Erebos: It's a Game. It Watches You (review)

When Nick gets a copy of the bootleg MPORG (multi-player online role-playing game) that's being handed around at school, he's a bit skeptical of the rigid rules surrounding its use: he must play alone, he can't ever tell anyone what he's doing, and if he ever messes up he's out of the game forever. Soon he's completely addicted, missing school and ignoring friends. Then the game, which knows things about him that it shouldn't, starts to mix the virtual reality with the real, hanging his game success on inexplicable tasks in the real world that begin to have increasingly sinister consequences. When Nick is kicked out of the game for refusing to poison a teacher, he joins forces with a few other suspicious teens to figure out what the game's, well, game really is. Unfortunately, it all turns into a thinly veiled parable about addiction and online privacy, and readers who picked up this book because of its gaming subject matter will be particularly insulted at the assumption that they can be so easily manipulated into doing horrific things. Still, the in-game action is compellingly portrayed, and the tense atmosphere is pure horror movie. Hand this to readers who like to read conspiracy at every turn.