Review of
Journey Into Q-Space, by Brad Quentin ISBN 0061057215
Three out of five stars
Virtual reality
taken beyond the currently reasonable.
I have been a great fan of the Johnny Quest show since
I was a child. Although he and his companion Hadji were younger than Tom Swift
and his pal Bud, the two series shared an important characteristic. Although he
was a teenager, Tom Swift was a superb scientist and technocrat, considered a
peer and even superior by accomplished adults. Johnny and Hadji were always
treated as equal members of the team headed by Benton Quest. So, in both cases,
they appealed to adolescents that were interested in science and technology.
This story
fails to rise to a high level because the action is all based on virtual
reality. All players, including those of the opposition, are plugged into
virtual reality modules, which makes anything possible, including a
transformation into alien creatures. In my opinion, this is a failing that I
have found in sorcery novels. When the hero gets into a bind, they suddenly discover
powers previously unknown. When everything is possible, it is hard to reach a
point where the reader considers the hero at risk.
While the
original animated series did stretch science and technology, for the most part
it did not extend beyond the plausible. The plot of this book does.
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