A blunt, fast-moving, entertaining tale set in a steampunk virtual reality world.
A young convict gets dropped into a deadly video game in this YA SF novel.
In the dystopian People’s Republic of California, convicts aren’t sent to prison but rather forced to compete in the Games—virtual reality video games—for the entertainment of the masses. Sounds fun, right? The only problem is, if you die in the Games, you die in real life. And Donovan Riley has just been sentenced to 15 years of play. Adopting the handle BrokenChains, Donovan is plunked into a mountainous steampunk world called God’s Staircase and told that if he can make it to the top, he will be set free. Of course, he’ll have to fight his way there, past computer-generated enemies and the other convicts he shares the world with. “They really threw hardened murderers in here with the low-level offenders?” Donovan asks a fellow prisoner shortly after he arrives. “Sure did,” the old hand tells him. “And no consequences for killing anyone in the game. Constitutional rights of every inmate are suspended. We’re not people again until our sentence is served.” Donovan soon hooks up with a crew of like-minded prisoners looking to escape the game—though they have no notion of what the game will do to keep them right where they are. In this series opener, Smith and Lisec’s prose is descriptive, if a bit sophomoric. For every clever line (“You want to murder a noob, you must go through me”), there are a couple of clunkers (“I don’t take orders from anyone who looks like the server messed up and swapped his butt with his face”). Still, as the book is primarily about people beating one another with swords in order to level up, such writing suffices. The authors manage to make the world of the Games feel real even as they constantly remind readers that it is all a simulation. The fact that Donovan and the others can die at any moment helps up the stakes yet there is a lightness to the tone that keeps things feeling more or less like a video game. It’s a novel for a niche audience, but fans of the genre will likely enjoy this unsubtle offering.
A blunt, fast-moving, entertaining tale set in a steampunk virtual reality world.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wrought with admirable skill—the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly...
In a radical departure from her realistic fiction and comic chronicles of Anastasia, Lowry creates a chilling, tightly controlled future society where all controversy, pain, and choice have been expunged, each childhood year has its privileges and responsibilities, and family members are selected for compatibility.
As Jonas approaches the "Ceremony of Twelve," he wonders what his adult "Assignment" will be. Father, a "Nurturer," cares for "newchildren"; Mother works in the "Department of Justice"; but Jonas's admitted talents suggest no particular calling. In the event, he is named "Receiver," to replace an Elder with a unique function: holding the community's memories—painful, troubling, or prone to lead (like love) to disorder; the Elder ("The Giver") now begins to transfer these memories to Jonas. The process is deeply disturbing; for the first time, Jonas learns about ordinary things like color, the sun, snow, and mountains, as well as love, war, and death: the ceremony known as "release" is revealed to be murder. Horrified, Jonas plots escape to "Elsewhere," a step he believes will return the memories to all the people, but his timing is upset by a decision to release a newchild he has come to love. Ill-equipped, Jonas sets out with the baby on a desperate journey whose enigmatic conclusion resonates with allegory: Jonas may be a Christ figure, but the contrasts here with Christian symbols are also intriguing.
Wrought with admirable skill—the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly provocative novel. (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: April 1, 1993
ISBN: 978-0-395-64566-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1993
Somberly beautiful.
A girl goes in search of her missing sister and discovers a strange hidden world of dreams.
Corin, who’s 18 and dark-skinned, strives to protect her 12-year-old sister, Elly. But life as a thief is full of struggle, poverty, and loss, even without Corin’s avoidance of other relationships. Elly clings to the promise of fairy tales, like the one that says a princess lies sleeping in an underground castle after pricking her finger on a spindle. After the sisters fight and Elly runs off, Corin searches for her in Gyldan’s old network of tunnels—and finds the tale is true: Cursed Princess Amelia, golden-haired, with eyes like “sea glass” and porcelain skin, lies asleep, surrounded by flowers. Corin enters the princess’ dreamworld—the place “where your subconscious desires come to life.” She meets Briar Rose, Amelia’s alter ego, who experienced her share of sadness and wanted to fall asleep. Also in the dreamworld is green-skinned Malicine, the nonbinary demon who, despite having placed the curse of eternal slumber on Amelia, is mostly friendly. All three are running from things they can’t face, though the dreamworld may not give them a choice. Pham’s debut, a Sapphic reimagining of “Sleeping Beauty,” explores mental health and asks a lot of readers as it seesaws between emotional confrontations, time jumps, and scenes where one character inhabits the memories of another, all of which demand intense engagement. Still, the ending is earned as well as positive.
Somberly beautiful. (content note) (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: June 2, 2026
ISBN: 9798217113026
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Kokila
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
