Questland by Carrie Vaughn

Vaughn is a prolific writer, though I haven't read all that much of her work.  But I have to say, I really liked this one.

The story involves an obnoxious billionaire who is building his own ultimate immersive theme park, "Questland".  It is inhabited by the highest tech animatronics, and delivers a fully live in fantasy quest.  With unicorns, dragons, dungeons, mead—the works.

Something has gone awry, and the dev team has gone rogue, cutting the island off from outside.  The protagonist—standing in for the author and all of us—is a professor of fantasy-ology brought in as a consultant and bond girl in a mercenary raid to retake control.

Professor Cox falls in love with the place, even though she can see the seams.  This turns out to not be a coincidence, because a lead designer is her ex, and apparently was designing stuff that "Addie would love".

There are wonders around every bend in the trail. We never know what will happen next. This is supposed to be a safe and fun place, but it's not really working correctly. And we really aren't sure who is on who's side.

And this is still the real world—the mercs brought actual guns—people can get hurt and killed.  Which really ruins the fun.

Can Addie fulfill the quest?  Should she really want to?  It's so wonderful on the island, wouldn't she just rather stay forever? Or is she just being dangled as bait, in a dangerous game of corporate espionage?

This whole story is a personal geek-out for Vaughn; an expression of her deep nerdish soul.  I'm sure that this is an adventure that she would love to experience herself, and is full of references to favorite novels, games, and films.  Either you get it or you don't.  I got it. Either you'll like it or you won't. I liked it.

I have to say that Vaughn has done a great job of delivering the "gaming" experience as a written novel.  Too many recent "novels" read like transcripts of video game play, which I really don't enjoy.  Vaughn shows how to tell the story of a game in the medium of a written novel.  Well done.

  1. Carrie Vaughn, Questland, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021.

Sunday Book Reviews