The best stuff for kids is all ages stuff that doesn’t talk down to kids.
-Chris Sims
WarRocket Ajax, Episode 108
Echo’s Revenge: The Ultimate Game is the first in a series by Sean Austin and published through AAA Reality Games (AAARG). The target audience for the novel is 10-18 year old boys who like video games. If that doesn’t describe you, thats no reason not to read the book. It’s been at least 13 years since I fit the demographic, but it brought back me back to the appropriate mindset very quickly.
To summarize, Reggie and Jeremy have a tough home life. Their dad lives in Pasadena, while they’re stuck in Meadowbrook, WA with their mostly absent mother and her boyfriend, Asa. The pseudo-stepfather is a hard drinker with a quick and often violent temper. For the boys, online video games are their only escape – a hobby that only serves to further enrage Asa. After being invited to join a focus group for their favorite game, Echo-6, things reach a breaking point for Reggie. He runs away with his younger brother to find their father.
While the boys find some interesting allies along their journey, the story has only just begun. The line between game and reality has become very blurred. Not only are the two boys faced with grave danger of their own, many of their online friends have fallen victim to a serial kidnapper.
Altogether the story becomes much darker than you’d expect for the target demographic. But, ultimately, this is one of its greatest successes. It’s really easy to screw up young adult fiction. Adults tend to forget how kids think and act. Orson Scott Card was often criticized for the children’s “voices” in Ender’s Game. But those criticisms come from adults who don’t think kids talk like that. They do, just not in front of their parents. Card should actually be criticized for being a horrible human being, not his writing talent. Thankfully, Sean Austin seems to be a much better person.
Austin actually does a very good job of riding a very vague line. Kids do suffer physical and mental abuse. If you aren’t/weren’t one of those kids, you know/knew one. By not shying away from domestic violence, but not expressing it too grotesquely, he manages to address a pertinent topic without veering into after school special territory.
As the story progresses, it becomes clear that the video game is not just a plot device, but a thematic constant. Understanding how important the game is to the boys is a key to understanding their personal language – even the way they shape their thoughts. Their pseudo-military jargon mixed with online abbreviations highlights the way a modern kid learns to communicate. Will it make sense to a typical adult? Possibly. But an adult gamer probably won’t recognize the online chatter without the rampant racism and homophobia we expect during online matches. Does this detract from the realism? Yes, but to include the typical online hate speech would undermine the positive storytelling young boys need.
Not only would I encourage any 10-18 year old gaming boys to read the book, I’d encourage their families to read it with them. There’s just enough suspense and solid story-telling for parents to enjoy the time. Young girls in the family may be disappointed by the lack of a female-focused love triangle (a la The Hunger Games and Twilight), but you can’t have a coming of age story without the beginnings of feelings a 13 year old boy can’t explain. Admittedly, I just like the idea of families reading together like mine did years ago. But it’s also important for families to talk about their children’s hobbies and to introduce tough topics, like domestic abuse, that kids and parents both might be inclined to avoid.
All of this has managed to skip one of the most important elements of the story. The book is not entirely self-contained. The hunt for Echo continues online at www.echohunt.com. I confess to being a little lost with the online component. It seems unfocused at best, but it’s an intriguing concept. How will AAARG continue the story online and in print? Will the novels themselves hold up without the online component? Can the online component hold up without the novels? Time will tell. But you can be certain I’ll be checking the site regularly – and eagerly awaiting volume two. I don’t do star ratings, but that should be recommendation enough. The book has a few flaws, particularly involving an item I thought was left behind until the very end, but none of them break the immersion. The only thing I would hold against it is that it seems like the adult world gives up much too quickly on dozens, maybe hundreds, of children disappearing along the west coast. Most kids probably won’t think twice since they feel like adults ignore them anyway.
Recommended for fans of Ender’s Game, kids not quite ready for Lord of the Flies, and anyone who would like to see James Luceno’s Web Warriors in a more realistic setting.
Echo’s Revenge is currently available in digital ($2.99) or print ($11.99) form from Amazon and other major retailers.
AAA Reality Games is a company dedicated to exploring the art of reality games through robotic engineering. AAARG is producing a series of game-related experiences, and is currently releasing the novel series Echo’s Revenge: The Ultimate Game as an ongoing investigation of Echo-7 through novels and website echohunt.com. Echohunt.com also provides STEM (Science,Technology, Engineering & Math) opportunities for 10-18 year-olds who are interested in STEM related areas of study. The Echo’s Revenge series is written specifically for video gamers ages 10+.