Virtually Perfect - Hardcover

Gutman, Dan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786803940 ISBN 13: 9780786803941

Publisher: Hyperion, 1998

Synopsis

When twelve-year-old Yip uses his father's new software to make a computer simulation of a boy his age, the creation breaks out of cyberspace into the real world and begins to complicate Yip's life.

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Reviews

Grade 4-8-A cyberfantasy set in California's Silicon Valley. Yip is the computer-savvy 12-year-old son of a second-generation, movie-industry special-effects man. He downloads the software being tested by his father's company, Digital Dreammaker, and simulates a "virtual actor." With help from his teenage sister Paige, Yip creates Victor, a perfect kid with great looks, super intelligence, and a sense of humor. Anxious to explore Yip's world, the "vactor" breaks out of cyberspace and reveals a serious flaw?no conscience. A shortage of memory, and Paige's desire to improve Victor's appearance, caused the omission of philosophy from his database. When Victor shows criminal tendencies, Yip is faced with a moral dilemma: Is it okay to destroy a dangerous computer file that looks, sounds, and acts like a human? Gutman has created an amusing and thoughtful novel. Unfortunately, Paige is portrayed as a boy-crazy airhead.
Eunice Weech, M. L. King Elementary School, Urbana, IL
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gutman (The Kid Who Ran for President) taps out a smoothly diverting "What if?" tale centered on a seventh-grader who is new to town and feeling friendless. After Yip's father, a special-effects expert in the movie business, comes home with new computer software that can create a "virtual actor" (aka "vactor"), Yip decides to experiment. But the virtual pal he devises, Victor, insists on stepping out of the computer screen and into the real world. The next day, that "bunch of electrons" shows up at Yip's school and makes friends fast, thanks to his carefully calculated good looks (Yip's boy-smitten older sister had a hand in composing his physical features), his rapid-fire repertoire of one-liners (The Best of Henny Youngman is one of the books Yip has downloaded into his vactor's database) and his superhuman athletic prowess. But Yip's growing jealousy of Victor and Yip's failure to program in a conscience virtually guarantee big trouble. Gutman builds the funniest moments around Yip's likable grandfather, a retired special-effects man, who finally pulls the plug on Victor. Its breezy dialogue and quick pace give this caper the scent of a smartly written sitcom; readers will supply the laugh track. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Hyperion
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0786803940
• ISBN 13: 9780786803941
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 128