Book Review
Title: Otherworld
Author: Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller
Genre: YA/Sci-Fi
Rating: *****
Review: The opening to Otherworld was great, we meet Simon who is playing a new/not new virtual reality game called Otherworld, although it is technically Otherworld 2.0. Simon unlike the 1998 players who have been allowed to play before the release of the game heads out into the wilderness of the game flanked by Kat, who I am assumed is Simon’s ex-girlfriend or something similar. In a cave, he encounters a clay man and possibly one of the overseers called Elementals but before Simon can lure the Elemental into a fight Kat saves him and they leave the cave on to find the landscape changing before their very eyes.
It seems I was wrong about Kat and her and Simon were just best friends from a very young age but recently she completely withdraws herself from his life, so Simon literally flushed his future down the toilet in a bid to get close to Kat once more. However, when his parents find out about the thousands on dollars he spent on his mother’s credit cards they destroy his Otherworld gear and his once chance at speaking to Kat properly. I just want to say I really dislike Simon’s parents, they are patronising, arrogant and just neglectful putting work before their child when they should be supporting him and loving him in any way they can. After returning to his old school Simon manages to have a quick conversation with Kat where she says it isn’t safe for them both to be there right now and he should go back to boarding school and he knows she is in trouble and everything she is doing right now is a form of camouflage. Simon’s suspicions about Kat are confirmed when a girl called Busara shows him footage of a strange man watching Kat and her “friends” from outside the school.
Determined to find out what is going on with the girl he loves and possibly loves him back, Simon begins following Kat’s movements. During his time spying on her at a party something strange happens when a mysterious person throws a device into the crowd which cause two floors of the building to collapse. Obviously worried for Kat’s safety Simon rushes to find her, when he does she has severed an artery in her leg and he saves her life. When she wakes up in the hospital Simon is informed that Kat is suffered with locked in syndrome and that she is the perfect candidate for a new virtual reality device called the disk which basically talks to the person’s brain and allows them to live in a world where they aren’t locked in. While Simon tries to get on this test himself he is denied and vows to find any way to make Kat better. We also see sparks of animosity between Simon and his mother when she wants him to go back to school and leave Kat, but he threatens to reveal her secrets, secrets she doesn’t want anyone to know.
While Simon remains at the hospital at Kat’s side we learn more about Otherworld and the technology behind it and Simon begins to worry that Kat might never want to leave her perfect world if she finds it.
Things get even stranger for Simon when he learns that two others in Kat’s pseudo group of friends were diagnosed with locked in syndrome which is very rare, and it can’t be a coincidence. However, when Kat’s mother suddenly gives up her parental authority and hands it over to Kat’s stepfather Wayne, Simon is very suspicious but before he can do anything Wayne tells Simon Kat has been moved to a long-term facility. Sullen and defeated Simon goes home to find his parents are still in London and a package was left for him. Inside the package is a visor and disk just like Kat’s with a note saying go find her. Simon immediately applies the disk and enters the White City which is deserted apart from the in-game residents. He meets the Clay Man from Otherworld who tells him that the White City and Otherworld exists within the same space and once he leaves the city he can’t return. As the Clay Man says Kat is looking for the exit which will deactivate her disk in the glacier guarded by Magna who must be killed to find the exit he arms himself. While Clay Man says he will offer assistance where he is allowed Simon is on his own but at least he knows where Kat is heading and maybe this virtual reality will hold the secrets to everything that has led Kat and Simon to this point.
Simon also learns that there is the possibility that of he dies in this world he will die in reality as well making his search for Kat even more vital. As Simon he soon realises that Otherworld isn’t as sweet or innocent as it claims to be, and Simon is forced to piece together the puzzle without knowing where the pieces are. Simon bands together with a few other people to face the many dangers that Otherworld has, and he treks for over two days looking for Kat with very little signs of her passing through. Simon’s guide eventually appears to let him know he is sending him out of the game for a little while, so his real body can recover from having no food or water in two days.
However, when he awakes his mother is going mental and he decides to leave and eventually ends up hiding out in the abandoned factory where Kat was injured earlier in the novel and she may be leaving behind clues to why everything has happened, but Simon hasn’t figured it out yet.
After travelling from Irma to Mammon Simon, Carole and Gorog face more challenge including cursed gemstones man eating monkeys and cliff dwelling cannibals. It is during this particular journey that we see how different the Children are from parents and how deep the tensions between Children, beasts and guests really runs. After reaching Mammon the war the Clay Man spoke of doesn’t seem like that far into the future if recent events are anything to go by. After being caught in Mammon and striped of anything that could be considered valuable the trio are going to be sold to a cannibal.
I was beginning to realise at this point that despite all Simon’s attempts at reasoning a lot of the inhabitants of Otherworld only seem to respond to their primitives urges and desires especially greed. In a genius move Simon leaves the game and contact Elvis who owes him a favour and he gets Gina offline but unlike last time he doesn’t go straight back into Otherworld as he is given the facility’s address and using his cunning and intelligence to get himself inside and what he sees I can only describe as the body farm from the Matrix. I also believe he is right in his assumption that none of the “patients” have locked in syndrome but rather they were all given a drug to paralyse them through their IV’s. After taking pictures of the facility and what is happening there, and nurse helps Simon escape because she is just as helpless and trapped as the patients. However, before Simon can do anything with the photos the Company hack into his mother’s phone and delete them all.
As Simon is beginning to realise how deadly a game he is playing, he knows he must go off grid with the exception of Otherworld and find Kat before everything truly goes to he’ll of before Kat ends up dead like other patients in the facility. When he re-enters the game, Simon knows exactly where they should go but the Children waiting there aren’t willing to send the group anywhere near the glacier where the exit/creator is and are willing to risk war to keep it that way when Simon attacks. Simon wakes up in a forest completely alone, where all the other avatars are out to kill anyone that crosses their path. After several battles Simon is chosen to battle for the Elemental of this zone and wins although Carole has to sacrifice herself along the way. After taking a break Simon learns that Busara is the Clay man and that Milo Otherworld 2.0’s creator is addicted to the disk technology and his avatar is Magna and killing it will kill him. While Simon wasn’t okay with this at first, he realises it may be the only way to save Kat and the other is to completely shut down Otherworld once and for all.
As the story begins to unravel Simon is faced with a choice of waiting in the outside world or risking his life once more in Otherworld and obviously as Kat is still inside the game he heads back in too. In the Imperium Simon is closer to the glacier than he has ever been before, but he realises a little too late that he has been double crossed and this person has been holding Kat hostage but before he can do anything he is sent back to the real world. In the real world all the pieces finally fall into place for Simon and everything becomes clear but enter Busara who gives Simon one last chance to get inside Otherworld as rescue Kat which he finally does but the finally scenes set this story up for a sequel and possibly more books afterwards and I honestly can’t wait to read Otherearth as soon as I can.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Comments