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The California Voodoo Game | Rating | |
| A | |||
| Larry Niven and Stephen Barnes | |||
| Series | Related Books | ||
| Dream Park | Dream Park, The Barsoom Project, The California Voodoo Game | ||
California Voodoo is poised to be the biggest Game ever played. Thirty players on five teams will be competing for the win, and it's set in an enormous building, an arcology, that Cowles Industries has bought and is refurbishing for the Barsoom Project. But when a security executive dies just before the Game begins, security chief Alex Griffin smells a rat. More importantly, he smells murder. Who did it and why are questions he dearly needs answered if he is to catch the killer and save the Game - and perhaps more - from ruin.
At first glance, this seems like a repeat of Dream Park. Big Game is going on, someone dies, and Griffin must infiltrate the Game to find the culprit. And I suppose, looked at in such a broad manner, it is the same. But look just a little closer, and the differences begin to show.
The most telling differnce is that readers know who committed the murder. Even Griffin and the other Dream Park employees strongly suspect who did it. The problem is in proving it. And why. Was this theft? Sabotage? Another incident of corporate espionage? Or just a part of doing anything to win the Game? Griffin needs to figure out the ultimate goal if he's to block his suspect from achieving it.
The other major change is that, being published over a decade after Dream Park, the authors had virtual reality to think about. And they incorporated it into the Game well. It is much, much easier to believe that this is how such things will be done, if they ever are.
The Game and the investigation are both intriguing stories, well worth following in their own rights. Better yet, they are intergrated into each other, the one depending closely on the other. The authors can't possibly seperate them without entirely changing the book. As a result, there is more than one goal that the characters are shooting for, and they all felt like worthy goals - and characters worthy of winning them.
The book does have some flaws, but without exception they are minor. Changing the date of a major event in series continuity, for instance, or the similar change in the Games' effects to include virtual reality. But ultimately those flaws mean nothing. This is an excellent book with a great story, interesting characters, and a well-researched integration of voodoo, with some twists of the authors' own. While I still doubt anyone would ever go through the effort to do any of this, it is nevertheless a novel concept that piqued - and is continuing to pique - the imaginations of thousands, perhaps millions, of readers. And I am one of them.
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