"Can I have that when you're finished with it, miss...?"
I was carrying around one of the books in The Karazan Quartet one day while I was doing playground duty in the schoolyard. Four different kids tried to steal the novel from me in the space of ten minutes. There are two copies of the entire series in the school library but they're never on the shelves long.
Ok, it's a book in which the hero is an orphan. I'd had a few too many at the time, so I was a bit dubious. However, Victoria Jones had some surprises in store for me.
Adam Equinox is an orphan who lives in a home where the matron is cooking the books and skimming off funds. He fills out a coupon and wins a trip to Quested Court where the inventor of a best-selling computer game explains that the world inside the game has become real. He then begs for help. His daughter, who is dying, needs a life-giving elixir from the world of Karazan.
There's just one or two quirky problems with the reality of Karazan: it only lets children through to it, not adults. Oh, and it's evolving. Just because the kids entering the world from 'outside' know the game inside out, doesn't mean they know the real world of Karazan.
This very likeable series seems utterly predictable at times - but fortunately, it isn't.
The slimy computer hacker who makes Adam's life miserable and turns into Bluebum, the monkey-like chatterbot, is by far the most interesting character. I was never in the least convinced that Adam or any of his friends were in danger. The chatterbot however did seem to be in genuine peril when captured by the vicious king and his advisor.
A couple of plot twists save the series from sinking into unrelieved warm fuzziness. I enjoyed the series immensely and found some aspects of the plot quite impressively convoluted.