Ario is a Cheat: somebody who designs and sells Cheat Codes to Gamerunners. Rick and Pir are Gamerunners: people who try to win their fortune by playing The Maze, the interactive computer game that is so much more than an ordinary computer game. MazeCheat is set in a futuristic city scape where acid rain permanently falls. But despite the dreary surroundings there is a something that enables everybody to escape their everyday life. And that is The Maze, the interactive computer game where you don't just play the game onscreen,you physically enter the world. Once in, you play - run, fight, avoid traps, choose your weapons - as if you are actually there. The hold of the game on everybody's minds means that the company behind it, CRATER, is all-powerful. But CRATER have a game expansion that is sinister to the extreme. In their new game, if you finally manage to beat it, it takes your brain and in particular your memories, to use as material for new games, for new Gamerunners, leaving you an empty shell. Except no one knows that yet. And when something terrible happens to Pir in The Maze, Ario and Rick need to try to destroy this terrible expansion of the game that kills. But the all-seeing CRATER is also onto them and time is running out . . .

 

 

This book has been graded for interest at 12 years.

There are 320 pages in this book.

It is aimed at Young Adult readers. The term Young Adult (YA) is used for books which have the following characteristics: (1) aimed at ages 12-18 years, US grades 7-12, UK school years 8-15, (2) around 50-75k words long, (3) main character is aged 12-18 years, (4) topics include self-reflection, internal conflict vs external, analyzing life and its meaning, (5) point of view is often in the first person, and (6) swearing, violence, romance and sexuality are allowed.

This book was published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC .

Bridget Collins is a graduate of both university and drama school. This is her first novel. Bridget lives in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.