User Unfriendly (novel)

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User Unfriendly

Author	Vivian Vande Velde
Cover artist	Cliff Nielsen
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Children's Fantasy novel
Publisher	Harcourt
Publication date	1991
Media type	Print (Hardback)
ISBN	ISBN 0-15-200960-4

User Unfriendly is a novel by American author Vivian Vande Velde.

1 Plot summary
2 Major characters
3 Trivia
4 Footnotes
5 External links

[edit] Plot summary

The story is about a teenager by the name of Arvin Rizalli who, along with his friends, hacks an advanced virtual reality game by Rasmussem, Inc. to avoid what they believe to be ridiculous prices and limitations.^[1] They arrive in a small town in the middle of nowhere, and the adventure begins.

The game is set in medieval times, although some characters are a bit out of place (for example, one of his friends becomes an Indian). The story seems at first to be your basic "defeat-the-evil-thing-killing-all-the-people-rescue-the-princess" book, although soon it gets rather complicated.

The first thing they discover is that the game is rather glitched: Talking about the game as a game will cause computer characters to mess up, and in one part they find a room which they are not meant to ever see and completely disappear. This would never happen in the real game, because the programmers at Rasmussem would be monitoring to ensure that this type of thing never happened.

They continue through the game, running into curious objects such as the boots which return to their owner whenever one says the word "that," and the infamous "Sand Hands." They also have to contend with trolls, dark caverns, and other strange things.

Along the way, Arvin begins to notice that his mother, who has also come along, is starting to fade. His friend, Shelton (who in the game is Cornelius, the wizard) – who was the one who originally hacked the game – realizes that apparently the way the game works is affecting her in unusual ways. The game plugs directly into your brain and compresses the entire five-day-long play time into a single hour, and soon he realizes that this may have side effects. Normally the Rasmussem programmers would be able to pull players out before the game is over in case of emergency, but because Shelton is also in the game, no one can, so they have to finish playing.

Finally, they reach the ghost town of Sannatia, where the Princess was rumored to be. Upon entering a secret magical playground, they discover that the princess, Dorinda, is really the evil, which has been terrorizing the people and caused Sannatia to be abandoned. Dorinda turns out to be an extra bit of magic created when the playground was made for the Lord of Sannatia's children, and needs to drain the life of others to gain her magic. She has taken a magical staff from the Head Wizard which gives her power, but because one small piece is missing she has to constantly re-absorb the force from new victims to stay alive and grow.

Dorinda takes out almost everyone, but the few survivors eventually take her out and restore peace to the land. Once they leave the game, they quickly get Arvin's mother to the hospital. Rasmussem then files a lawsuit, but because Shelton has cerebral palsy they only confiscate the hacked game and not his computer, which is his only connection to the outside world. The book ends with everyone living more or less happily ever after.

[edit] Major characters

For the human characters, the real name is given, followed by the game identity in parentheses.

Arvin Rizalli (Harek Longbow the elf) – protagonist.
Mrs. Rizalli (Felice the thief) - Arvin's mother.
Shelton (Cornelius the Wizard) – computer expert of the group; responsible for the hacked game.
Giannine (Thea the Elf) – see also Heir Apparent.
Noah and Dawn Marie (Maid Marian and Robin Hood, respectively) – tenth graders, who each take a role of the opposite sex from themselves, confusing Arvin & Co.
Dorinda – evil princess, who is really excess magic drained during the creation of a magical playground.
Dominic (Nocoma the Indian)
Cleveland (Feordin Macewielder the Dwarf)

[edit] Trivia

The title of the book is a play on "User friendly," a term often used in the computer industry to describe a program which is supposed to be easy for anyone to use.

At least one other book by Vande Velde, Heir Apparent, also features the same characters, although is about one of Arvin's friends, Giannine, not him.