Review: Spy Quest: Polybius - The Urban Legend by Andy Briggs

In the dark amusement arcades of the 1980s, a new game is discreetly appearing - Polybius. It's addictive fun... but the machine mysteriously disappears as swiftly as it arrived. So too does the one kid who claimed the highest ever score... never to be heard from again... Over thirty years later, computer games have moved on - but the players are as keen as ever. SAM RAYNER is one such boy. His dreams of being a professional gamer, a virtual athlete on a million dollar contract -- dreams that are scoffed at by his twin sister, REBECCA. She secretly enjoys playing games, but would never openly admit that to her "geeky" brother -- that is until Sam wins an online competition, giving the entire family a free holiday at a luxury hotel. But it's not just a chance for his family to take a pampered break, it's a special games tournament and a chance for Sam to chase his dream. Or that's what he thinks - until he discovers a game has been mysteriously downloaded to his mobile phone. A game called Polybius - a name from the darkest reaches of urban legends.

Three was the magic number for Bob Dorough, Blind Melon and De La Soul, and it's also the magic number for these new style Book Zone reviews, as part of my seemingly endless quest for brevity when reviewing. So, here are three reasons to read Polybius - The Urban Legend by Andy Briggs:

1. The concept

I am always keen to promote anything new that may encourage a child to pick up a book and read it. Whilst working very well as a standalone book, Polybius - The Urban Legend is linked to a spy training game created by Polybius Games that started life being offered though hotels around the world (including Center Parcs and Walt Disney World, Florida). The game was next provided to schools across Scotland, and is endorsed by the Scottish Qualifications Authority as a learning platform and a White Paper has since been written on the benefits of the game by one of the worlds leading experts in game based technology. The book itself, is a spin-off from this game, but readers can also download an app to their smartphones which allows them to experience and augmented reality feature. You can find out more about the game at www.spy-quest.com.

2. The action

Anyone who has read one of Andy Briggs's previous books will know how good he is at writing fast-paced action stories. The plot of Polybius - The Urban Legend is fast and furious, and and from the moment main character Sam Rayner is drawn into the mystery it doesn't let up until the very last chapter.

3. The theme

The story's link to gaming is not just though the Spy Quest game. Sam Rayner is a gamer and dreams of making money out of his passion by turning professional. Sam wins an online competition which just may make this dream become reality, although there is a lot more to this prize than he initially realises. In a similar vein to stories like The Last Starfighter and Ernest Cline's Armada, the game is being used to find young people with certain skills and gifts so that they can be trained, in this case, as spies. Linking stories to gaming could be a great way of dragging gamer kids away from their consoles and in to the pages of a book. Older gamers may already be aware of the real life Polybius story - an urban legend that, again like Ernest Cline, Andy Briggs uses to establish his plot.

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Polybius - The Urban Legend was originally only available online, but I believe that it has now been released throughout book stores in the Uk as well. My thanks go to the author for sending me a copy of the book.

My Magnificent Seven: Fiction Books for Tech Lovers

Hmm, so much for being an occasional feature, it looks like My Magnificent Seven is almost as rare as the Cuban Greater Funnel-Eared Bat. However, I've been thinking about this particular #mymag7 for some time as I know so many kids who love gaming and the internet who will rarely pull themselves away from their console of choice to read a book. And yet there are so many great books out there that have huge appeal for gamers and lovers of tech and the internet. So in no particular order:

Glaze by Kim Curran

I read this a while back and it completely blew my mind and if you love social media and the internet then it is a book that you simply must read. Kim Curran's scarily plausible futuristic story revolves around the populations obsessive use of the Glaze, the ultimate in social media connectivity. When teens reach a certain age they can be chipped so that to hook up to the network all they have to do is focus on accessing it. No electronic gadgets required at all. In fact, there's no longer any need for watches, TVs, mobile phones... everything is done inside the user's head. However, as with ever huge step forward in technology, the Glaze is open to abuse by those in power. Glaze is a superb dystopian novel (and I'm fed up with dystopian novels so that is really saying something)that also covers, amongst others, themes of peer pressure, feeling like one of the crowd, corruption and abuse of power.

The Metawars series by Jeff Norton

I've so far written reviews for the first two books in Jeff Norton's brilliant series, and I hope to get a review of the final book up on here very soon. This ranks up there as one of my favourite series of the past few years; the books are full of fast-paced action and high tech adventure in both the real and a virtual world. Set in a future where the planet has suffered from wars and depletion of natural resources, the quadrilogy raises many moral questions as the plot unfolds and would make great class readers for English lessons because of the discussions they would provoke.

The Bzrk series by Michael Grant

The first book in this series was a another that really blew my mind. When I wrote my review I said that "it is almost un-reviewable, in that to give even the slightest amount of information away would definitely spoil your reading experience" and I still feel the same now. It's high tech but in a very different way to the other books on this list.

Rat Runners by Oisin McGann

The tech used in this fab action thriller by Oisin McGann is much closer to the kind of gadgets that are around today than that found in the previous books I have mentioned, and this makes the story feel all the more real. Set in a city where surveillance is everywhere, be it CCTV, hidden microphones, or machines that can scan you for pretty much anything, it feels a little too close to modern Britain (supposedly there is a surveillance camera for every 11 people living in Britain). A team of young people who try to live their lives hidden away from the eyes of the Big Brother style Watchworld find themselves being hunted as the plot twists and turns. Gadgets and hacking aplenty make this book perfect for tech lovers.

Urban Outlaws by Peter Jay Black

In my review I described this as Leverage for 9+ kids, and I loved it. Again, like in Rat Runners, the tech used by the gang of young 'criminals' is not futuristic in nature, and therefore, with a little suspension of disbelief, it is easy to imagine the group out on the streets of London robbing the rich bad to give to the poor. There's something for everyone in this book and it's one of those books that can be described as unputdownable (at least, it was for me).

Insignia trilogy by S.J. Kincaid

Some might say I got a little carried away when writing my review of Insignia by S.J. Kincaid. I did, after all, describe it as "Harry Potter for gamers, with a six-pack of Top Gun thrown in for good measure, and reading it was like playing an incredibly addictive video game". Almost two years on I still stand by that comment: the parallels with harry Potter are impossible to ignore, given the 'school' setting, but if ever there was a book that would appeal to gamers it is this one. Since writing that review I have been told that Ender's Game covers similar ground, but I have to admit that I have not yet read that book, nor have I seen the film.

The HIVE series by Mark Walden

This ranks as one of my all time favourite series for Middle Grade readers, and whilst tech isn't the main feature of the books, it still plays an important part throughout the series, especially given Otto's special abilities. I've bought these books for godsons and various young male relatives and every one of them has come back asking me to get them the next in the series. I'm currently waiting impatiently for the ninth book in the series to be published, although it looks like I'm going to have be patient as I believe Mark has recently been concentrating his efforts on finishing the sequel to Earthfall, his brilliant alien invasion story.

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Naturally, I'm sure to have missed a glaringly obvious book out of my list, and I really wanted to include Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, as it is one of my all-time favourite books, but I've kept it off the main list as it is an adult book. Please let me know if I've missed off any of your favourites.

Review: Metawars - Fight for the Future by Jeff Norton

Jonah Delacroix can't stand the real world - so he lives most of his life inside a global computer-based virtual world called the Metasphere, where everyone is represented by an avatar. When he discovers the avatar of his dead father, and assumes his online identity, a series of events are unleashed that compel Jonah to race across the real world with a secret society to protect the freedom of all mankind...

You would have to be some kind of hermit living in a shack on a remote Pacific island not to have noticed the glut of YA dystopian novels that have flooded the market of the past couple of years. If I'm brutally honest, I'm getting more than a little bored of them, but there is still one sub-genre of this that still excites me - tech. Over the past year or so I have had the pleasure of reading Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (written for the adult market but potentially just as exciting for older teen boys); Bzrk by Michael Grant; Insignia by S.J. Kincaid; and now Metawars: Fight for the Future by Jeff Norton. Every one of these books has the potential to turn a certain type of reluctant reader boy (or girl) on to reading, as they all have huge appeal for gamers.

Metawars starts off with protagonist Jonah Delacroix racing through the night time streets of London on his trusty rollerblades, desperate to win the sizeable meta-dollar prize that will keep him and his mother in food foe the next few months. Unfortunately for Jonah, as he is in spitting distance of the finish line he is thrown off his feet by an huge explosion - the terrorist Guardians that he hates so much have struck again. Meanwhile, across the other side of the Atlantic the US government has fallen, and Matthew Granger, creator of the Metasphere and long incarcerated leader of the Millennials is released from his prison by his armed supporters. Jonah does not yet know it, but both of these events are about to change his life immeasurably.

The world in which Jonah lives is not hugely different to ours in many ways. Millions live in poverty and can't help but see their future as being particularly bleak. To escape the day-to-day depression of their lives they spend increasingly more hours plugged into the Metasphere, a virtual world where people have jobs, socialise with each other, and in Jonah's case, attend school. Every person who enters the Metasphere has their very own avatar, constructed for them by the software, based upon the owner's own sub-consciousness. There are unicorns, dragons, robots, animals, and some even more bizarre avatars, but Jonah is stuck with a humatar, i.e. his avatar looks just like his real world self. 

In discussions at school Jonah is always the first to defend the Millennials (his father used to be Granger's personal pilot) and just as quick to damn the Guardians, who he believes murdered his father in a terrorist attack some years ago. However, very soon Jonah's world is going to be rocked as everything he believes is challenged, and the lines between good and evil become increasingly blurred. As events begin to unfold he finds himself on the run with the people he previously hated, not really knowing who to trust as he crosses both the virtual and real worlds, fleeing for his life.

Metawars is a super fast-paced and well plotted story that sucks readers in from the very first chapter, and I would have finished it in a single sitting if I hadn't already made plans to go out with friends. As it was, we were late arriving as I kept on telling my wife I wanted to read one more chapter. And then another. And another.

Jeff Norton has filled his story with a great number of cracking concepts and ideas that will fire up the imaginations of young people, and I think it would make a really good class reader for English lessons as there are so many elements that make great points for discussion. Both the Millennials and the Guardians feel that they are morally right, and every action they make is justified, whatever the collateral damage, and readers will find themselves challenged just as much as Jonah does. Although it is science fiction, many of the concepts are only a few jumps on from web and gaming technology that so many people, young and old, enjoy today and this makes the story all that more credible as a possible future world that may be experienced by today's teens.

If you have boys or girls that prefer sitting in front of a screen with a game controller in their hand to reading then this might be the book that gets them turning their console off, even if just for thirty minutes at a time. It is the first in a series, and although Jeff Norton brings this instalment to a satisfying end, it leaves enough questions to make kids hungry for more. The good news is, we don't have long to wait as the sequel, Metawars: The Dead Are Rising is scheduled for a November release. There is also a cool website that ties nicely into the book at www.metawarsbooks.com where you can enter a competition to win an ipad.

My thanks go to the lovely people at Orchard Books for sending me a copy to review.