Keeper of the Realm (Keeper Series)

In 2540 AD, the peaceful realm of Karn, 300 feet below sea level, has been invaded by the evil Noxerans. This beautiful city has become a prison for the Karns who must obey Noxeran regulations or die at their hands. In the second thrilling adventure of the Keeper Series, Matt uncovers the secrets of the underwater world. He must rid the realm of the Noxerans and destroy the Keeper. But winning level two of his game, without obliterating Karn, looks to be an impossible task. Can Matt find the Keeper before it's too late for them all?

Grade 5-7-Believing himself trapped inside a computer game, Matt "lands" in a 26th-century undersea colony inhabited by amphibious Karns, who are being held captive by a megalomaniac landlubber plotting to conquer his coastal homeland by devastating it with an induced earthquake. Closely resembling a low-end computer game in book form, this sequel to Keeper of the Kingdom (Top, 2001) features stock characters and situations, trite dialogue, shaky internal logic, and a sketchy setting. The author pitches Matt's strenuous efforts to get his laptop out of the tyrant's clutches so that he can exit the game against his associates' conviction that he's delusional-a potentially clever conceit that doesn't come off because, though commands typed into the laptop do seem to affect events, the narrative point of view keeps switching, which wouldn't be possible if Matt were the only "real" person. Predictably, the tyrant is overthrown, and in the end the laptop sends Matt and friends on to the next episode. Unlike Vivian Vande Velde's similarly premised Heir Apparent (Harcourt, 2002) or William Sleator's rousing Parasite Pig (Dutton, 2002), this story is unlikely to lure young gamers away from their PlayStations.
John Peters, New York Public Library
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