Here is a quarterfinalist reviews for a full read for Team 1.21 Gigawatts for the first round of SPSFC#5 by team judge Archie Kregear. For more information about the team and our progress, please go to the team update page here.

Gamer by Belinda Crawford

Blurb

Vlad – gamer, hacker, scourge… Angel of Death.

Vlad’s parents died in a car accident; she can still feel the flames licking her skin, smell the burning batteries and fire-retardant. Except it wasn’t an accident, someone made it happen.

She’s has spent the last nine years tracking those responsible; planning, plotting. 

She’s almost done.

When the last move is over, her opponent will wish they never played with the Angel of Death.

Get ready to jack in and play along as Crawford masterfully weaves a complex, action-packed tale of virtual reality and revenge.

My Review

I was skeptical as I first started reading Gamer. A young woman, traumatized by an accident that killed her parents and left her physically and emotionally scared. Her pursuit to find the person responsible takes her into the world of her mother, a gamer and her grandmother, an owner of a gaming corporation and player of corporate games. My initial take was this would go along the plot lines of Ready Player One, and there are similarities. I wondered if the book would fit into LitRPG, but after a few chapters that idea was erased and put it into GameLit and could be a techno-thriller but I am not familiar with that genre. If I had read this as a sample in the early rounds, I might not have given it a passing grade. However, once the author has established the characters and world, the book takes off and maintains a fast pace to the end. Then as the blurb says, “Crawford masterfully weaves a complex, action-packed tale of virtual reality and revenge.”

Plot and Characters

Note: Spoilers follow.

The book is in third person following the Vladana Tong whose parents were killed in a car accident. Vlad was seriously injured and traumatized by the accident. The author excellently describes the scenes through Vlad’s flashes back to the accident multiple times. To cope she has taken up gaming and become a hacker and notable character within the gaming world. A world with high end computers running hacked code and players jacking up on high performance drugs. In the real world she is obsessed with finding out who is responsible for her parents death. It is this obsession that drives the plot.

The corporate and family intrigue is dominated by Vlad’s grandmother who plays the stereotypical roles of demanding family matriarch and win at all costs corporate head. She works well in the story as the antagonist and Vlad’s initial suspect. 

On the gaming side of the plot is the team Vlad is recruited onto. Initially the others on the team think she is only an excellent player and it isn’t until late in the book where they find she is a hacker. Vlad, being a loner most of her life, finds it difficult to accept being part of the team while the team slowly considers her a valuable member. In the end they are an integral part to discovering the answers Vlad is looking for. 

As for the science of gaming the author did not stretch my imagination all that much. The world is futuristic but not so much as to provide new ideas or concepts. Jacking up a player’s performance using drugs and the use of player pods or game cubes are not new. With that said, the book is not about the hardware or software. They are part of the world and have been expertly woven into the plot. A reader who is a high-tech gamer would find this acceptable while a non-gamer I do not feel would be overwhelmed. 

My thoughts

As the first book I am writing a full review for in SPSFC #5, I found it well written and enjoyable to read. The writing is excellent, but for my tastes somewhat wordy in defining environments as they slow the pace down. However, there are descriptions which are worth reading just for the excellent wordsmithing. At times the word crafting was worth a double or triple read which slowed down the pace. The wordiness did decrease as the story progressed and did not slow the pace in the last half of the book.

The main character, Vlad, starts off as a highly damaged person. Throughout the book, she suffers more damage and by the end, has not healed. She does find out who is responsible for her mother’s death and gets her revenge, but she remains a person who needs healing. There are hints that she is on the way.

Summation

For the gamer who has mounds of hurt inside, this is a book you will relate to. For the sci-fi fan who is looking for a book based on a leap in science, this will not satisfy your need. For me I can’t recall a book where the MC is so obsessed that they neglect the pain they suffer. It was trough for me to identify with someone who suffers to that extent and neglects their health. Overall, Gamer was exciting to read, fast paced and written well.