He was about to sign out, when a curious file name caught his attention, just two words, tucked away and buried in the mass of dreary headings. ‘Follow Me’ it read. His eyes narrowed. Follow Me? What could that possibly mean?Young Chris Daunt’s whole world collapses when, during his 15th birthday party, his older brother Andrew test drives a friend’s Kawasaki motorbike – and suddenly disappears … suddenly disappears from the face of the earth.
Andrew, a brilliant computer whizz-kid, has secretly been pioneering research in Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence and may well have been closing in on the Holy Grail of computing – The Singularity – when computers will equal or surpass the capacity of the human mind.
As his family falls apart and the police fail to come up with any leads, Chris enters Andrew’s room to try and find something, anything, that might give a clue to how or why Andrew disappeared.
Chris searches Andrew’s computer and discovers, and finally manages to unlock a protected file – Follow Me. The program prompts him to put on a prototype VR headset and he is instantly catapulted into an amazing and totally immersive Virtual world, where he will interact with the NPCs and become deeply involved in their destiny. He will also embark on a Quest, in which he will face life-threatening dangers – but also find true companionship.
He may also discover possible clues to Andrew’s whereabouts in the real world……
Follow Me is an enthralling adventure that proceeds concurrently in two worlds, with Chris in equal peril in both, and the story builds to a thrilling and nail-biting conclusion.
Ken Howard is a multi award-winning television director, whose career has spanned drama, documentary and children’s programmes. He is also a celebrated composer and songwriter with over 40 international smash hits and many million-selling discs to his credit and was the first British writer to write hits for Elvis Presley. London West End musicals include The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Mardi Gras and numerous TV and film scores include Miss Marple, The Flame Trees of Thika, Shadowlands and By The Sword Divided. He co-devised the boardgame, Sophie’s World, for his company, Sophisticated Games, which also publishes the million-selling Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Ingenious and Horrible Histories boardgames. His previous YA novel was The Young Chieftain (Random House). He lives in London and California.
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If we can make Virtual worlds and their relationships so totally lifelike, attractive and immersive – might we not wish to stay there?
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I love the world-within-a-world genre – I find it fascinating… Add in some sci-fi, a mystery, and London/its surrounds, and you nearly always have me hooked. Follow Me offered all of these in spades!
The book opens with a mystery – what happened to Andrew Daunt? The Golden Child of the Daunt Family (and his entire corner of the world, come to think of it), Andrew goes missing on his brother’s birthday – and his brother, Chris, simply cannot come to terms with it. In an attempt to deal with this out-of-the-blue, world-rocking loss, Chris digs into Andrew’s room – and his computer. Things quickly take a turn for the very interesting as a result…
The family drama in this one felt a bit overdrawn and off on occasion. Perhaps it’s not – I’m fortunate enough that I’ve never had to deal with an out-of-the-blue world-rocking loss, and maybe this is exactly how people act. I can certainly see where a family could fall apart in such times, but the emotional response of each of the remaining Daunts sometimes felt a little forced, like the drama was escalating because of the book, rather than because of the things happening *in* the book (if that makes any sense – it’s a little meta- as far as explanations, but that’s apropros because so much of the book is in fact rather meta-!).
Where the book really shone for me was in Chris’s back-and-forth between worlds as he tries to figure out what in the worlds is going on and where his brother might be… Zaronda and London are a great offset for each other; Chris has the opportunity to create his own identity in the former –
a task he seems at sixes and sevens with in the latter, largely because he’s always felt overshadowed by Andrew. The tension that builds within him, as he tries to balance his dual experiences, is pretty well managed. At times, it explodes out of him in rage and frustration – but those explosions felt genuine and, weirdly, made him more likeable to me (because they made him more individually human, rather than just a shadow of his more famous brother).
As Chris discovers – and explores – more, the story develops nicely into a non-traditional whodunit that I found engaging and very fun to read. The supporting cast – particularly Philippa – was helpful in keeping the story moving, but mainly served as obstacles/assistants for Chris. I would have liked to see a little more development of individual personalities and motivations there (again, particularly of Philippa) – I think it would have helped make the family dynamic feel less forced at times if we understood a bit more about Guy and Eileen Daunts as people, rather than just as Andrew and Chris’s parents. Ditto Philippa – why did this woman follow Chris so readily, buying into everything he was telling her and continuing to work the case long after she should? It felt like there must have been some personal history/backstory that would explain it, but it’s never provided. These aren’t huge issues, don’t get me wrong – this was a great find and a very easy and enjoyable read. They are just the few questions/issues I ran into in what was generally a really cool story.
My review copy was provided by NetGalley.