Julia Durango

Ok this is where I show my gaming snobbery coupled with my intense love of virtual reality stories. Putting aside the comparisons to READY PLAYER ONE (though I'd argue this has more in common with John Scalzi's LOCK IN or even Erin Kellison's Reveler series) there's some sloppy character development in terms of relationship dynamics. Including between Nixy and those who eventually reveal themselves as the antagonists.


THE LEVELLER (which is not the easiest title to trip off the tongue) invites you to believe that parents become so fed up with their kids playing video games for hours on end they'd pay a teen girl a set sum of money to drag that kid's sorry ass out of the game world. While I fully believe parents get sick of watching their kid stare dead-eyed at TV's or scream bloody murder at screens, I can't believe that someone like Nixy would be able to keep from being bullied unto death. In this world its not just "geeks" or "nerds" who play in VRLand (MEEP), its everyone.

And what is the one thing we can all agree teenagers are good at? Shaming a peer for doing the "right" thing. What Nixy does is tantamount to being the school narc with marijuana. I don't know about anyone else but that kid never made out well at my HS. Kids don't like parents taking away their toys and they like their own PEERS helping to take it away even less.

So that right there had me chewing my lip in exasperation.

Then there's the fact that the world itself is hastily put together feeling. This is a rather short book by today's YA standards (just over 250pgs) and you can feel that in the world development. Things are just a SHADE different from our reality. We're not really shown how this rather large leap in tech came about, nor is it discussed. It just is and we as the reader need to accept that. And that's fine if the main plot of the story didn't leave really big, gaping holes where consequences are concerned.

I don't know if Durango is into video games or not. A quick search on the web didn't bring up much chatter in that regard one way or the other, but what I've always felt drew people to gaming is the fact that there aren't real world consequences to what you do (largely, exceptions do occur when folk take in-game attitude into the real world). Right now my dad, who you'll have to take my word on as being one of the fluffiest people in existence (he gets queasy if he thinks about what he's consuming when he has steak), is playing a game called "The Seed". The entire purpose of which is to be the biggest amoral asshole you can be (its post-apocalyptic). And he's RELISHING this.

The game we're playing together, Dreamfall: Chapters, we're playing through each episode multiple times as "the good guy", "the bitch" and "what we really would do in that situation given those parameters". Pop Culture Site THE MARY SUE has a series about what happens if you play through Dragon Age Inquisition as a Dick. Games give people a way to be something else that would normally conflict with their moral center.

I think that's missing from Durango's book. Nixy points out that most of the kids she drags out are "living their fantasy"--whatever that fantasy is, and in the few months she's done it she hasn't run into any of the truly depraved ones so god bless her luck. However in the larger conceit of the book's universe Durango treats what the terrorists can achieve in the MEEP as small potatoes. A small, personal threat.

This particular group of terrorists had it out against Wyn's father (and his company), but I guarantee you they aren't the only ones who have genius hacking skillz. And while a fair amount will have benign intentions on a larger scale, what about that percent who won't? At no point does anyone think its a good idea to, I don't know, alert national security bureaus of the potential threat. A simple "Mr. President don't let your kid into the MEEP right now, we're dealing with a situation where they could be held hostage against the nation's best interests." phone call seemed like it should have at least been mentioned.

The concern at one point is for the players logged in illegally (circumventing certain controls set in place to avoid people from staying in so long they forget real time) and a couple character mention that if Wyn's father had acceded to their demands it could have all been over. In the real world if say bill Gates' kid is taken hostage somehow, in a manner kind of easily replicated, you can be DAMN sure every major diplomat, figure of power and rich person would freak out about their own kin. Or at the very least be strongly advised to avoid letting Johnny B. Powerhouse do the same thing as Bill Gates' kid.

I quite frankly found that to be difficult to swallow and left a huge gaping plothole in the world building to me. The book takes place over a week or so of time. In that week several real life consequences to some of the terrorists occur. And while the book ends fairly quickly after the Nixy finds a way to work things out, I was still left with a thousand and one questions. Not questions about what will happen the further the series goes on, questions about the general world and why it wasn't treated as a bigger deal.

And that essentially ruined how I felt about the novel itself.… (plus d'informations)