Saving Thanehaven

Gr 5–8—Noble's life is one of struggle and battle. He must fight everything he encounters, including the terrain he stands on, in his quest to reach the castle and free the princess. Even his own morphing weapon, Smite, can't be trusted. This all changes when Noble encounters Rufus, whose refreshing independent philosophy offers him a choice to leave behind his life of violent drudgery. Noble's quest is then transformed into one of liberation, as he in turn offers the individuals he encounters on his way the freedom to change their destinies. The only thing is, it turns out that Noble and his band of freedom seekers are in fact characters in computer games-and Rufus is a computer virus sent by the ostracized and disgruntled ex-friend of Mikey, the boy who owns the computer. Eventually Noble realizes that Rufus's only agenda is to force Noble's computer home to crash. With the support of his ragtag bunch of gaming heroes, Noble forces a showdown with Rufus. Jinks creates a hilarious combination of disparate game characters from Noble the Knight to zombies, MyScene-type fashion victims, and Lulu the silver unicorn from a preschool game. Their attempts at cooperation outside their individual game environments provide a very funny background to an overall theme of "is there capacity for independent thought in software and gaming programming?" As in Terry Pratchett's Only You Can Save Mankind (HarperCollins, 2004), readers are left with sympathy for the characters in the games, who are doomed to inevitable extinction as each new level is achieved. Jinks successfully delivers life lessons from gaming, and has a lot of fun along the way.—Jane Barrer, United Nations International School, New York City