About the Bookstore Browse Aisles Search Desk Shopping Basket Book Trade Terms Just Released! Return Policy Help Here is the full reference card for this book... If you'd rather place an order by talking to one of our cheerful order desk clerks, please call 1-888-232-4444 (USA and Canada only) or 250-383-6864. From Europe, ring our UK order desk clerk at local rate number 0845 230 9601 (UK only) or 44 (0)1865 722 113. The Net Warriors by Lindsey R. Hall 300 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-0013; ISBN 1-4120-2089-1; US$25.00, C$27.79, EUR20.50, £14.50 Nic Granger didn't plan to save the world but when he found himself in Orr, he had no choice. Prepare to play the Deceiver for life, love, reality and Prefix. Read more! about the book      about the author      sample excerpts or Table of Contents      catalogue info About the Book Nic Granger didn't plan to save the world. He just wanted to play The Three Kings of Orr online and defeat the Deceiver. The Deceiver had other ideas. As the land of Orr's nastiest villain, he had escaped into the real world some weeks before when the man who invented inter reality chips actually made one work. When Nic finds himself in Orr, an amazing journey begins through time, space, the Internet and the world of his own street. With the help his best friend Frog, younger sister Emily, the knight Riddith and Princess Rhea, The Net Warriors are born. They are joined by a host of other characters including Bruce, a dragon with appallingly smelly breath and Prefix, a mace with the character of a playful puppy. As for the hackers, who is black hat and who is white? Follow their adventures to the End of Time as they are captured by the Hellriders, battle with the headless horsemen, and try to find the Deceiver before he finds them. Can they put the worlds of reality and inter-reality back to how they should be? A review by Suzanne Coleburn, Reader To Reader Reviews If you are a lover of virtual reality games you are going to love THE NET WARRIORS. This enticing story begins when a Japanese man who designed Dec chips for digital entertainment and home control centers with the latest computer technology in the beginning of the 21st Century changed things in the world one day when he decided to change things with his game "The Three Kings of Orr." The game was complex, net based and linked to a web ring, rather than DVD or disc based and what happens next is wild and wooly. Katana assumed the part of the Wise King and while in the game he activated his mortal enemy, the Deceiver who was a shrewd and unsavory character who could change into human and animals at will. Before he knows it Katana is dissolved into the game and disappears. The special IR chip that Kantana designed was installed in a DEC set and sent to the Granger family in a small country town in England where a young 14 year old boy named Nic who has a copy of "The Three Kings of Orr" receives a special message of help on his monitor screen. Nic assumes the persona of the Wise King of Orr and types the words in the message and finds himself blending into the screen and into the game. What a blast. This fast paced story rockets into the fantasy world of Orr and into the reality of life in England, America and Australia as the good guys and the baddies come together trying to save the world from the Deceiver. Lindsey Hall does a bang up job of keeping his readers glued to the screen finding out what is going to happen next. A jolly good story. Don't miss it! Suzanne Coleburn, Reader To Reader Reviews www.readertoreader.com About the Author Lindsey Hall grew up in Kent and Hampshire just as the computer revolution was about to take off. The original idea of 'computecnic' was sparked off by playing Space Invaders as a teenager and wondering what would happen if the little yellow men could get out. Although computers held his fascination, people were always more interesting and he started a career in nursing in 1981. However, he never forgot the idea. With the massive development of the Internet around the turn of the century and a love of writing, he knew the time was right to commit his ideas to paper. He is married with two children and lives near Bristol in England. He has just started working on the second book in the Net Warriors series.

Sample Excerpts

Excerpt from Chapter 2

Before he realised, she had leant over, put her hand on top of his and managed to double click on The Three Kings of Orr. It installed the game. Nick growled his annoyance at his sister and was just about to find a way to exit the game when a message flashed on the screen.

help! move to the bridge of angels, then j.u.m.p.

'What does that mean?' said Emily.

'How do I know?'

'Well you'll have to play the game then.'

Nic scrolled to the top of the screen to find an exit command but couldn't. He clicked the right mouse button in annoyance, once, then twice but nothing happened. There seemed to be no way to get out. He hit the escape key. Nothing happened. The message faded but after a couple of seconds returned.

help! move to the bridge of angels, then j.u.m.p.

'Now look what you've done,' he shouted to Emily but she was already running down the stairs to answer the call of her mother, who said that sandwiches were on the table.

Nic's father who liked to think of himself as a technically minded man, had a way with technical things. His motto was that if all else fails read the instructions. Nic was of the same ilk. And as he could not make any combinations of keys or mouse buttons or verbal commands allow him to exit the game, he looked amongst the discarded packaging for some information. He found a leaflet that provided some very basic instructions for the Three Kings of Orr and despite his mothers persistent calling had a brief look. It appeared you switched on, you played the game or you got out. There were no messages about going to the Bridge of Angels and pressing j.u.m.p. Nic finally gave into his mother's cries and went downstairs switching off the Dec console off as he left the room.

He ate his sandwich at a speed that was even quick for him and shot back upstairs again. He turned the Dec on expecting the scan disc eror message. Instead he was met by the same message flashing on and off the screen.

help! move to the bridge of angels, then j.u.m.p.

Another fruitless and random combination of keys and mouse button pressing failed to exit him so with nothing else left to do he clicked on play.

The message left the screen and he was in the game. He thought about exiting but decided to continue. He still could not have got out if he wanted to. Anyway, curiosity had got the better of him. There was a strange message on this game that wasn't in the instructions and 'help' - what did that mean? This was not the way of Dec games. Nic scanned the green landscape before him and made his choice from the Three Kings in front of him. He unknowingly assumed the persona of the foolish king and was soon defeated by a rabbit who sliced him neatly in two. The game ended but the same message returned to the screen. He had another look at the instruction leaflet and read the information about the game a little more slowly. There was still no mention of any message and puzzled, he decided to play again, not knowing that was his only option. He assumed the persona of the Wise King this time and found himself in a castle. He was quickly besieged by a swarm of bats but having learnt a number of other skills on previous games, he managed to escape to a long path. He was approached by a serf with a three pointed coloured hat and red cloak who gave him choices. Bridge, valley, sea or sky. 'Bridge of angels' he thought. He chose Bridge.

He was allowed to pass but not before the serf had lopped the heads off three winged lions that jumped at him from the left. With 150 points he moved on. He proceeded along the path and soon came to a bridge. The bridge crossed a river that glowed an electronic type of glow. In front of the bridge was a large stone arch inscribed with the words Bridge of Angels. help! move to the bridge of angels, then j.u.m.p. thought Nic. That was what the message had read. Nic paused. He looked at the screen for clues, an icon to click on maybe but there was nothing to lead him. He studied the screen intently. There was something about the way that message read. There were no icons. Should he be doing something else? He looked at the keys, racking his brains for a clue, thinking of ideas from previous games. After a few minutes he was no further forward. The game was static. It was obviously waiting for him to do something and he studied the screen and keys again. He remembered the words, the way they were written and had an idea. He shrugged and typed j.u.m.p.

Suddenly he felt horribly sick and looked down to see his legs dissolving. He opened his mouth to scream as his body broke up into millions of bits and was drawn towards the monitor. The scream came eventually but not in the back bedroom of home. He was tumbling down a bank and settled on the prickly grass. Prickly, not with the sharp feel of normal blades of grass but with static.

Chapter 5. Mothers and friends

'NIC!' His mother shouted. She was standing outside the door of the spare room on the landing, her back to him, her stick like figure gesticulating wildly as if she had been looking for him for ages.

'Yes,' he said breathlessly.

His mother turned round and jumped. 'How did you get there?'

'I've been here all along,' His mother's eyes were quickly recovering from the jolt of surprise and looking suspiciously at Rhea. She then looked back at Nic.

'And who is this?' she asked, lowering her voice as she usually did when she knew he had been up to something.

'Oh, er, this is Rhea'

'And who is Rhea?'

'She's just moved in down the street, She's into dressing up' Nic's mother was not convinced for one minute that there wasn't something odd going on but was gaping at Rhea's strangely beautiful but unworldly appearance. 'Mum what is the matter?'

His Mum looked at him and shook herself a little as if reacting to the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard. She then returned his own stare and wondered if her son wasn't a little too young to have an interest in girls in his room. But she supposed he was now fourteen. That conversation was for another time, she thought and then said.

'Frog's downstairs.'

'Frog!'

'Yes, I'll send him up.'

'NO! Send him away. Tell him I am not here.'

'No, I have said you're here and he said you had arranged for him to come over.'

Nic sighed as his mother left the room and called down the stairs.

'Frog, he's upstairs in his room - with a girl!' Nic groaned. Frog was Nic's best friend, with more energy than sense. He had a tendency to act first and think later and was so uncool, their respective school friends wondered how they still managed to hit it off. But they had been friends for years and although they wound each other up intensely at times, they always managed to end up larking around together eventually. Frog was also about Nic's height and build and had taken a recent interest in karate. He took a brown spiky haired leap into the back bedroom and almost stopped in mid air, not quite knowing what to make of Nic and Rhea, still in a crumpled heap on the floor. He looked miffed. 'Well, if you've got a girl here I'll go. I thought you wanted to play football.'

'Frog, don't go. Now you're here, I might as well tell you. You are not going to believe a word of it but I have to tell someone or I'll go mad.'

'Don't tell me, you've got a girlfriend?'

'No, its much more interesting than that.'

Nic then recounted the whole story to Frog at lightning speed, who promptly fell about laughing.

'You expect me to believe you have just been inside a Dec game and have been chosen by one of the characters of that game to find a guy to save the world from the Deceiver who is going to wreak havoc everywhere.' Frog clutched his sides in fits of laughter once more. At this point, Rhea who had sat herself quietly in the corner piped up.

'Its all true,' she said in that same matter of fact tone she had used before threatening to kill Nic.

'And who are you then, someone who is late for a fancy dress party?'

'I'm Princess Rhea, daughter of the Wise King and Nic is my father.'

Well that did it. Frog nearly wet himself he laughed so much. 'Yeah! And my name's Frog, kiss me and I'll be a prince.'

'Frog, you have to believe me,' said Nic. Frog at last managed to get control of his laughing.

'Prove it,' he said.

'These.' Nic held up the sword Riddith had given him and pointed to Rhea's with it.

Frog was impressed but said with a shrug, 'This proves nothing. Get me into this game.'

'I can't,' replied Nic

'Why?'

'It's too dangerous.' At this point, Emily, who had always rather liked Frog's zany character, appeared at the door.

'Hello Frog,' she said, and sat down beside him, instantly expecting to be part of the conversation. 'Who's your friend?' she asked with raised eyebrows, thinking that Rhea must have come in with Frog. 'I didn't realise you had quite such an elaborate taste in girls.'

'She is your brother's daughter,' said Frog.

Emily gave one of those ghastly 12-year-old girly expressions and demanded an immediate explanation.

'Nic's been in a Dec game and is going to save the world,' Frog continued. Nic recounted the story to his sister, starting with the funny message, which she had seen as well. This at least gave some credibility to the story and when Nic introduced Princess Rhea, Emily suddenly went gooey eyed.

The bizarre reality of the situation was starting to look a bit clearer. Nic was back in his own house. Princess Rhea at least had somebody she could latch onto, to save her from the tedium of being a repeatedly generated digital image in a Dec game. Emily had a Princess to look up to and Frog was actually thinking this was all rather a good laugh. Trying to track down a chap called Gordon, who worked for a Dec company and was some grand Dec game champion, seemed a fairly off the wall way of spending a few hours, and might just be a bit better than kicking a football against the wall at the end of the road for the fifth time this week.

'Right,' said Frog, 'let's see if we can track down this Gordon chap. Get on the Internet.'

'No' said Nic.

'Well how else are you going to get hold of him? All you have is his Internet address.'

'Yes but if I get on the Internet the Deceiver might find me.'

'Well let's go and find the company, where is he based?'

'I don't know.'

"Well find out, ring directory enquiries or something - come on, just look him up on the Internet, there's millions of sites out there. The Deceiver isn't going to find you in a hurry.'

'Come on Nic,' said Rhea. 'You're the only one that has the chance to save the world, that has to involve a few risks.' At this Rhea noticed Frog making vomiting like gestures in the corner and glared at him with an intensity that Frog found quite uncomfortable - perhaps she wasn't of this world after all.

'Ok' said Nic reluctantly. He sat on the chair in front of the Dec, hit the return key to bring the screen to life and clicked on the Internet icon.

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