Gamers’ Challenge

by George Ivanoff

Ford Street Publishing. Australian, Junior, Young Adult, Science Fantasy. Paperback RRP $16.95

Guest Reviewer - Anastasia Gonis

It all started when they broke the Designers’ Rules. They kissed. Then everything changed. Now Tark and Zyra are no longer part of the game. Zyra is now susceptible to every human hurt and habit. Tark is ‘unheard and unseen’ but he feels free from the dependency of Designers’ Paradise where they had lived unchanged and ageless, each one programmed with specified speech patterns.

But a different game starts when Zyra and Tark come into contact with Tee, an Outer, which they too have now become, who has left the game and lives in a community of similar minds. The two are faced with another challenge; another quest. They discover that they have been character constructions, players trapped in a never-ending game that exist in a world of technology that recreates them over and over.

The Outers are being chased by a ball of static known as VI –Viral Interface, comprised of pieces of computer Interface that have escaped into the environment and become lethal. The worst is that the VI becomes larger and more powerful with every kill. It also multiplies as it grows, splitting into additional killers with increasing power and momentum.

The Outers discover the existence of an Ultimate Gamer, with an ultimate exit code that can remove him from the game environment and into the real world. Thus begins the quest to find him and uncover the cheat code. But they are unprepared for what this means. One revelation leads to another inside a labyrinth of options connected with the countless deceptive personas of the Ultimate Gamer. Will Tark and Zyra be able to discern what reality is as they play one last game?

With zombies, knights and dragons, bloody battles, chaos and catastrophe, and magik portals, the reader will view computers, viruses, corrupted files and anti-virus programs with new eyes. Here they become metaphors for danger and destruction in a world where conformity is the ultimate game.

This is the sequel to the charged, Gamers’ Quest. The Reading Stack interviewed George Ivanoff in March 2010.

http://www.gamersquestbook.com/

http://www.georgeivanoff.com.au/

Virals

by Kathy Reichs

Random House. Young Adult, Mystery. Paperback RRP $29.95

Guest reviewer – Ian Brown


Virals is the story of Tory Brennan who, after the sudden death of her mother, goes to live with her marine biologist father whom she has never met, on a remote island in South Carolina.

Tory hangs out with a group of other teenagers who also live on the island. Together they explore the nearby Loggerhead Island and discover there is something strange going on at the Research Institute.

The group rescue a dog from the top secret laboratory and are exposed to a rare virus. This virus gives them the senses and reflexes of a canine. Now they have to solve a murder if they can stay alive long enough.

This is a great read for teenagers who like a lot of action - mysterious men with guns, an old murder, breaking into the labs, having your DNA changed. There’s many plots and twists to keep the reader involved.

http://kathyreichs.com/
http://viralstheseries.com/

The Key to Starveldt

The Rare: Book Two

by Foz Meadows

Ford Street Publishing. Australian, Fantasy, Young Adult. Paperback RRP $19.95

Reviewed by Barbara Brown

Solace Morgan and her group of friends each have unusual gifts – the Rare.

A prophecy was left to Solace from her parents – the parents she never knew – and now she and her friends, Evan, Manx, Electra, Jess, Laine, Paige and Harper have to unravel the cryptic clues it contains about each of them.

“The Rookery lives at the Sign of the Singing Hawk. My daughter, if you read this, seek Liluye there. She can be trusted. Mayhap she knows more of the prophecy. At the very least, she can guide you – not only to Sanguisidera, but in yourself. Homewards.”

They leave the confines of their safety house somewhere in Sydney and enter a different realm, the Rookery, where everything is so different it is hard to imagine anything normal again. But the Rookery is safe for Solace and the Key to Starveldt, the one thing that Grief, Solace’s evil brother and Lord of the Bloodkin, wants.

Solace has problems with her friends and relationships within the group - add danger, lies, secrets and death into the mix and the eight friends start questioning each other and their gifts. Has Grief infiltrated the group without having to step into the Rookery? Can the eight find the Castle of Starveldt before Grief does?

I loved Solace and Grief and waited impatiently for The Key to Starveldt. Now I have to wait again … for the third book Falling into Midnight.

The Reading Stack reviewed Solace and Grief - The Rare: Book One  in March 2010.

http://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/

Kangaroo and Crocodile

My Big Book of Australian Animals

by Bronwyn Bancroft

Hardie Grant Egmont (Little Hare Books). Australian, Picture. Hardcover RRP $24.95

Reviewer - Sandy Fussell


I’ll confess it up front. I collect Bronwyn Bancroft’s beautiful picture books. I often give them as gifts. They are a wonderful way to introduce young children to indigenous art.

The bright coloured pages are filled with Australian birds, animals and insects. My favourite colour is purple, and I was immediately drawn to the purple pages – the purple and blue of the bottlenose dolphin, great white shark and the purple and blue of the gecko and frog.

The pictures will lead to lots of questions and parents will be pleased to find the answers in the fact pages at the back of the book.

http://www.bronwynbancroft.com/

How it Feels

by Brendan Cowell

Picador. Australian, Adult fiction. Paperback, RRP $22.99

The artist, the businessman, the bouncer and the girl. Three best mates and a girl friend growing up in the Sutherland Shire, all finishing their final year of school together – out for the last hurrah. Over the course of their last night as high schoolers an action soon becomes a chain reaction and nothing will ever be the same again…

Over a decade later, at the wedding of two of the friends drugs, debauchery, alcohol, sex, lies, deceit come to a head with powerful consequences.

Neil, Gordon, Stuart and Courtney – four friends, four tortured souls. One becomes famous, two find each other and another dies. What happened to this friendship and the twisted existences of these main players?

How it Feels is a book that is powerful, graphic, interesting and modern. It is very dark, disturbing and confronting with a touch of comedy. I can’t say I liked it but then I couldn’t put it down. I won’t stop talking about it either.