3.5 starsI recently found out that one of my childhood favorites, Heir Apparent, had a prequel of sorts written about a decade prior. User Unfriendly was in no way at the same level as Heir Apparent-it was a mere shade. This book had your typical medieval game adventure story with a distant outside conflict, but there was a lot more that the book could have delved into, but that's okay because the author gets to it in Heir Apparent!This book had lackluster, 2D secondary characters that were generally forgettable (Giannine, the protagonist of Heir Apparent, is only in your periphery. Arvin/Harek, the protagonist of this story who is very annoying. He complains about everything and is kind of a jerk. His casual sexism is very irritating as well. Whenever he is annoyed at something a girl does, he ascribes the negative characteristic to ALL GIRLS. He does not do the same for boys he is annoyed with. Examples (anything that is relevant to the plot is under a spoiler tag:"'Harek, do you have any money left?' Marian asked. 'We pooled our resources and bought some food supplies, but we'd like to take what's left and get a pack animal to carry all this stuff.' This wasn't a half bad idea. Dawn Marie was just too bossy for me to take her suggestions easily."^typical situation of a guy being threatened by an assertive girl and resorting to call her "bossy""'Maybe,' Marian suggested...,'your head hurts because we missed lunch...Maybe we should stop to eat.'"^very logical response about any human with a brain that needs nutrients. Let's take a look at Arvin's response below:"Girl's reasoning. And dippy girl's reasoning at that. But after all, Mom was a girl too, and maybe Marian knew what she was talking about."^why the hell is hypothesizing that a headache may be due to lack of food a stupid girl's idea? But maybe it might work because the person in question is a girl too? I'm sorry, I didn't realize men didn't have brains and digestive systems..."'Obviously'--how come, I wondered, girls always have to talking that irritatingly superior tone of voice whenever they're explaining something?"^only girls have an irritating superior tone when explaining things. All girls and only girls."She gave him the overly sweet smile girls do when they're feeling especially superior."^ALL GIRLS DO THIS. ARVIN KNOWS THIS BECAUSE HE HAS SEEN ALL GIRLS DO IT. HE HAS NEVER SEEN A MALE WITH A SMARMY SMUG SMILE AND SUPERIOR ATTITUDE. "'Felice is awfully weak,' Cornelius said. 'We'd probably better strap her to the horse.' Jerk, I thought. You think like a girl^When Marian comes up with a logical idea that Arvin/Harek doesn't like, it's "dippy girl's reasoning". When a guy comes up with a logical idea, he is a a jerk because he "thinks like a girl." But, I think the best part was when it was revealed that (view spoiler)[Marian was actually being played by a boy, Noah and his girlfriend, whom Arvin thought was playing Marian, was actually playing Robin Hood. SHOVE YOUR GENDER STEREOTYPES, ARVIN. (hide spoiler)]
I've read a few books about video roleplaying games. This one is different because it was written in 1990. The main character a few times would draw comparisons with tabletop gaming, which frankly is a more likely to be unfamiliar to the modern reader than the concept of a full-immersion video one. There were also a few instances where someone had to explain different concepts like the idea of the program being stuck in a loop.Still, it didn't seem too dated beyond that.Oddly, compared to other books I've read, very little of the action took place outside of the game. So that I never even really had a clear picture of what the 'real' world was like. Related to this, I felt the ending was very rushed, so that it almost had the element 'and then I woke up and it was all a dream'.The other real negative I have to say about it is that one of the characters plays an 'Indian' and another a 'gypsy'. Even though the setting was more typical D&D type setting with wizards and orcs and whatnot. It's explained that the players can be whatever type of character they want, even if it doesn't fit with the setting. Which seems silly to me. And so it was unnecessarily racist. There's no reason that character couldn't have been a ranger or a huntsman or something, since the only thing he seemed to use his character type for was tracking and being stealthy. :PAlso, the blurb on the back is misleading and does not represent the contents of the book. The main character is not a 'hacker'. His friend is the hacker, although not even really that, since all it is is a pirated copy of the game. He doesn't seem to have done any actual hacking personally. Oh, there was also a lot of fighting and action scenes and I find too much of that boring. So, yea.
What do You think about User Unfriendly (2012)?
This book is a bit underwhelming. It took over the first 100 pages to really get into it. I have definitely read better by Vande Velde. For when the book was written I think it was forward thinking in the computer gaming concept. The ending was a little rushed and almost thrown together in a last minute way. There could be some room for improvement, but I did finally plod through it. I was still interested to find out what happened in the end, but it was just slow to get there.I think there has been a lot of comparison to Heir Apparent. That was the first book I read by Vande Velde and it was very well written and interesting. I think this book just falls short of those expectations.
—Katie
Not as good as Heir Apparent, but User Unfriendly really does combine the elements of teenagerhood, fantasy, trust, sci-fi, technological failures, and reallife worry. The quest itself was very creative and twisted. The characters were good. Just enough, but no so many that it was hard to keep track of them.I liked that Giannine Belisario got to be in two books, and I enjoyed the way the people cheated to play, and how Shelton was handicapped in real life, and how Arvin wasn't always completely clueless, and how the game kept backfiring.Awesome with the "that" boots and whole werewolf thing.
—Denae Christine
I've always like stories about virtual reality. I've always loved fantasy. And I've always been into stories where people are pulled from our world into a fantasy world. This is a book that pulls all 3 together, so it was kind of cool. It's an good story, but obviously written for a younger crowd, and didn't exactly suck me in. But it was creative, and enjoyable enough. I see that there are sequels, but it's not likely I'll pick them up, unless I have some overpowering reason to. Also, it ended a bit suddenly, and I'm not sure I figured out what the entire point of the game was...
—Jim
