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A review by billblume
Warcross by Marie Lu
5.0
Warcross had me up late reading multiple nights. It deserves the five stars. For this review, I'm gonna nitpick a few things, but only because this book is so damn good that it can take it.
First off, I'm mad at my past self for taking this long to read Marie Lu. "Past self, you're an idiot! Why aren't you reading Marie Lu?! Moron!" While this book hits the ground running, the scene that really won me over was the first Warcross match with Emika competing as a member of the Phoenix Riders. Writing action scenes is hard. While I can write a good fight scene, what Marie Lu accomplishes in the first game of the tournament for Emika is just amazing. Action scenes are hard enough to write, because they rarely advance the story within the scene itself. Not a problem for Marie Lu, not at all. On top of that, writing an action scene within a virtual reality setting is even harder. Why? Because usually, the only real thing at stake is pride. Marie Lu gets over that hurdle with room to spare. I will admit that the championship match-up at the end didn't quite hit that same high note for me, though. I think part of that had to do with the vague rules of a fight scene in a virtual world.
A gripe that I'll try to make as vague as possible to keep it non-spoilery is the master plan of the bad guy (using the term loosely, and when you read the book, you'll understand why). Once again, this goes to the issues of using a virtual reality as part of the setting. The championship tournament is the key to distributing some mysterious code into all the billions of viewers and it only kicks in at the end of the game. It's a tad "Bond villainous" when it seems this could be accomplished just as easily by planting it in a software update.
Overall, the integration of the virtual world into the real world is brilliantly handled. Marie Lu makes me both eager as hell to live in a world like this and equally horrified at the implications. I can totally see Warcross usurping the Super Bowl as the biggest sports tournament of the year (that breaks the heart of my inner football fan just a bit). I'm so eager to see what happens to this world in the second book. This will likely be a hidden war that exists both in the real world and the virtual one, so that should be a real treat and make The Matrix look like a joke.
One aspect of the world building that left me a bit confused was what happens with the body of the player when they are fully immersed into the virtual reality. At one point, when going to the "Dark World" (and, folks, Emika's first trip there in the book is so damn cool), Emika describes all these physical moves she's making to grab something from another user at one point, but then she adds that in the real world how she's typing all this code to accomplish this. I'm not clear how that works if she's fully integrated into the game world. Surely, you don't want your body flailing around while playing the game (and it clearly doesn't), so not sure about this. I'll add the caveat that I read this book very quickly for me, and it's entirely possible Marie Lu does explain it, that I just blew past it and missed it.
In many ways, this book reminds me of the anime Sword Art Online, which also spends the majority of its time in a virtual game world while including real-world stakes. Fans of that anime will also love this book, and for those turned off of Sword Art Online by the more overtly misogynistic elements, you'll love this book even more (God bless you, Marie Lu!).
Now, I will admit that my five star rating for the book was a tough call, but there's no way I can rationalize giving it only four with how much I enjoyed it. The end of this book delivers a twist that leaves a massive number of unanswered questions. The book acknowledges that, and I think it's fair to say that if the sequel(s) doesn't provide a successful set of answers to explain everything, it kind of taints this first book a bit. I have to believe that's not going to be a problem, though. As well-developed as this setting is and as well-plotted the first book, I got to think that Marie Lu has the answers all ready to drop.
2017 delivered some fantastic action books in the YA market. Warcross, [b:Overturned|30363231|Overturned|Lamar Giles|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1465245441s/30363231.jpg|50873057], and [b:This Mortal Coil|33876440|This Mortal Coil (This Mortal Coil #1)|Emily Suvada|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1489514460s/33876440.jpg|54837572] make up some of my top reads published last year. The highest praise I can give Marie Lu for Warcross is that I will be reading a lot more of her work now. You should, too.
First off, I'm mad at my past self for taking this long to read Marie Lu. "Past self, you're an idiot! Why aren't you reading Marie Lu?! Moron!" While this book hits the ground running, the scene that really won me over was the first Warcross match with Emika competing as a member of the Phoenix Riders. Writing action scenes is hard. While I can write a good fight scene, what Marie Lu accomplishes in the first game of the tournament for Emika is just amazing. Action scenes are hard enough to write, because they rarely advance the story within the scene itself. Not a problem for Marie Lu, not at all. On top of that, writing an action scene within a virtual reality setting is even harder. Why? Because usually, the only real thing at stake is pride. Marie Lu gets over that hurdle with room to spare. I will admit that the championship match-up at the end didn't quite hit that same high note for me, though. I think part of that had to do with the vague rules of a fight scene in a virtual world.
A gripe that I'll try to make as vague as possible to keep it non-spoilery is the master plan of the bad guy (using the term loosely, and when you read the book, you'll understand why). Once again, this goes to the issues of using a virtual reality as part of the setting. The championship tournament is the key to distributing some mysterious code into all the billions of viewers and it only kicks in at the end of the game. It's a tad "Bond villainous" when it seems this could be accomplished just as easily by planting it in a software update.
Overall, the integration of the virtual world into the real world is brilliantly handled. Marie Lu makes me both eager as hell to live in a world like this and equally horrified at the implications. I can totally see Warcross usurping the Super Bowl as the biggest sports tournament of the year (that breaks the heart of my inner football fan just a bit). I'm so eager to see what happens to this world in the second book. This will likely be a hidden war that exists both in the real world and the virtual one, so that should be a real treat and make The Matrix look like a joke.
One aspect of the world building that left me a bit confused was what happens with the body of the player when they are fully immersed into the virtual reality. At one point, when going to the "Dark World" (and, folks, Emika's first trip there in the book is so damn cool), Emika describes all these physical moves she's making to grab something from another user at one point, but then she adds that in the real world how she's typing all this code to accomplish this. I'm not clear how that works if she's fully integrated into the game world. Surely, you don't want your body flailing around while playing the game (and it clearly doesn't), so not sure about this. I'll add the caveat that I read this book very quickly for me, and it's entirely possible Marie Lu does explain it, that I just blew past it and missed it.
In many ways, this book reminds me of the anime Sword Art Online, which also spends the majority of its time in a virtual game world while including real-world stakes. Fans of that anime will also love this book, and for those turned off of Sword Art Online by the more overtly misogynistic elements, you'll love this book even more (God bless you, Marie Lu!).
Now, I will admit that my five star rating for the book was a tough call, but there's no way I can rationalize giving it only four with how much I enjoyed it. The end of this book delivers a twist that leaves a massive number of unanswered questions. The book acknowledges that, and I think it's fair to say that if the sequel(s) doesn't provide a successful set of answers to explain everything, it kind of taints this first book a bit. I have to believe that's not going to be a problem, though. As well-developed as this setting is and as well-plotted the first book, I got to think that Marie Lu has the answers all ready to drop.
2017 delivered some fantastic action books in the YA market. Warcross, [b:Overturned|30363231|Overturned|Lamar Giles|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1465245441s/30363231.jpg|50873057], and [b:This Mortal Coil|33876440|This Mortal Coil (This Mortal Coil #1)|Emily Suvada|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1489514460s/33876440.jpg|54837572] make up some of my top reads published last year. The highest praise I can give Marie Lu for Warcross is that I will be reading a lot more of her work now. You should, too.