NANOVER: HACKED
by Mur Lafferty and Ryan Payne & illustrated by Jon Alderink
Book tie-in to massively multiplayer online game. Sophomore Lucas Nelson has perfected a data-mining program that can crack open even the most secure system. When information from his creation is used to plant falsified material in a major research lab, Lucas must face the culprits in the Nanovor universe, made up of microscopic creatures that live inside computer systems and battle for supremacy. The authors, working off gamemeister Jordan Wesiman’s concept, waste no space on character development, packing pages of action into this thin volume, and rightly so: The appeal to fans and reluctant readers overpowers any literary necessities. Cleverly named creatures have powerful-sounding special abilities, and there’s an abundance of goofy science projects for humorous touches. Dr. Sapphire’s barely-there mentoring adds a witty adult without distracting from the pell-mell plot. Skillfully avoiding literary pitfalls while focusing on the target demographic, the team delivers a decent read. (Science fiction. 9-12)