with a Chaos Emerald, which allows travel between the two worlds, the evil geniuses set a plan in place. They kidnap all of Sonic’s friends, then unleash them on Mega Man’s world along with a mechanized Sonic, hoping to lure him away from his own world. Meanwhile, Sonic himself gets attacked by a Mega Man look-alike. Thus, when both heroes run into each other, the battle is on! Dr. Eggman and Dr. Wily cannot help but laugh in glee as they watch Sonic and Mega Man fight each other. But with the fate of two worlds in the balance, will the two blue heroes realize their mistake and thwart the doctors’ plans, or will they destroy each other?

Fans of video games and of graphic novels will appreciate the sharp lines and fast-paced action displayed in this book. Enough background information is provided for the reader who is not familiar with either video game icon.

Day of the Assassins

O’Brien, Johnny. Day of the Assassins. Book 1 of the Jack Christie Adventure series. 2009. 224p. ISBN 9780763645953. Available at FIC OBR on the library shelves.

Jack Christie is a regular teenager. His father left when he was three, and he’s lived his whole life with his loving mother in Scotland. At fifteen, Jack loves playing video games, and his current favorite is Point-of-Departure, a World War I simulation. His best friend Angus also likes to play it, and they often talk about what life would have been like then. It’s a typical teenage life.

When Jack receives a history book from a father he doesn’t know, however, that things are about to change drastically. Jack and Angus discover a secret workshop in Jack’s basement, and the boys learn that there is a conflict between two secret organizations, both of which possess time machines. The first group seeks to travel back in time and fix some of the errors of the past, while the second group believe in non-intervention in past affairs.

Pawns in the fight between these two groups, Jack and Angus travel back in time to August 1914, and find themselves in Belgrade as Archduke Ferdinand is visiting. The boys know that the assassination of Ferdinand is the match that lights the First World War. They now face a most difficult choice: Prevent the assassination and irrevocably change world history (and their own!) or let the assassination take place and live with the knowledge that they could have stopped a world tragedy. What choice will they make?

This book is a great “what if” book, and features plenty of action and adventure to boot. Fans of the First World War will enjoy the world setting and the experience of “being” there.

The Rule of Thoughts

Dashner, James. The Rule of Thoughts. 2014. 336p. ISBN 978-038574145. FIC DAS on the library shelves.

In Eye of Minds, Michael has become the first Tangent to become human. He was unaware he was a computer program until Kaine, himself a Tangent villain who controls the VirtualNet, told him. Now in Jackson Park’s body in the real world, Michael is hunted down by Kaine’s agents. His only hope is in reuniting with Sarah and Bryson so that together they can put an end to Kaine’s plans.

But when artificial intelligence and virtual reality are so good that they are indistinguishable from the real deal, whom can the trio trust? Is reality even “real,” or is it simply another computer simulation? Michael is running out of time to discover the truth, and it may very well cost him the human life he just gained.

The story continues in The Game of Lives.

Game Slaves

Skinner, Gard. Game Slaves. 2014. 336p. ISBN 978-0547972596. Available as an eBook on Overdrive.

Phoenix leads a team of highly specialized and efficient non-player characters in the Blackstar gaming console environment. When people play a computer game, the bad bosses they encounter are Phoenix and his teammates. There is a difference between other computer games and Blackstar’s, however. They can adapt, listen in on the players’ communications, and anticipate their every move. Phoenix and the others are self-aware and know that they are computer programs created for the enjoyment of people who escape their otherwise bleak lives. They are corporate property.

But when Dakota joins the team, everything changes. As the newest model, she is faster and more accurate. She is also full of doubt that she is a computer code. How else could she remember details like swimming in a lake? In her quest to discover the truth of what, or who, she really is, Dakota leads Phoenix and his friends on a deadly game against Blackstar and its agents, who are bent on restoring the five to their place as best gaming villains and not as individuals.

Virtual reality offers authors the ability to play Russian dolls and present an environment within an environment within an environment. This book is no exception, and the reader, much like the main characters, never quite know whether they are joined the real world or are still zeroes and ones on a server. An interesting exploration of what is reality, this action packed novel provides characters that are designed to be bigger than life, and they do not disappoint.

If you enjoyed this book, consider Phoenix, a space opera adventure with similar questioning of what it means to be human.

Eye of Minds

Dashner, James. Eye of Minds. 2013. 336p. ISBN 978-0385741392. Available as a book on the library shelves at FIC DAS and as an eBook on Overdrive.

Michael lives to connect to the virtual world that everyone lives in, the VirtNet. He spends countless hours with his friends Bryson and Sarah in the Sleep, completing missions, hacking code, and amassing experience points. An encounter with a girl named Tanya, who removes her Core, the program that prevents her from dying in real life if she dies in the Sleep and who then commits suicide to escape from an evil gamer named Kaine, throws everything off. Kaine has taken over the VirtNet and is sending Killsims against other gamers, destroying their characters in the VirtNet but also causing psychosis in the Wake.

When approached by VirtNet authorities to chase down Kaine, Michael and his friends at first think of it as another game. But it quickly turns deadly. Kaine is rumored to be unleashing the Mortality Doctrine, and they must find his hideout on the Hallowed Ravine before Kaine’s evil plan comes to fruition. Can the three teens prevent both a virtual and real catastrophe before it’s too late?

Dashner once again creates a dystopian world in which nothing is what it seems. In this first book of a trilogy, the main characters are fleshed out and have complex motivations for completing this mission. Reminiscent of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, the boundaries between virtual and reality become blurred as Michael wanders off into dark corners  where no humans have tread before. Fans of Dashner will enjoy this new world and will want to read The Rule of Thoughts. Other books by Dashner include the Maze Runner trilogy (Maze Runner, Scorch Trials, and the Death Cure).