Joseph V. Choi

Raine vs the End of the World Joseph V. Choi 1st edition

A quest for freedom, truth, and most of all, love. Many believe the price we paid to end the Greatest War was too high. For thirty years, humanity has lived within Endless Metaverse, the perfect massively multiplayer simulation. Robbed of memories, minds young and old are corralled in the pleasurable trappings of this virtual wonderland, unaware that their flesh-and-blood bodies have been contracted into cybernetic bondage. A New Challenger appears on the scene: Fresh from the early nineties, sixteen-year-old arcade champ Raine Townsend is forcibly drawn into the Metaverse while embarking on a world record attempt. She quickly finds it too vivid to be a dream, but too fantastic to exist other than as a collective delusion. Here, everyone?s addicted to gaming, caring little that long-term memories are non-existent and info from the outside is strictly forbidden. Little do Raine and her self-proclaimed bodyguard, the charismatic Sword Master Gerrit, suspect that they are pawns in a much larger conflict: a worldwide campaign waged between time-traveling warlords. It is Earth?s eleventh hour: an approaching solar flare threatens the very existence of life on the planet. To atone for her past misdeeds, Sky Admiral Lillian Hermes and the Earth Defense Coalition rebels seek to destroy the ?Verse, paving the way for a mass exodus. But it won?t be easy. Having hijacked the power to traverse time, the megalomaniacal Queen Lorelei has been running the show from behind the curtain for two centuries. With support from the realm?s wizardly Developers as well as her global armies of conscripted slaves, she has no intention of retiring. When the Metaverse becomes a deathtrap, Raine?s courage, wit, and skills will be put to the ultimate test. With the survival of the human race hanging in the balance, how?s a girl to keep her head in a realm of talking dragons, cutthroat treasure hunters, and towering sentinels? And does anyone know the way back to Chicago, circa 1992?