Retrato do autor

A.M. Macdonald

Autor(a) de Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary

17 Works 329 Membros 4 Críticas

Obras por A.M. Macdonald

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Nome legal
Miss Agnes M Macdonald
Outros nomes
Nancy
Sexo
female
Educação
Oxon (BA)

Membros

Críticas

Now, I will clarify two things: the only two videogames I don't suck playing are Windows Freecell and Pokémon. The second is that I'm startled to realize despite the rather positive review and exposure that this book got via SPFBO 2017, it still has almost 0 reviews which I find to be unfortunate.

This book has a lot of things that many younger readers will enjoy and relate to: videogame galore, scifi, fantasy, action, teen angst done unusually well and a rather detestable yuppie protagonist that oddly enough grows into an unexpected hero. It's sort of hard to pinpoint one genre for this book, it seems to be a mesh of urban fantasy, sci-fi deep world exploration, military space opera (of sorts), young adult clean adventure novel and then add some sprinkles of Matrix and hack/SIGN on the top. The massive genre crossing of this book will appeal to a lot of different readers.

Jake is the protagonist and he's the priviledged son of overworked doctors living in some affluent small town named Quedyville in northwestern USA. In real life he seems like a horrible and nasty person with a chip on his shoulder that punches people at his school for no reason at all (he projects himself so well that he claims Chief who is "his sworn enemy" is a bully when in reality Jake is a horrid person with too much narcicissm to realize it). The only person that tolerates him is Lucy who is a bookworm striving to get a coveted scholarship that works as a waitress because her family is poor. She thinks that deep down, Jake isn't a bad person but he just needs a push in the right direction.

He shrugs it off and enters the town's gaming café Twilight and boots up his alter persona: the living gaming legend Dybsy that has won countless gaming tournaments and has amassed a nice fortune of bitcoins that his parents don't know about. While his narcicisstic tendencies grant him scorn in the real world, he's acclaimed and both revered and envied by gamers everywhere that don't know who he is. One day, he is playing an RPG game with a guy that he's teamed up with on several occasions over the years named Ghost who gives him life advice that he ignores. When they were battling a bad guy on a newly released game, a strange octopus with laser beams pops up and Ghost's 3D body goes all Matrix in the game and defeats the bad guy seemingly breathing. Jake freaks out and his computer crashes.

He starts getting messages from Ghost sort of Matrix style that his life is going to change forever and that it was time for him to be brought with him. Jake/Dybsy thinks he's probably gone insane and takes the comments as some sort of joke. Ghost delivers him a command code to put in his home computer and then his entire body teleports to this strange black realm reminiscent of the Tron films called "The Singe".

In a way his life on Earth was real but several decades ago, a man known by everyone as "The Director" discovered a way to reach The Singe discovering mankind of being threatened by digital enemies that enter the human world infecting computers with viruses and thrwarting online videogames. He also discovered he can not only transplant the consciousness of humans to The Singe, but he can also train them and send their conscious minds into videogames to defeat these beings called Dregs. Jake is utterly confused about why they wanted to recruit him and tries to play along thinking he's insane.

The tell him he is expected to start training at Singe Academy with several other promising gamers as a special unit and that he would spend part of his time on Earth living his normal life with a greater purpose. He returns to his body and realized that his trip to The Singe only lasted a few seconds in Earth time and brushes it off. He tries to get closer to Lucy but she insults him once again for his gaming hobby leaving him confused and alone.

He decides to enter a special flash drive they gave to him that somehow reappeared with him on Earth that allows him to return to The Singe at a preaccorded time that evening. He needs answers and instead, he is presented tohis team: two albino pair fraternal twins named Blink and Mallory that are mostly curious about his arrival and a feisty teenager with anger issues named Keiko that wants to crush his online gaming legacy and isn't thrilled to have him on her team. They were supposed to have another 4th member that quit (the book never mentions what happened or why they seem so ignorant about the academy even though they have been routinely traveling to the place for about 1 year). The Director assigns an elderly woman that amazingly enough is a famous retired Gamer named Nora to train them. She gives them advice on mind training and team work.

After seeing several tragedies during this odd war that almost no human is aware of, he starts to grow as a person, tries to be nicer to Lucy that is clearly attracted to him as a person (but still hates his gaming) and apologizes to Chief that somehow discovers his alter ego and offers to help him with his gaming career.

Jake is such a knucklehead that he doesn't realize both Keiko and Lucy are attracted to him. He ends up with a difficult position. Save the world? Risk losing the memories of his alter Dybsy persona if he is killed in the virtual battlefield? Confess his insane new unpaid job at The Singe with Lucy? Choose between Lucy and Keiko to date? He likes Keiko as a team member and respects her as a gamer, but in a way, he likes Lucy more despite her aversion to videogames. Later on he discovers a terrifying secret about Lucy and The Director that tears him apart and makes him grow into a more decent person.

Their plan to defeat the leader of their virtual enemy Nemesis is further hindered when a strange humanoid giant with medieval armor and vast intelligence (not to mention a surly personality) named Fiarmm appears on The Singe saying strange things. Enemy or ally? He seems to complicate the mission further...

The pacing of the story is good, Jake's development as a better person is credible and I like the feeling of the story and the many secrets that are yet to be unraveled. I don't know how The Director entered this mysterious dimension at an apparent young age or how be built buildings out of a strange unidimensional world that is governed by the mind. Many further worlds to see, gamers as backbone to their unusual army. The book can be enjoyed by non gamers such as myself and I hope more people give it a chance because it was a good read.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
chirikosan | 1 outra crítica | Jul 24, 2023 |
Now, I will clarify two things: the only two videogames I don't suck playing are Windows Freecell and Pokémon. The second is that I'm startled to realize despite the rather positive review and exposure that this book got via SPFBO 2017, it still has almost 0 reviews which I find to be unfortunate.

This book has a lot of things that many younger readers will enjoy and relate to: videogame galore, scifi, fantasy, action, teen angst done unusually well and a rather detestable yuppie protagonist that oddly enough grows into an unexpected hero. It's sort of hard to pinpoint one genre for this book, it seems to be a mesh of urban fantasy, sci-fi deep world exploration, military space opera (of sorts), young adult clean adventure novel and then add some sprinkles of Matrix and hack/SIGN on the top. The massive genre crossing of this book will appeal to a lot of different readers.

Jake is the protagonist and he's the priviledged son of overworked doctors living in some affluent small town named Quedyville in northwestern USA. In real life he seems like a horrible and nasty person with a chip on his shoulder that punches people at his school for no reason at all (he projects himself so well that he claims Chief who is "his sworn enemy" is a bully when in reality Jake is a horrid person with too much narcicissm to realize it). The only person that tolerates him is Lucy who is a bookworm striving to get a coveted scholarship that works as a waitress because her family is poor. She thinks that deep down, Jake isn't a bad person but he just needs a push in the right direction.

He shrugs it off and enters the town's gaming café Twilight and boots up his alter persona: the living gaming legend Dybsy that has won countless gaming tournaments and has amassed a nice fortune of bitcoins that his parents don't know about. While his narcicisstic tendencies grant him scorn in the real world, he's acclaimed and both revered and envied by gamers everywhere that don't know who he is. One day, he is playing an RPG game with a guy that he's teamed up with on several occasions over the years named Ghost who gives him life advice that he ignores. When they were battling a bad guy on a newly released game, a strange octopus with laser beams pops up and Ghost's 3D body goes all Matrix in the game and defeats the bad guy seemingly breathing. Jake freaks out and his computer crashes.

He starts getting messages from Ghost sort of Matrix style that his life is going to change forever and that it was time for him to be brought with him. Jake/Dybsy thinks he's probably gone insane and takes the comments as some sort of joke. Ghost delivers him a command code to put in his home computer and then his entire body teleports to this strange black realm reminiscent of the Tron films called "The Singe".

In a way his life on Earth was real but several decades ago, a man known by everyone as "The Director" discovered a way to reach The Singe discovering mankind of being threatened by digital enemies that enter the human world infecting computers with viruses and thrwarting online videogames. He also discovered he can not only transplant the consciousness of humans to The Singe, but he can also train them and send their conscious minds into videogames to defeat these beings called Dregs. Jake is utterly confused about why they wanted to recruit him and tries to play along thinking he's insane.

The tell him he is expected to start training at Singe Academy with several other promising gamers as a special unit and that he would spend part of his time on Earth living his normal life with a greater purpose. He returns to his body and realized that his trip to The Singe only lasted a few seconds in Earth time and brushes it off. He tries to get closer to Lucy but she insults him once again for his gaming hobby leaving him confused and alone.

He decides to enter a special flash drive they gave to him that somehow reappeared with him on Earth that allows him to return to The Singe at a preaccorded time that evening. He needs answers and instead, he is presented tohis team: two albino pair fraternal twins named Blink and Mallory that are mostly curious about his arrival and a feisty teenager with anger issues named Keiko that wants to crush his online gaming legacy and isn't thrilled to have him on her team. They were supposed to have another 4th member that quit (the book never mentions what happened or why they seem so ignorant about the academy even though they have been routinely traveling to the place for about 1 year). The Director assigns an elderly woman that amazingly enough is a famous retired Gamer named Nora to train them. She gives them advice on mind training and team work.

After seeing several tragedies during this odd war that almost no human is aware of, he starts to grow as a person, tries to be nicer to Lucy that is clearly attracted to him as a person (but still hates his gaming) and apologizes to Chief that somehow discovers his alter ego and offers to help him with his gaming career.

Jake is such a knucklehead that he doesn't realize both Keiko and Lucy are attracted to him. He ends up with a difficult position. Save the world? Risk losing the memories of his alter Dybsy persona if he is killed in the virtual battlefield? Confess his insane new unpaid job at The Singe with Lucy? Choose between Lucy and Keiko to date? He likes Keiko as a team member and respects her as a gamer, but in a way, he likes Lucy more despite her aversion to videogames. Later on he discovers a terrifying secret about Lucy and The Director that tears him apart and makes him grow into a more decent person.

Their plan to defeat the leader of their virtual enemy Nemesis is further hindered when a strange humanoid giant with medieval armor and vast intelligence (not to mention a surly personality) named Fiarmm appears on The Singe saying strange things. Enemy or ally? He seems to complicate the mission further...

The pacing of the story is good, Jake's development as a better person is credible and I like the feeling of the story and the many secrets that are yet to be unraveled. I don't know how The Director entered this mysterious dimension at an apparent young age or how be built buildings out of a strange unidimensional world that is governed by the mind. Many further worlds to see, gamers as backbone to their unusual army. The book can be enjoyed by non gamers such as myself and I hope more people give it a chance because it was a good read.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
chirikosan | 1 outra crítica | May 2, 2018 |
 
Assinalado
signs2go | Dec 11, 2017 |
 
Assinalado
writerscentre | Jun 18, 2015 |

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Estatísticas

Obras
17
Membros
329
Popularidade
#72,116
Avaliação
½ 4.5
Críticas
4
ISBN
37

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