[MOD: Gold Leaf Press is an imprint of Aspen Books in Salt Lake City]

Oh, dear, I confess, I thought it a fun book.

There are many things that are not good literature in CyberDeth. Some of the plot is downright silly and the political assumptions are very cliche. Some of the technical details are absurd, and it is a technical setting in a modern age where errors are glaring. I'm an engineer (born and trained), and I do tend to be picky about correct nomenclature in organic compounds, proper application of physics, and reasonable expectations of computing devices. I had to set a large part of that aside to read this book. Remember Doc Savage? and Tom Swift? and Danny Dunn?

The humor is mostly at a fourth grade level . . . underwear over the head gags, gross anatomical noises, and a lot of slap stick stuff (I feel guilty about laughing, too.)

The book is written to entertain at a younger reader level. My sixteen year old, after his literary criticism class in high school, gagged and refused to do more than say, "Good thing it's short." Being a quick read (200 easy pages, took me an hour and a half) probably does help.

My ten year old is still reading it and he thinks its great.

It has LOTS of action, twists in the plot (some of which really are unexpected), and a good story line. The majority of the content deals with murder/spy/mystery in a virtual reality world. The fight with the bad guys while everyone is in the Monster Maze was pretty interesting. There is quite a bit of violence, but not a lot of detail. Some people die, but the heroes save the world.

"Grups!" Shoelace yelled. "Grups in the pool!"

"It's the two men I told you about!" Mark said to Chance. "They'll tear this place apart to get me ... they're murderers"

"Then they're in for a big surprise," Chance said. " ... this is our territory. ... Get the guns, Roadkill."

"Those are just squirt guns," Mark said. "That won't stop those guys."

"Wrong, Flop," Digit said. "These are secret weapons. Take a look." He threw Mark one of the guns. Mark was surprised by how heavy it was. "We keep 'em loaded in case of emergencies," Digit said. . . .

Mark . . . looked at the gun again and saw the reason for its weight. The water gun had been fitted with a small engine. "It's a two-stroke, three-horsepower, gas-powered chain saw engine," Chance said.

Mark hefted the weapon. "Are these legal?"

"'Course not. We call 'em Ultrasoaker Infinities ... they'll knock you down at twenty paces and tear your clothes of at close range."

Summary: Not a Newberry Award with stereotypical characters and plot, but an easy read with interesting ideas, lots of fun action, and probably good at getting kids interested in technology and science.

Ken Burton
BS Microbiology/Organic chemistry, MBA
Integration Specialist
3M Health Information Systems
kenb@wpmail.code3.com