One of the most interesting things I found is the way the book distinguishes between real life and the virtual reality of The Maze at a basic, mechanical level: by using tense. It’s used as a starting point and to set up the main conflict, but most of the book is about Rick having to deal with real life for the first time. Despite the cover, the trailer and pretty much everything else focussing on the game, it actually features surprisingly little in the book. BUT (and here’s the big but) there’s nothing really standard about this book. Pretty standard, right? Dystopian future with an escapist-type game isn’t exactly breaking new ground. Rick, Daedalus’s son (maybe), has lived most of his life inside the maze, testing it for bugs, running all of the dungeons and wasting time. Created entirely by a genius called Daedalus, The Maze is basically a MMORPG on steroids. In this future, a virtual reality game called ‘The Maze’ has become popular. Set in said future is a world very clearly divided into the haves and have-nots, with the haves living a life not too dissimilar from our own (albeit completely indoors so… not too dissimilar from our own), and the have-nots living outside in the near-constant acid rain and poisonous atmosphere, surviving on tasteless protein shakes. At first glance it’s your typical dystopian future novel. B R Collins’s Gamerunner is a tricky book to summarise.
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