Who should preside over sleepy little Dinsmore's newest commercial enterprise but the Devil himself? Introducing himself as Everett Blacke, the proprietor of the Hades video arcade takes special pains to lure the town's teenagers, particularly the pariahs. He steers them to games with names like Roadkill and Safari Slaughter that somehow feature their real-life persecutors, and before long they are committing real-life murders. Can Joe and Lorinda, themselves much taunted, stop Mr. Blacke before he wins everyone's soul? Joe must come to terms with his deepest desires for revenge before he can battle the archfiend. Locke does a good job of setting up the final, epic confrontation between Joe and Mr. Blacke, but Sunday school-solemnity and banal imagery turn the showdown into an anticlimax. The stuff B-movies are made of. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up-- Yet another unstimulating depiction of good versus evil in the YA world of technology. In this quickly predictable tale of horror, a wicked new video arcade called Hades opens. Its games are similar to the standard violent kill-anyone-in-your-path type that people usually play. But here, the characters on the screen look exactly like the players' school enemies. The players, each increasingly bloodthirsty having had a taste of revenge with the video games, actually begin to murder their enemies. P. J., who played "Roadkill" at Hades, later drives his mother's car back and forth over two people. Arlo, who played "Death Match," chops up a classmate with an axe. And so it goes. The plot is transparent and grisly, and the characters are mere stereotypes. Still, the book may be popular with readers who want lots of action and are glad when a story doesn't stray from its familiar conventions. --Linda Tashbook, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, PA
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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