The Moon Maze Game

Dream Park #4

by Larry Niven, Steven Barnes

The Year: 2085. Humanity has spread throughout the solar system. A stable lunar colony is agitating for independence. Lunar tourism is on the rise....

Against this background, professional “Close Protection” specialist Scotty Griffin, fresh off a disastrous assignment, is offered the opportunity of a lifetime: to shepherd the teenaged heir to the Republic of Kikaya on a fabulous vacation. Ali Kikaya will participate in the first live action role playing game conducted on the Moon itself. Having left Luna—and a treasured marriage—years ago due to a near-tragic accident, Scotty leaps at the opportunity.

Live Action Role Playing attracts a very special sort of individual: brilliant, unpredictable, resourceful, and addicted to problem solving. By kidnapping a dozen gamers in the middle of the ultimate game, watched by more people than any other sporting event in history, they have thrown down an irresistible gauntlet: to “win” the first game that ever became “real.” Pursued by armed and murderous terrorists, forced to solve gaming puzzles to stay a jump ahead, forced to juggle multiple psychological realities as they do...this is the game for which  they’ve prepared  their entire lives, and they are going to play it for all it’s worth.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Audiobook, Gaming, Science Fiction Fantasy, Mystery

364 pages, Hardcover

First published August 16, 2011

About the author

Laurence van Cott Niven's best known work is Ringworld (Ringworld, #1) (1970), which received the Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics. The creation of thoroughly worked-out alien species, which are very different from humans both physically and mentally, is recognized as one of Niven's main strengths.

Niven also often includes elements of detective fiction and adventure stories. His fantasy includes The Magic Goes Away series, which utilizes an exhaustible resource, called Mana, to make the magic a non-renewable resource.

Niven created an alien species, the Kzin, which were featured in a series of twelve collection books, the Man-Kzin Wars. He co-authored a number of novels with Jerry Pournelle. In fact, much of his writing since the 1970s has been in collaboration, particularly with Pournelle, Steven Barnes, Brenda Cooper, or Edward M. Lerner.

He briefly attended the California Institute of Technology and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics (with a minor in psychology) from Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, in 1962. He did a year of graduate work in mathematics at the University of California at Los Angeles. He has since lived in Los Angeles suburbs, including Chatsworth and Tarzana, as a full-time writer. He married Marilyn Joyce "Fuzzy Pink" Wisowaty, herself a well-known science fiction and Regency literature fan, on September 6, 1969.

Niven won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story for Neutron Star in 1967. In 1972, for Inconstant Moon, and in 1975 for The Hole Man. In 1976, he won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette for The Borderland of Sol.

Niven has written scripts for various science fiction television shows, including the original Land of the Lost series and Star Trek: The Animated Series, for which he adapted his early Kzin story The Soft Weapon. He adapted his story Inconstant Moon for an episode of the television series The Outer Limits in 1996.

He has also written for the DC Comics character Green Lantern including in his stories hard science fiction concepts such as universal entropy and the redshift effect, which are unusual in comic books.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/larryn...

Reviews

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Back forever ago, I used to rave about the Dream Park books. They were everything I imagined good imaginative fiction ought to be when it's right next door to us but catering big time to the whole gamer crowd that's out there.

What I mean is it's a SF and Fantasy fan's dream, mixed with LARPing and such a huge budget. Before, we were dealing with a fantasy theme park pulling out all the stops for the Princess of Mars or Voodoo mysteries and mixing it all with high-tech hijinx and murder and real mystery all along. This is well before the days of Ready Player One and even before Tad Williams' Otherland series.

I really wanted to like visiting the real Moon and having an all-out Wellsian adventure, adding a total steampunkian theme with magic users, thieves, and princes... and because this takes place at a much later date than the other Dream Parks, we're actually having the full-blown adventure ON the moon.

Cool, right? LARP it up with full props and live cameras and a world betting on your death, and don't forget the massive rewards and sponsorships!

Well, um... maybe I never got into the actual characters in this one. I liked the twists and turns in the overall plot and I have no issues with crossover books as long as the excitement is high, but the people I actually needed to root for were kinda lacking. There might have been a few other issues, too, but that's the big one for me.

Even so, there was a ton of cool action and surprises and as a straight adventure, it hits all the right geek buttons, classic SF buttons, and modern gamer buttons. This totally panders to us. :) It doesn't save the novel from the issues I brought up, but it did keep me reading with a good deal of interest. That's not all that bad. :)

[Dave · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dream Park is one of my favorite novels of all time. It really captured the feeling of what futuristic live action fantasy gaming might be like. The characters were interesting and lively, and the plot was engaging and fun.

The first sequel, The Barsoom Project, was just as good, maybe even a little better.

Then came The California Voodoo Game. This one tried a little too hard, suffered some abrupt and jarring changes to the canon (replacing Kreugeresque holographic "external vr" technology with Lanieresque HUDs and goggles); and basically in the attempt to go bigger and badder, started to come apart at the seams.

This, the fourth installment in the series, is just a mess. The plot has promise but never really sells itself. Apart from a few moments (the nod to Little Wars was nice, even if the inherent plot twist was blindingly obvious and the divorce from the actual game context rendered it flaccid), the Wellsian fantasy inspiration for the titular game never materializes (unlike the prior novels, the game itself takes a distant second place to the non-game plot, and the book suffers immensely for it). The pacing is uncertain and the editing is so haphazard that I'm not even sure the chronology is correct. The characters are interchangeable and inconsistent, none of them particularly interesting or memorable. The point of view changes so erratically that eventually the book gives up on paragraph breaks when it shifts and just randomly changes perspective whenever it feels like it.

So, to put not too fine a point on it, I was disappointed in California Voodoo Game, and hoped that this one might salvage the series, but was even more disappointed that the downward trend continues.

Frankly, Niven & Barnes should be a sure bet, but their grasp of gaming culture seems to have actually diminished significantly since the first two books; despite what I can only assume is more familiarity with real life gaming. This book is sloppy and uninspiring in all regards, and that is a damn shame, because it should have been awesome.

TL;DR: Go read Dream Park and The Barsoom Project, and just assume the series ends there.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will admit that its been a while since I have read a great rip roaring sci-fi adventure from Larry Niven (and Steven Barnes) and I will admit that I had forgotten how much fun it was. True the book did get delayed being finished as I was busy with work but once the story clicked and I was in the full flow it was hard to put down.

So why a mediocre rating - well to be honest this is technically the latest in a series of books about the Dream Park games and although the story was fast paced and so full (intentionally) of easter eggs for classic science fiction fans you could not turn a page it would seem without stumbling on a new one - the story felt as though I had read it all before.

Now that may seem a little harsh but what was refreshing was the characterisations of the various players and I will admit there was a nice twist regarding the villains towards the end of the book which to be honest pulled the rating up but all the same it was bit too safe for my liking

That said it does remind me how much fun Larry Niven and his science fiction can get and it does encourage me to pick up some of his other books I have not read (and maybe resist a few classics from the past too).

So for a fun ScFi read that passes the time I could have done a lot lot worse than this book and to be honest it was far more fun than I was expecting.

[AndrewP · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember loving the first Dream Park book, then being a bit disappointed with the second and third installments. This one is back on track and contains more futuristic LARPing, for me this made it much more interesting.

The game world/scenario in this book is take on H.G. Well's 'The First Men in the Moon' and those familiar with that book will really appreciate the period setting. As the game takes place in a dome on the moon, there is the added element of lower gravity and the constant danger of outside vacuum. When the game turns serious it becomes a battle of gamers testing their skills against a gang of hardened criminals.

Some of the main characters reflect the earlier books, but most of them are new so this could easily be read as a stand alone. A good read for gamers.

[Lost Planet Airman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, but missing something compared to past Niven and past Dream Park series.

SRC 2018 'TUM' (Fall) Task 5.6 based on Moon Maze.
(Did not check for other possible tasks)

[Tim Hicks · Rating 2 out of 5]

OK, I didn't like the other Dream Park books all that much either, and I hated Fallen Angels.
But this was disappointing even beyond that.
This from the guy who gave us Ringworld, stepping discs and the Draco Tavern? Larry, you're slumming.

Even the basic premise is nonsense: Broadcast LARPs are popular, therefore one set on the moon will be boffo. But then I don't watch "Survivor" on TV either so what do I know?

I disliked it most near the end where a couple of scenes have characters being killed while in another room our gamer heroes are lobbing marshmallows at animatronic grubs. I just can't get my head around mixing gaming and action-film killing this way. The authors did their best to make it plausible, but it still fell short for me.

I liked the two mercenary leaders, characters with great potential that in the end might has well have been any two of the other disposable schlubs. The rest of the cast were generic, almost as if they drew index cards from a file of stock characters.

And don't even get me started on the plot-within-a-plot stuff that I won't do a spoiler on. I'll just say that nesting two implausible plots within two other implausible ones is just asking for trouble.

This is an circle-jerk for LARP gamers, and a waste of time for others. I won't read any more of them.

Also, it contained at least a dozen basic errors and typos that even a rookie copy editor would have caught.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed DREAM PARK and this is the latest sequel. This time the game is played on the moon, and the action becomes more real than what the players bargained for. There were a few details that I didn't find especially convincing, but it's a fun and fast-paced page-turner, just the thing for a winter evening by the fireplace.

[Jonathan Lee · Rating 1 out of 5]

A story about the first LARPing contest on the Moon, filled with DnD, virtual reality, space pirates, and Earth-Moon politics sounded like it would be RIGHT up my alley. Unfortunately, I found it to be a dull trudge through a contrived plot with uninteresting characters and unlikeable romance.

The actual LARP game never really gets off the ground, which I found disappointing. The few riddles that do get solved fall under the family of “Wait, say that again! THAT’S how we can solve this!” family of cliche puzzle-solving. The game is quickly interrupted by a band of pirates, that are revealed to have a nonsensical motivation beyond being mercenaries. The main characters are flat, and for a book that relies heavily on dialogue between them, very uninteresting. I dislike how heavily this book leans into some of my least favorite attributes of sci-fi. Characters spew out highly technical terms the reader isn’t intended to know without ever explaining them, Eureka moments that allow characters that seem unprepared or outmatched inexplicably the knowledge of the one exception around an otherwise impossible task through some sciency Deus Ex Machina, and the suspension of belief required to exist in a fictional world full of fantastical and highly advanced technological but completely unrealistic human behavior.

The two main romantic relationships are extremely underdeveloped and none of the characters are ever shown sacrificing or truly caring for the other. The divorce is reconciled in the end without an explanation, after very little had changed.

Very disappointing book and I don’t recommend it.



To be fair: I did not realize until literally writing this review and seeing the book labeled as “Dream Park #4” that this was part of a series. It’s possible that if I had read the first three books in the series I would feel differently. I don’t think my criticisms would be solved by having read the first three, but it’s possible. (I didn’t like this book enough to give the first three a try though, so we’ll never find out!)

[Eddie Hodges · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Moon Maze Game is a really great science fiction novel (though I'm not crazy over the title). It's part of a group of books by Niven & Barnes called the Dream Park novels; not really a series, but set, more or less, in the same setting. The Dream Parks are the setting for live action role playing games that have far out stripped football, basketball and other sports in popularity. To the point that chamionship games are followed with as much or more enthusiasm than modern Super Bowl games. Holographic technology similar to the Holodecks found in the Star Trek programs The Next Generation, Deep
Space Nine and Voyager (though these books have nothing to do with Star Trek) has been perfected to the point that realistic settings can be created for any sort of role playing game one might need a background for. Fantasy games are the most popular in which players take on the roles of knights, magicians, thieves, etc. Kind of like World of Warcraft, but instead of playing the game via computer you're actually playing your character in the game. This premise would be interesting enough, but the writers toss in another genre; mystery/detective fiction. While a major game is going on some sort of crime occurrs in which a police officer or detective has to enter the game as a player and resolve the crime while actually playing the game so as not to interupt an important game. Thus you have a mixed genre story (which I love) involving the science fiction of the technology used to run the game; fantasy action because, thanks to the technology's special effects, magic 'works' and creatures like dragons exist (which means the detective actually has to play the game or get killed and thus removed) along with a mystery adventure as the hero tried to solve/prevent a crime. Way cool!

In Moon Maze Game; during the first game ever held on the Moon, the Prince of a small country is playing in the game resulting in professional terrorist entering the game to kidnap or kill him. Only they didn't count on the resourefullness and talent of the players who, under the guidance of the Prince's bodyguard, use the game against the terrorist while trying to make it to the end of the game and safety.

In terms of science fiction/fantasy novels it doesn't get more fun than this group of books. If you want to start at the beginning the first book is titled Dream Park with Moon Maze Game being the most recent.

[Gilbert Stack · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Dream Park series ends on an awesome note with The Moon Maze Game. I loved the first book and thoroughly enjoyed The Barsoom Project but thought the series took a wrong turn with The California Voodoo Game. With the Moon Maze Game, Niven and Barnes recaptured the magic, and ironically did it by breaking the formula that governed the first three books.

These novels all revolve around a live-action role playing game which utilizes holograms and robotics to produce fantasy adventures. The efforts by the players to win the game is always a central part of the plot, but there is also always a crime that occurs outside the game that somehow involves the players in the games. Our heroes are always trying to solve the crime without interrupting the game which is a major cinematic event with tens of millions dollars depending on it being completed. The Moon Maze Game has all of that plus some excellent subplots involving problems between members of the cast, but what makes this stand out as the best book in the series was that Niven and Barnes broke their formula midway through, upping the tension dramatically and making this a thrilling rollercoaster of a ride.

The plot was especially appealing to me because it revolves around H.G. Wells’ novel, The First Men in the Moon. The numerous ways that Wells’ work is woven into this story is an utter delight for the science fiction fan. You don’t have to be familiar with Wells to enjoy the book, but it certainly adds to the fun if you are.

There was only one significant mistake in the plot that I picked up upon. The crime involves people on earth believing that one of the players in the game taking place on the moon has been kidnapped—even though the kidnappers don’t always have control over their victim. Communications between the game area and the rest of the world have supposedly been severed. Yet, we find out at the end of the story that the game cameras were transmitting everything that happened. This means that everyone on earth knew the kidnapping had at least partially failed. It also means that the authorities on the moon trying to figure out what to do should have had more information than they did (because they were still able to contact earth). To make matters worse, the error wasn’t necessary to advance the plot. Still, it’s easy to overlook this one thing and enjoy a great novel.

If you liked this review, you can find more at www.gilbertstack.com/reviews.

[Dixie Conley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read several reviews that slammed this book and I can't see why they did so. Admittedly, the setup was slow moving, almost glacial in its progress, but the story overall was wonderful.

Set a generation after the Dream Park books, man has colonized the moon to a point. Enough to host a game at any rate. The players are varied, but among them are the prince of an African nation, his bodyguard, an experienced gamer and her out-of-practice partner who fear a grudge against them from the GM, a lady in a bubble, and various other personalities. Radicals have decided to use the game as an opportunity to capture the prince and hold him hostage.

The game has already started when the kidnappers force their way in and what happens after is part real life, part game and all exciting action. I loved it.

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a big fan of Niven and Barnes's Dream Park trilogy - imagining the role-playing hobby, or really, LARPing, in the mid-21st Century - and the RPG based on it is probably the game I've most run since I finished high school. The last of those three books came out in 1992. And then surprise! The authors returned to Dream Park in 2018(!) with The Moon Maze Game! Set almost 30 years after the original, the novel stars a new cast of gamers set to play the first game on the Moon colony, one based on H.G. Wells's oeuvre (and if you know your RPG history, there is a nice thematic link there). But Dream Park novels are never really about the "game". Something is always happening "outside" that affects it. In this case, a terrorist threat turns the adventure into Die Hard in a Role-Playing Game. It kind of needs it because despite the Luna's physics adding a layer of interest, and this future having a lot of diversity (I do like the characters), Game Master Xavier is no Richard Lopez, if you know what I mean. (Well, I guess if you've read the other books, you might.) I do think the book needed another editorial pass to eliminate redundant dialog, weird mistakes like characters walking out of a room and then getting a line, and maybe some of the sex gaze stuff. But as a return to an old franchise I used to love, Moon Maze is a fun page-turner.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

_Dream Park_ was not from Niven's "early and awesome" period, but it was an early favorite of mine, because it was about gamers and it understood what gamers wanted out of interactive drama. (Yes, the Games themselves were a stilted collection of LARP and D&D tropes, but that's what would *actually happen*, right? I mean look at today's videogame industry. But then check out the description of the haunted-house attraction at the beginning of _DP_. That's proper game design.)

So then I liked the second Dream Park book a lot (interesting ideas about the *use* of gaming), and the third one not so much (too much real-world drama intruding on the gaming). I don't mean to sound like a one-key pianist. The point of this series is a thriller drama intertwined with a fantasy game, with a mystery underneath, and all the parts have to work. I feel that _The California Voodoo Game_ failed to make the fantasy game work. Its mystery was weak. Its spy story didn't repel me, but it didn't particularly drag me in either, especially since its underlying motivation was "He was so sexy that her brain stopped working."

That's background, so I can say: _The Moon Maze Game_ also fails to make its fantasy game work. On purpose. But it's still a failure. Let me back up. It's a generation later; Cowles Industries is buying dome space in the Lunar settlements for the first big off-world Game. At the same time, revolutionaries are plotting to kidnap one of the Gamers. The Gamemaster has a hate on for the Loremaster, billions of dollars are on the line, the revolutionaries have hired psychos as kidnappers, everything is about to go splat.

(That's introductory. Real spoilers begin here.)

So. The point is that the Game gets seriously interrupted, and the last half of the book is everybody speed-running through a broken-down Game environment, while trying to kill each other. On the Mooooon! As a thriller plot, this makes sense. But I'm not in it for the thriller plot, which is -- anyhow -- basically plotless beyond the "run! hide! run! fight!" level. There is no mystery plot to solve. The Gamer characters are a half-assed ensemble. (As in previous books, I admit, but the previous books had *colorful* half-asses.)

And the Game, well, it breaks down. The shards make good scenery but the magic is gone. I think it never gelled, because the authors knew from the beginning that they would break it. I felt the hesitancy from the beginning. (Too many introductories about kidnappers, Lunar construction, and unstable African dictatorships. I could tell, in retrospect, that this was never a novel about Gaming.)

The worst part is, the bastards *did* take care to *invent* a great Game. They let us see it in the pieces.

[Christopher M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Caveat to the following: This book = much better if you read the first Dreampark novel for background into how these games work.

Absolutely brilliant! Though no sequel will ever be able to top the original Dreampark; this is the one that comes closest. Just as in the original there is a wonderful mix between the two storylines of in-game and out of game. The out-of-game storyline still won out in grabbing my attention away from the game (for obvious reasons), but unlike books 2 and 3 (Barsoom and Vodoo) the gaming story has enough intrinsic interest in itself to really compete, probably because of the contextual crux of the book which forces the attention of the players and thus the reader onto the game--because the gamers HAVE TO play.

Now, in the original Dreampark, the out-of-game storyline and mystery was mostly resolved before the game came to an end, allowing the in-game storyline to absolutely flourish as the surviving players made an all out last-dash to the finish line. THAT left the reader feeling the adrenaline rush of fulfilled dreams after the fuel of intrigue had finished heightening the stakes. Now, in Moon Maze, that ending kinda flip-flops, resulting in the "in-game" storyline finishing (or at least coming to a climax since some could say it never really began) before the out-of-game story is resolved. There is still the adrenaline pumping race to the finish, but it is the adrenaline of escaping a nightmare rather than starring as the hero of a dream. Absolutely necessary to the book, just slightly less satisfying is all. Still, the balance between in and out game was better than any since Dreampark, and anyone who reads this books will understand why that is a simply amazing accomplishment for Niven considering the fundamental premise of this book.

So, sometimes not so much a Dreampark novel as a thriller with Dreampark elements; but that is much better than a Dreampark novel where the dreams are lackluster, boring, and kinda corny --Basoom, I'm looking at you!

[Richard Radgoski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved Dream Park. I really enjoyed the sequels. When I saw this book on the shelf, I was certain it was a sequel even though I didn't know anything about it...or that it was coming out. I then did something potentially silly...I checked the goodreads score with my iPad as I stood in the store. And I found a less than stellar score and some fairly negative reviews. I almost didn't buy it because of that. But I thought twice and recalled my enjoyment od it's predecessors and bought the book. And I finished it in a week. As scattered as I've been with reading (multiple books at a time), I focused on this one and tore through it.

The book is about a Dream Park scenario held on the moon this time. It has a good cast of characters as well as an interesting build between the game master and gamers. Like the previous books, it has an extra thread of a plot on top of the game story. In this novel, this plot overshadowed the game parts and I think some of the angst of previous reviews were because of this. I didn't have a problem with that. Would I like a pure game oriented novel? Yes... But the entire series has been stories on how these games went off course, downy get upset when the authors do the same in this novel?

I did think some of the science of the game dome was .. A bit Difficult to follow. I thought I understood the bubbles they were using in the dome for the game until the last half of the book for example. I also didn't get a solid feel for the full motivations of the bad guys. (well, the surface reason is clear, but deeper reasons are implied but not as clear.). If I could give partial stars, these might bring the score down to 3.5. Still, I very much enjoyed the book and learned a good lesson in the process. I need to use goodreads ratings as a guide, much like I use movie ratings, and buy/read what appeals to me.

[Barry Haworth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have at one time been a big fan of the works of Larry Niven, though I have not kept up with all of his works lately. The Dream Park series (of which this is the fourth) is not my favourite among his works, but I found the book to be an enjoyable enough read. The first live action competitive game to be held on the Moon is a high profile, high stakes affair, which only becomes more so when terrorists attempt a kidnapping within the game. Except that the game masters are not entirely locked out of the system, and the players have a great deal of experience and ingenuity of their own.

I found this book to be very readable, a page turner if not absolutely gripping. Sadly, the story line of the game that was interrupted by the kidnapping attempt (a Wellsian pastiche of First Men in the Moon and The War of the Worlds) sounded more interesting than the story of the book itself.

[Jeffery Russell · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first two books in this series, Dream Park and The Barsoom Project are two of my all time favorites. The series wandered a bit for book three and now, book four has wandered further. The Game, which to me is the most interesting aspect of the series, takes a backseat in book four to focus on a Die Hard style terrorist storyline which didn't grab me. On the bright side it's inspired me to go back and reread the first two.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book started slow. Too much exposition, at a glacial pace compared to the previous Dream Park books.

But when the main plot finally shifted into gear, I could barely keep up and it was grand! Suddenly I was cheering for the characters and kept on reading, eager to know what happened next. There were neat twists and turns that bumped this up to a 4 star review. I definitely recommend this book.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is fine. I've read all the Dream Park books and they're all fine. I wish they were a little more compelling, but they're still good.
I think my biggest complaint is the split between the roller play stuff and the behind the scenes stuff switches to quickly and can be confusing.
It's good, but I wish it was great.

[Mary Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite different from the first three Dream Park novels - not much on the way of gaming on this one, and there's really no mystery, per se. It's more action/suspense/thriller, with some engineering problem-solving thrown in. The characters aren't all that well fleshed out, in my opinion. But the operations of the moon colony is interesting.

[~Anita~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want a book like the first three, this is not for you. The writing is enjoyable and good but thematically it’s very different. It’s set a generation later so no recurring characters among the the group of MCs. The crime commited to drive the plot stops the game.

[Art · Rating 1 out of 5]

This one is a big disappointment. This science fiction is written around a gaming plot and not written with the normal Niven quality. I put it down.

- saw on new book shelf in library

[Ray Daley · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not awful. I quite like the connections to HG Wells, and the general story is decent, far better than the 2nd book.

If you liked the 1st book, I'd recommend this one too.

[Ari · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the fourth in the "Dream Park" series of books by Niven and Barnes. Like the previous ones, the premise is "larping plus VR leads to Very Serious entertainment, almost the way professional sports work today: mass audiences, serious preparation, and gambling and corruption." It's a good premise but in an era of "cyber sports" doesn't feel so revolutionary.

Here the gimmick is that there's a game on the moon and it crosses paths with a Central African coup. It's a good premise, a good setting and yet the book didn't do it for me.

The characters somehow felt just a little too flat and contrived. . The "woo, gamers!" trope felt overdone. And the prose plodded. The first half was really quite slow.

[Stuart Schneider · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was amazed to see another installation of this series even existed, so since the first one was great, i had to read this last one (at least I believe it to be the last one). This one was well done, although i remember the prior novels being more complex (or have I gotten old enough to simply follow along better, probably a combination of the two). I kept mixing up names at least, which is par for the course when i can finish the book in a couple of days, but ive been busy with the NCAAs, which is my excuse for taking so long on it. Maybe both writers will revisit this series, or maybe our 3d tech will catch up with the storyline and make the books obsolete? In any event, thank you for your contributions to the art!

[Thom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written nearly 20 years later, this book is quite a bit better than the third and former last book of the series. It seems likely that there won't be another. I found it good, not great, and unlike the others, the plot here covers a lot more than just the game.

One of the things that confused the previous book was a ton of characters. This book has a more reasonable cast, but not a lot of growth. Previous books tried to keep up with technology and felt dated, this one waves hands over the "game" bits. It mostly succeeds in keeping a level of hard science - the setting is a colony on the moon. Also missing is the postscript, describing the ideas behind the book and real-world things.

[Thomas S · Rating 2 out of 5]

One and a Half. Some merit, but executed with lumps. needed more needing to get to 2 stars. it wiled away the time, but the inconsistencies had me dissatisfied on the whole. I did not have it, it was OK. but not good, not great.

I think the intent was to show that LARP gamers were a cut above the rest, especially above thugs and cutthroat kidnappers, but it failed to deliver that promise. The authors should have put it in a draw for a while and started afresh. I found the disabled player the most believable, which was at least one redeeming feature.

[Ron · Rating 2 out of 5]

Scotty is a hard-luck bodyguard who gets to escort an African prince to the moon to participate in a well-financed role-playing game. There will follow many good guys and bad guys, some light sexual tension, frequent use of phrases that include “the hell”, and about a thousand references to the moon’s one-sixth gravity.

This is not a piece of great literature. It is a comic book with no pictures. And it takes for-ever to get to some comprehensible story. If you get confused, try reading the inside cover of the dust jacket which reveals plot twists you won’t get to until after page 200.

[Chris Aldridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically disappointing. It seemed rather formulaic with a larp playing prince protected by a down on his luck security expert trying to save his career. The homage to HG Wells in the RPG was fair enough but the evil terrorists trying to bring democracy by overthrowing the hereditary dictator I mean beloved king ? After everyone has got laid at the end I think there was a real missed opportunity to restore democracy. Maybe the spoilt brat prince did actually do that after proving to be a hero worthy of his benevolent dictatorship but by then I'd kinda lost interest...

[Ian Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Feels like a rough draft

Really disappointing, especially after re-reading the originals. This reads like a rough draft, characters introduced and never returned to, POV for a paragraph and then never returned to, scenes where two characters repeatedly inform one another of a particular fact as if the other one didn't know, like four times in a couple of pages. There are elements that could have been great, but the book is just a mess