Sir Mary de Courey is the doughtiest knight in the virtual reality land of Chivalry. But when, in the real world, her plane crashes and her car is driven off the road, she finds herself in more trouble than single combat can solve. Someone appears to want to retrieve the mysterious manor that she won from an anonymous knight, and is willing to kill her to get it back. Now she must travel through the world of Chivalry to find the secret door that leads from the most mundane of Virtual Reality libraries to the most magical of worlds!.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fantasy Adventure of an Older Style,
This review is from: Point of Honor (Library Binding)
This is a story about total-immersion gaming (of the sort also found in Piers Anthony's "KilloByte"). It is also a story about honor codes applied to modern day life, copyright violation, and attempted murder.
The main character is a well-educated, California blonde, young woman, who won total immersion interface equipment through a college raffle. Discovering that she had a knack for the game "Chivalry", she began making her living by playing in game tournaments (literally tourneys, in this case). After several years, the earning of much glory, and the accumulation of a moderate fan-base, the main character accepts a challenge from a new, unknown, and off-puttingly overconfident new tourney entrant. He loses, as is the way with most of his kind who challenge masters, but has not the funds to ransom his armor and horse. Instead, he offers the deed to a virtual manor. From the moment she accepts the deed as payment, the main character suffers attempts made on her life IN REAL LIFE. Going into hiding until she can make sense of and prevent the attacks upon her, the main character teams up with an original programmer of and the only monk in "Chivalry", in order to solve the problems of the manor (which shouldn't exist), the world to which it leads (which is tantamount to an unauthorized full immersion version of Tolkien's Rings series), and the people who value it so highly that they will kill to keep it a secret. Along the way, they uncover at least two major security violations, betrayal, and an event of Aristotolean physics in a world of Newtonian physics. This book is refreshingly free of graphic sexuality, well planned, well executed, and gloriously fanciful in a believable setting. Ms. Heydt's descriptions strike the right balance that gives the imagination a foothold from which to design intricate environments. Also, this story pays moderate tribute to the fact that there are some people of the feminine persuasion who do not swoon in a fight when provided with a male fellow adventurer. This book should delight fans of adventure, creative anachronists, programmers, and those who anticipate the advent of full immersion gaming in any form.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dynamite stuff; I hope she writes more soon!,
By A Customer
This review is from: A Point of Honor (Paperback)
I'm a programmer by trade and an avid fan of science fiction, fantasy, and role-playing games, and this was one of the finest portrayals I have ever seen of what virtual reality could someday be. Many authors have tried and failed to do a good job of VR-related novels, and I was half afraid that this would be more of the same old stuff. Other authors make the mistake of spouting a lot of useless, nonsensical jargon that would make even the super techno-savvy reader confused. I felt that her command of technology is on a par with that of other authors, but she doesn't try to club the reader over the head with how techie she is. Her plot and character development are excellent, and I was so taken with her writing that I dropped by amazon.com to see if she'd written more. I highly recommend this book!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
An idea that suffers from its own success,
This review is from: A Point of Honor (Paperback)
The idea of using VR for recreations of combat in the middle ages is superb. (This is probably a dream of most SF/fantasy readers, or at least it will be after you read this book!). Unfortunately the quest that forms a major plot line fails to excite precisely because it is taking place in a safe artificial world (and hacked one at that.) Still this book has a great set of ideas which, together with some very nice historical touches, makes the book a pleasant way to pass the time. Also a lot of potential exists for other stories based on the use of VR for historical re-enactment. Overall a fairly good read but one which fails to live up to its potential.
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