Multiplayer

"A riveting modern thriller." -- Midwest Book Review Hector’s father is dead. Killed fighting in Iraq. So his mother moved the family back to her boring hometown where Hector can’t connect. Worse, his new next door neighbors, the Zahedis, are from Iran, and the son, Sanjar is Hector’s age. But Sanjar is the last person Hector is interested in hanging out with. Trapped in a world of rules and reality, he escapes into the largest online game the world has ever seen – Omega Wars. As an Omega Wars vanguard Hector can be himself and not worry about things like algebra and death. Vanguards, balancing weaponry and stealth, are the spec-ops of the Omega Wars universe. Mercs wear hulking powered suits and wield chainguns and plasmaces. Smugglers lurk in shadows and collect information while cybertechs build everything from drones to weapons to powered armor to vehicles from the ruins of post-apocalyptic earth. The revolutionary new character type, Empaths, uses a brain-wave sensing headset that allows them to discover and master telepathic powers such as levitate, sight, and pulse. It isn’t long before Hector has built a clan, the Spartans, intent on carving out their own empire on a map as large as Earth itself in a virtual world that never sleeps. Fortunately, it’s all harmless. Until the Spartans stumble on a new clan that doesn’t seem to be gaming. In fact, they remind Hector of the online training his father’s special warfare unit used to conduct before a mission. It is only after people start dying in real life that Hector realizes this new clan isn’t interested in the virtual world at all but might be the same people who killed his father, training for their next mission. And that impossibly, the Zahedis may be involved. Michael Crichton meets Stephen Spielberg in this thriller that explores the virtual world like never before, bringing you face to face with where our society is headed at breakneck speed. It will leave you looking at our digital frontier with a new set of digital eyes.