http://pergelator.blogspot.com/2008/11/books.html ( )

This book was quite interesting, and I fear if I had read it back around when it was released, I’d have really been sucked in to the Starweb game. As it stands, newer networked, closer-to-realtime games are more exciting for me. Plus, they’re typically free.

Anyway, the book was great, and reminded me much of WarGames, although it predated the movie by two years (perhaps that’s where they got the idea). The characters in the book are players in the Starweb game, but find that the game has creeped in to the real world when players start dying mysteriously. In the end, a great confrontation between people and machines ensues, although it ends pretty quick. There were a lot of interesting ideas, especially for its time, but read today may seem a bit old.

I’m going to hang on to this book because I love all of Saberhagen’s other work and may reread it in the future. Overall it was better-than-average, but not a stellar novel. ( )

A reasonable read in the early 80s style of computers coming alive on a precursor of the Internet, finding themselves with awesome powers and learning how to control humans. This computer doesn't want to take over the world, just win a game - so the carnage is not global, but constrained to a few key individuals. It's entertaining fluff in the tradition of the film WarGames. ( )