July 2019, Firefly Press, 202 pages, Paperback, Review copy
Summary from Firefly Press
Ray-Chay
is the new virtual reality game that everyone’s playing and the world
loves its eccentric billionaire creator, Kody Crunch.
Ant
loves gaming and feels like the only person who can't get into
Ray-Chay. But when something goes very wrong with the game, Ant is
determined to help.
Can Ant and his friends work out the real deadly game behind the game?
Nayu's thoughts
If you follow me on Twitter you know how much I love gaming, which made this an automatic must-read despite a boy being the protagonist. (I prefer girls as protagonists). I have never played a virtual reality game - I don't want to, because I think it would make my motion sickness kick into action, and would probably be too heavy for my head (I have sensitive skin and any weight feels ten times heavier than it actually is). However reading is not VR playing, and I was really intrigued by the synopsis.
It sounded a little like the premise to the anime/game/maybe light novel of Sword Art Online series, where players are stuck in a VR world. The game in this novel, Ray-Chay which doesn't appeal to me as a title, sounds quite an intimidating game, and I wouldn't want to play it. I loved how Ant preferred the original game which came before Ray-Chay. It is a positive point to make that just because a game isn't super flashy and is older in terms of when it gets released doesn't mean it is rubbish. Almost all games are great to someone!
Plus Ant gets a dragon, not just any dragon, but one who has been with him on all his adventures, and through events I am not divulging Prahdal the dragon becomes a key part of the Ray-Chay adventure. She is strong, she knows Ant's character, Tarn, so well that she doesn't need much instruction on what to do. There is a horrific moment in the story that had me in tears but I promise there is eventualy a happy ending, so please don't get too upset over that part.
The idea of someone malicious using a game to try and control people makes for an extremely good story. It was a bit scary just how many people - both Ant's classmates and school friends and adults got into Ray-Chay. I liked seeing how a negative player like Griff had a big role to play in the story. His greed to be the best and have the rarest monsters led to him causing chaos when he accesses his mother's game play.
It really hurt him that his mother (who is female) was better than him. How dare she! I loved that his mum loved gaming so much, and worked hard to get where she was. It showed Griff that girls and adults can be great gamers! And have cute outfits in games. Which Ant discovers in a slightly different way too. Although of the two I think Ant would know girls can be great gamers, a view that has been problematic in gaming history.
I was genuinely scared when stuff began happening in the story, because the monsters seem scary and I had no clue how Ant and his unlikely group of friends would save the day. They both did and didn't, which is why I am waiting patiently for book 2 which is heavily hinted at by the ending. The gaming fun has just begun! (Sorry, couldn't resist the lousy pun). Definitely one for my reread shelf.
Suggested read
A great adventure read, this time with a female protagonist is Flick Henderson and the Deadly Game by Amanda Wills (Young Adult, 10E/10E)
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