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A review by mschlat
The California Voodoo Game by Larry Niven, Steven Barnes
2.0
Of the Dream Park books I've read (this one and the previous two), California Voodoo Game has the most interesting Game being played. Unlike the first two books (where the immersive live role playing events involved Europeans saving indigenous peoples), here the Game setting is a futuristic megacomplex where "Valley" and mall culture humorously reign supreme. The cast is huge (we have five teams of players competing for the win), and the action - especially near the end - is very exciting.
But the cringe factor was too much for me. We start off the book with sex scenes full of deceit and dysfunction sandwiching a murder. That's not exactly what I want in a science fiction thriller based on LARPing, but what makes it worse is that (spoilers below)
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our murderer and murder victim (each of which has one of the awful sex scenes mentioned above) were apparently both victims of childhood rape by a family member and may have even met each other at a support group for childhood rape survivors. That's too much ick for me from a book I'm reading just for the gamer kicks.
But the cringe factor was too much for me. We start off the book with sex scenes full of deceit and dysfunction sandwiching a murder. That's not exactly what I want in a science fiction thriller based on LARPing, but what makes it worse is that (spoilers below)
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.
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.
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.
.
our murderer and murder victim (each of which has one of the awful sex scenes mentioned above) were apparently both victims of childhood rape by a family member and may have even met each other at a support group for childhood rape survivors. That's too much ick for me from a book I'm reading just for the gamer kicks.