User Unfriendly

Arvin Rizalli, his mother and six of his friends pirate a computer-generated, interactive role-playing game. No dull video game, the program plugs right into the players' brains, putting them in the middle of a daring quest to rescue a kidnapped princess. The quest moves at a breakneck pace, careening from forests to caves to deserts to enchanted cities. Along the way, Arvin and his company fight a dizzying array of orcs, wolves and other evildoers, but their biggest challenges come from Arvin's mother's mysterious, life-threatening illness and a bewildering assortment of dangerous glitches in the computer program. Readers who are fond of either sword and sorcery fantasy or role-playing games will not be able to put this swashbuckler down. Ages 12-up. (Sept.)