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The Imperium Game
In an authentic-looking recreated underground Roman city run by computers, Kerickson, a murder suspect in the Imperium Game, begins to realize that the deity programs in the computer game have begun to exceed their parameters. Reprint.
242 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 21, 2013
I thinking I'm turning myself into the World's Greatest Expert on ths sub-sub-genre of books-about-gaming. Not books which happen to be set in gameing universes, or which serve as tie-ins to games, but books which prominently feature gamers and gaming itself as integral plot elements. It's an intersection of geekery and speculative-fiction I find impossible to resist. And, sadly, damned difficult (though awfully fun) to write in. If you are aware of any works out there which fit the bill and which I haven't yet reviewed, please drop me a PM.
Anyhoo, on to business. This book kind of suxxored.
The book was published under Del Rey's "New Discoveries" imprint for new authors, and the faults which we might expect of any such are abundant. The exposition is clumsy, funny fonts are used to distinguish speakers, and way too much attention is paid to loving descriptions of utterly unimportant background details. I'll give credit to Wentworth for clearly loving her setting.
Where the book really blows it are in its characters' motivations and, strangely for a spec. fic. piece, the complete failure of the author to consider the logical ramifications of her plot setup.
We are supposed to believe that in this futuristic game world - a kind of live-in Disneyland/Westworld hybrid with a Roman theme - people have willingly given up the conveniences of modern life in order to compete to become 'Emperor' of the game. Silly enough, but it gets even sillier when we discover that the computer programmers, and their families, share this ardent desire to give up microwaves and running water in order to be, well, another dirty faux-Roman. And these people supposedly do this for *years* at a time.
I belonged to the SCA for a few shame-filled years. There's a reason "Anachronism" is in the group's title. Even medievophilics enjoy flushing toilets and matches.
Then there are the robots which supposedly populate this Brave New World. We're to believe that we've handed over law enforcement to androids ni The Future...but that these plasticene losers are too stupid to understand human motivations, or how to gather evidence, or what constitutes probable cause...and that when one of them *does* become convinced our protagonist is a murderer, the robot just lets him walk away. No, sorry.
Of course, law enforcement is just one use for robots. They also play the lower-classes, slaves, and sacrificial victims in the game dome. Well, some of them...because the author wants to believe that people who are, remember, *paying* to play this game, are willing and legally able, to serve themselves, or their children, up as slaves or gladiators. With real rape and death and so on. All legally.
Yeah, I'm sorry, this is when I started skimming the book. Around chapter two.
The protagonist comes across as a sexist ass, with no more care for the fact that his programs just killed some people than he would if they had gotten a page-fault in memory. The author doesn't seem to understand programmers. gamers, nor women. Historical note, I just checked her wikipedia page and discovered, to my absolute shock, that the author was a woman. I had to go through and change all the pronoun genders. I'm frankly amazed that an actual female, even one born in the early 1950s, could be this grotesque in her treatment of female subjects. Ick.
Anyhoo, on to business. This book kind of suxxored.
The book was published under Del Rey's "New Discoveries" imprint for new authors, and the faults which we might expect of any such are abundant. The exposition is clumsy, funny fonts are used to distinguish speakers, and way too much attention is paid to loving descriptions of utterly unimportant background details. I'll give credit to Wentworth for clearly loving her setting.
Where the book really blows it are in its characters' motivations and, strangely for a spec. fic. piece, the complete failure of the author to consider the logical ramifications of her plot setup.
We are supposed to believe that in this futuristic game world - a kind of live-in Disneyland/Westworld hybrid with a Roman theme - people have willingly given up the conveniences of modern life in order to compete to become 'Emperor' of the game. Silly enough, but it gets even sillier when we discover that the computer programmers, and their families, share this ardent desire to give up microwaves and running water in order to be, well, another dirty faux-Roman. And these people supposedly do this for *years* at a time.
I belonged to the SCA for a few shame-filled years. There's a reason "Anachronism" is in the group's title. Even medievophilics enjoy flushing toilets and matches.
Then there are the robots which supposedly populate this Brave New World. We're to believe that we've handed over law enforcement to androids ni The Future...but that these plasticene losers are too stupid to understand human motivations, or how to gather evidence, or what constitutes probable cause...and that when one of them *does* become convinced our protagonist is a murderer, the robot just lets him walk away. No, sorry.
Of course, law enforcement is just one use for robots. They also play the lower-classes, slaves, and sacrificial victims in the game dome. Well, some of them...because the author wants to believe that people who are, remember, *paying* to play this game, are willing and legally able, to serve themselves, or their children, up as slaves or gladiators. With real rape and death and so on. All legally.
Yeah, I'm sorry, this is when I started skimming the book. Around chapter two.
The protagonist comes across as a sexist ass, with no more care for the fact that his programs just killed some people than he would if they had gotten a page-fault in memory. The author doesn't seem to understand programmers. gamers, nor women. Historical note, I just checked her wikipedia page and discovered, to my absolute shock, that the author was a woman. I had to go through and change all the pronoun genders. I'm frankly amazed that an actual female, even one born in the early 1950s, could be this grotesque in her treatment of female subjects. Ick.
April 24, 2020
A reprint of the author’s 1994 novel about a computer programmer caught in a malfunctioning virtual reality game set in the early Roman Empire.
September 28, 2013
One from the Del Rey Discovery series...
This was a fun book, but I wasn't quite as impressed with it as with others in the series.
It takes place in the future, within a Roman-themed role-playing game. About 3000 wealthy socialites pay good money to physically go live in a recreated Roman town within their modern city, and live out their fantasies or try to acquire points and become emperor. But one of the two head programmers is noticing some disturbing anomalies in the programs that run the holographic Roman gods... and when the latest Emperor turns up dead-for-real, his investigation begins to uncover a web of crime and corruption infiltrating what was meant to be a harmless game.
The story definitely had a lot of potential, but the technical nuts-and-bolts of the setup had a lot of holes. I almost got the impression that the author had initially conceived of the game as being a virtual-reality game, and only later decided to make it a physical role-playing game. The main character doesn't seem as informed about the game and its setup as he would have had to be in his position, and, simply for safety and convenience issues, I didn't buy that it would possibly have been so hard to get *out* of the game area and out into the city. The 'gods' seem to have far more physical power than a 'hologram' would... etc, etc.
This was a fun book, but I wasn't quite as impressed with it as with others in the series.
It takes place in the future, within a Roman-themed role-playing game. About 3000 wealthy socialites pay good money to physically go live in a recreated Roman town within their modern city, and live out their fantasies or try to acquire points and become emperor. But one of the two head programmers is noticing some disturbing anomalies in the programs that run the holographic Roman gods... and when the latest Emperor turns up dead-for-real, his investigation begins to uncover a web of crime and corruption infiltrating what was meant to be a harmless game.
The story definitely had a lot of potential, but the technical nuts-and-bolts of the setup had a lot of holes. I almost got the impression that the author had initially conceived of the game as being a virtual-reality game, and only later decided to make it a physical role-playing game. The main character doesn't seem as informed about the game and its setup as he would have had to be in his position, and, simply for safety and convenience issues, I didn't buy that it would possibly have been so hard to get *out* of the game area and out into the city. The 'gods' seem to have far more physical power than a 'hologram' would... etc, etc.
June 26, 2010
Following in the science fiction tradition of malfunctioning machines, K.D. Wentworth's saga of a corrupt video game is one not to be missed! Full of action, mystery, romance, adventure and just about anything else one could ever want.
Kerrickson is a computer programmer who was hired right out of college to work on the RPG "Imperium". This game is so huge that most players have no outside lives, living only for the game. This game is particularly addictive as it is a replica of Ancient Rome, except no one can get hurt and the gods of the Roman pantheon can actually act the way the Romans believed they did. All goes swimmingly until one by one tiny things start to fail, first Minerva (goddess of wisdom and charged with protecting the city) goes offline, and then the emperor, Micio, is murdered. For real, not just sent to the Underworld for a time. The biggest catch of all? The police think Kerrickson killed him! It's up to Kerrickson to solve the murder before the police do and clear his name. What he discovers goes beyond murder.... way beyond.
Kerrickson is a computer programmer who was hired right out of college to work on the RPG "Imperium". This game is so huge that most players have no outside lives, living only for the game. This game is particularly addictive as it is a replica of Ancient Rome, except no one can get hurt and the gods of the Roman pantheon can actually act the way the Romans believed they did. All goes swimmingly until one by one tiny things start to fail, first Minerva (goddess of wisdom and charged with protecting the city) goes offline, and then the emperor, Micio, is murdered. For real, not just sent to the Underworld for a time. The biggest catch of all? The police think Kerrickson killed him! It's up to Kerrickson to solve the murder before the police do and clear his name. What he discovers goes beyond murder.... way beyond.
January 13, 2009
First novel by a good friend, this is a humorous look at a special "amusement" park designed for those who want to do live role-playing (instead of on a game board, or online) in ancient Rome. The main character is one of the techs who keeps things running and who has to figure out how to fix things when everything goes wrong, as it does very quickly, of course.
Well-written with one exciting mishap after another.
Well-written with one exciting mishap after another.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews