This children's book is one in a series called The Web, where Virtual Reality is an everyday entertainment and is as normal as TV and leisure centres are today. In fact most education is done in VR as well so lets throw schools into the analogy as well. There are some impressive writers lined up to write stories within this universe; Steve Baxter, Eric Brown, Graham Joyce, Peter Hamilton and Maggie Furey being just the first handful. Stephen Bowkett's contribution gives a flavour of the potential of this universe; anything can happen in VR. And as utopian as it might potentially be there are snakes plotting the downfall of paradise.
The story concerns one of the millions of game worlds in the world wide VR universe. The Dreamcastle is the definitive adventure; a giant castle to be explored and hidden secrets to find. However as Surfer and his friends, Kilroy and ROM, find out there is a cancer at the heart of the world. Experiments on human minds into the question, ‘where does reality stop and fantasy begin?’. As players lose themselves in the game, parents fears become justified as their children can no longer see reality from the fantasy VR world.
Perhaps a bit too loaded with technophobe morality Stephen Bowkett's story is an enjoyable and cohesive tale set at the right pace, with characters with enough depth for this novella length story. The world set up can be enormous yet at times claustrophobic, offering a lot of potential to the skilled theme writer. Stephen has made a good start with this series, I look forward to the other writers to find different directions to exploit this futuristic Virtual world.
G. Hurry