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Heir Apparent
ALAN Review, Winter 2003 by Hayn, Judith
Heir Apparent, by Vivan Vande Velde Fantasy Harcourt, 2002, 315 pp., $17.00 ISBN 0-15-204560-0
A plucky fourteen-year-old protagonist from sometime in the future, Giannine Bellisario, receives a birthday gift certificate from her absentee dad. Redeeming it at a local Rasmussen Gaming Center Virtual Reality Arcade, she enters a Total Immersion Game Room and elects to play a dangerous new virtual reality game: Heir Apparent.
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Suddenly, Giannine becomes Janine de St. Jehan, sheepherder in a fantasyland version of Medieval England, and heir to deceased King Cynric. In this computer-generated reality, Janine must play to survive, a task complicated by morality protestors in the real world who create a glitch in Rasmussen's ability to return her. Thus, she must win the game by defeating dragons, completing a quest or two, answering riddles, subduing the villains-all the requisite cast members of a fantasy written with humor, realism, and historical accuracy.
The only problem is that every time Giannine makes a mistake that kills her character, she must begin at the start of the game. As she plays, the activist group, People from the Society to Prevent Cruelty to Children, takes over the arcade and damages the equipment that controls Heir Apparent. Now in order to escape, Giannine must win the game or literally die.
Heir Apparent is a rollicking, suspenseful adventure with a female dragon slayer who can become king and just possibly save her own life.
Judith Hayn
Wilmette, Illinois
Copyright Assembly on Literature for Adolescents -- National Council of Teachers of English Winter 2003
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved
