The Moon Maze Game takes place in a near-future Earth in which Live Action Role Playing Games (LARPs) are a popular entertainment, much like sports or reality television is now. In this fourth book in Larry Niven and Stephen Barnes's Dream Park series, we meet professional bodyguard Scotty Griffin, who is given the job of escorting Ali Kikaya (heir to the throne of a small African nation) to the first-ever LARP on the moon. Griffin is struggling with his return to the moon, having left it and his marriage many years before because of an accident.
On the moon, a diverse team of gamers make their way through scripted gaming environments--until a group of revolutionaries takes things in a new and dangerous direction. The team of gamers must now cooperate to survive rather than compete to win.
With a briskly moving plot and engaging characters, The Moon Maze Game could be more satisfying than it is. There's no real sense of danger, and some of the gaming details seemed forced. That said, there are plenty of callbacks to an earlier style of science fiction, with Lunar independence and gorgeous, smart and brave red-headed women à la Heinlein. Fans will enjoy this throwback to old-school sci-fi. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor