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waltboyes
Posted December 19, 2010
Let's face it, the writing in a first novel is usually pretty rough, and that's true of Corruptor. And the writing improves steadily through the book. But that's the only reason I haven't given it 4 stars.
Cordova's idea is great (although it is shades of TRON--just in time for the sequel) and his plotting is excellent, with twists I didn't expect turning up regularly. I knew who the bad guy was, but not the villainess.
Tori Adams may be the youngest great leader anybody has ever written about, but she moves back and forth between adulthood and teenager just like a real teenager does, and it makes her a believable character.
She finds herself in the hot seat, and she does well with it. She beats the game everyone is trapped in, and does it without outside assistance--like from her father, who is one of the highest officials of the software company that created the game.
This was a fun read, and will likely go on my "read more than once" shelf.
Buy this book. It will encourage Cordova to write more. A sequel might be interesting...hint, hint...
Walt Boyes
Active Member, SFWA
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Villa_fan7
Posted November 14, 2010
Corrupter shows us where online computer games will eventually get to. We have seen the addiction to games such as World of Warcraft and how it has impacted our society. The world of the warp sounds like a vacation, where you can escape to different world, be someone who you aren't in real life. It doesn't matter if your skinny or fat, boy or girl.an escape from the grind of daily life. At the same time, it tells us how this technology can strangle us at the same time.
Mr. Cordova shows us the best this technology can do for us, but also at the same time be the death of us. He has obviously played online video games and has a great sense of what a gamer would look for in choosing a game and consistently playing it without getting bored. I feel he did his homework in the computer programming lingo, so it sounds familiar so you believe him when he describes how the game works and how things had gone wrong.
He has a gift with establishing characters that you want to care about from the start of the book. The plot is original, but I do give Mr. Cordova credit; with twists and turns and surprises that you would expect from a Hitchcock or M. Knight Shyamalan movie. All and all it's a great read. I am not an online gamer, yet I was able to enjoy the book immensely and would recommend it to my friend's and their tweens.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted November 8, 2010
I Also Recommend:
The Warp was perfectly safe, they claimed. They were wrong... The Warp was the single greatest advance in computer technology since the invention of the microchip. A virtual reality gaming system so advanced that the person inside wasn't just in the game, but was the game. Within The Warp lay the most cunning of all games, the de facto king of online gaming, the one game which was reputedly unbeatable: Crisis. The Warp was flawless. The game was perfect. Until something went terribly wrong. Tori Adams and her group of friends are trapped within the game, unable to log off and free their minds. The uploaded virus is in their brains, a ticking time bomb ready to go off. With no other options presented to them, Tori must do the one thing that had never been done before, what was deemed couldn't be done: beat Crisis. Armed with only their computer skills and whatever the game grants them, the group must battle through impossible odds and confront past demons if they want to survive. With an unseen enemy hot on their trail and tension running high, they will learn to trust each other more than they had ever thought. Even if one of them is a traitor...
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Crispy
Posted November 7, 2010
A captivating novel. Scary, in that the events of the novel could (and likely something similar will) occur in the near future of online gaming. Can't wait for the sequels.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Jason Cordova's CORRUPTOR has an interesting premise that ties games theory, computers, advanced virtual reality interfacing, the problems of soldiering, and one tough gal together and never lets go.
I read CORRUPTOR over a year ago and recently re-read it in ARC form. It has excellent plot twists, a heroine in Victoria (Tori) Adams that's almost impossible to describe -- she's tough, as I said before, but she's also a typical teenager doing her best to get used to friendship and dating. And because her father has moved around a great deal due to his job, she hasn't really been able to make many friends in real life -- all of her friends play the same game she does, a game-world called "Crisis" that's part of the mega-corporate WarpSoft, the ultimate in computer games where every possible talent the gamer in question has is used.
Because Tori is such a strong gamer, she's both hated and feared in this game, yet she has some good friends -- Raul, Stephanie, and Dylan, among others -- who will not betray her. Which is just as well, as Crisis has been hijacked, and no one's getting out alive unless Tori (on the inside) can beat the game, while her father (one of WarpSoft's major players) figures out the identity of the hijackers and stops them on the outside.
This is an excellent plotline with some good characterization, and I enjoyed it heartily.
So with all this being said, you might be wondering why I didn't give this book a five for "excellent" rather than a "four" for very good. The reason for that is mostly that I can't consider this book an "instant classic," nor can I give it quite enough to round it up to five stars. I didn't quite believe the romance between Tori's father and one of the WarpSoft personnel trying to figure out the identity of the hijackers, either, and thought there wasn't enough there for more than a flirtation (especially the end of the book, where the love-interest stands there and says nothing). But these are minor quibbles.
This is a very good first novel that's interesting, that has some really fine interplay between the in-game characters, and some believable interplay with the WarpSoft personnel, particularly the chief of security (a big, tough, former football player named Mike).
I enjoyed CORRUPTOR, and believe if you read it, you will, too.
Four stars. Recommended.
Barb Caffrey
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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