Wednesday, March 20, 2013

LARP: THE BATTLE FOR VERONA by Justin Calderone_Blog Tour and Review


Review of LARP: The Battle for Verona

5 stars

I found this well-written book quite enticing, and particularly enjoyed the author’s skillful ability at characterizations. With some well-chosen words, dialogue here, action or backstory there, he brings out the background and the character and personality of these individuals. When the story begins, Dennis (or Sir Den-gar in LARP activity) is at, if not a crisis point, still at one of those crossroads occurrences. His life changed significantly in some respects back when, as a freshman in high school, in just a few moments he threw over the social status he had always gleaned as younger brother of the self-renowned “The Brad,” high school football player-extraordinaire. Dennis chose to stand up for two “geeky” freshman, Freddy (proud scion of a Mongolian family line) and Mark, the bespectacled always-picked-on. At that time, Dennis, who had never heard of Live Action Role Playing, took it up to befriend Mark and Freddy; now as an adult, he wonders if the time has come to move on and away.

Dennis has spent the past decade engaging in Live Action Role-Playing with his friends, but now Mark has surpassed his usual difficult pomposity, and offended not only Dennis, but almost everyone else on both “teams.” Dennis decides not to wait until the weekend is finished to leave, but before he can cross the bridge from the mainland of Washington State to his home island community of Verona, he is stopped at the bridge: someone or something has destroyed the Verona end of the bridge, and the cell tower and electrical input on the island. If the military can’t fix this, could it be a job for the denizens of LARP?

No comments:

Post a Comment

FURTHERMORE