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js_warren's review against another edition
3.0
Definitely not as good as the first book in the series, but it was a'ight. #LazyReview
brettt's review
3.0
In 1981 Larry Niven and Steven Barnes teamed up for a book called Dream Park, in which mid-21st century technology allowed for realistic live-action fantasy role-playing games. A company called Cowles Industries has built an amusement park featuring different exhibits and attractions along those lines, with the ultimate "ride" being a full-scale adventure game mockup which is recorded and marketed like a movie.
In short, Niven and Barnes created the ultimate Dungeons and Dragons fantasy, in which the games are not only "real," but have crossed over into pop culture entertainment. The next novel in the series came out in 1989, as technology had started overtaking the vision that Niven and Barnes dreamed up. They tweaked their use of holography and other tecnhiques for The Barsoom Project, a novel in which an important ambassador's niece, playing a game modeled on Inuit mythology, may be the target of an assassin. A former player, her mind unbalanced after an earlier gaming disaster, is back in the same game where the disaster happened. How did she get past the screening process? Is she the assassin? Is it someone else? What kind of corporate shenanigans is the Middle Eastern billionaire up to against Cowles Industries, and is he involved?
Like Dream Park, Project is more of a mystery hybrid than a straight sci-fi novel. One plot thread concerns the characters in the game attempting to win it, another concerns the players portraying the characters and their interactions and another follows the mystery of who's behind the criminal activities in the corporate arena. Security chief Alex Griffin has to unravel the third thread while keeping an eye on the second one, balancing that with the interests of the paying customers running the first.
Niven and Barnes created a very interesting world with the Dream Park series, and most of the fascination in the novels hangs on how the "games" interact with the technology that creates them. Their characters are interesting as a group, but not so much as individuals and fleshing them out is perfunctory at best. But the pair create a fast-moving, fun "what-if" yarn that marries its fiction elements well to its science and is a fun afternoon of reading.
The only real problem is the title -- it refers to a Cowles Industries proposal for testing different kinds of surface-to-space transport systems on Mars to avoid catastrophic accidents on Earth, and has nothing to do with the Barsoom of Edgar Rice Burroughs' imagination. A significant letdown indeed.
Original available here.
In short, Niven and Barnes created the ultimate Dungeons and Dragons fantasy, in which the games are not only "real," but have crossed over into pop culture entertainment. The next novel in the series came out in 1989, as technology had started overtaking the vision that Niven and Barnes dreamed up. They tweaked their use of holography and other tecnhiques for The Barsoom Project, a novel in which an important ambassador's niece, playing a game modeled on Inuit mythology, may be the target of an assassin. A former player, her mind unbalanced after an earlier gaming disaster, is back in the same game where the disaster happened. How did she get past the screening process? Is she the assassin? Is it someone else? What kind of corporate shenanigans is the Middle Eastern billionaire up to against Cowles Industries, and is he involved?
Like Dream Park, Project is more of a mystery hybrid than a straight sci-fi novel. One plot thread concerns the characters in the game attempting to win it, another concerns the players portraying the characters and their interactions and another follows the mystery of who's behind the criminal activities in the corporate arena. Security chief Alex Griffin has to unravel the third thread while keeping an eye on the second one, balancing that with the interests of the paying customers running the first.
Niven and Barnes created a very interesting world with the Dream Park series, and most of the fascination in the novels hangs on how the "games" interact with the technology that creates them. Their characters are interesting as a group, but not so much as individuals and fleshing them out is perfunctory at best. But the pair create a fast-moving, fun "what-if" yarn that marries its fiction elements well to its science and is a fun afternoon of reading.
The only real problem is the title -- it refers to a Cowles Industries proposal for testing different kinds of surface-to-space transport systems on Mars to avoid catastrophic accidents on Earth, and has nothing to do with the Barsoom of Edgar Rice Burroughs' imagination. A significant letdown indeed.
Original available here.
sarah42783's review
2.0
A very disappointing sequel to Dream Park. I felt that there were too many distracting sub plots and characters which made the story confusing and quite boring. This sequel wasn't nearly as entertaining or enjoyable as Dream Park.
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