This book is horrifying from the very beginning, in the exact same sense that Lost Boys is horrifying. You know something bad will happen to a child and you, as a reader, are powerless to prevent it. You can only watch with mounting dread as events move closer and closer to their appointed end.Also, it involved Virtual Reality, which is always cool.The technology was a bit dated. Bova apparently made some guesses about the future and got some right and some wrong. But that was easy enough to overlook.The book's real flaw was that much of the characters' back story was given through info dumps. Somebody would react and all of the sudden the story would pause for a 5 page summary of what the character's background and motivations are. It didn't ruin the story but it seemed awkward, each time it happened.