The original book of this series "Dreampark" is one of my all-time guilty pleasure favorites (from an author responsible for many guilty pleasures). "Dreampark" was a mystery inside of a south seas epic inside of a science fiction story, all set in the ultimate 12-year old dorky role playing gamer's fantasy of a giant high tech theme park where you could role play in elaborate adventures. The original novel came out before VR was a big deal, and so the technology is endearingly disneyesque, with holograms and anamatronics.

Barsoom is a stand-alone novel, but has the same mystery-adventure-sci fi layering and is again set in the slighly old-fashioned high tech theme park. Again made me wish I could visit it. Doesn't have the same quality of story as the original, and set against a backdrop of mars exploration that didn't really have much to do with the story and seemed completely unneccesary. Maybe setup for the next book?