I am so excited that this book is out!! This is one of the books that I found on WriteOn and I fell in love with it immediately and offered to help out with the Chinese translations (which isn’t a huge contribution but still!!). Since then, WriteOn has closed down and The Ghost has been published.
The first book in the Hyperlia Saga, The Ghost alternates between Hyperlia Saga, an extremely popular VR RPG, and an AU-version of Japan. Hanami’s life has been thrown into turmoil since the disappearance of her sister. To make things worse, family politics threaten to push her into a future she doesn’t want. Desperate to find her older sister, she goes to the one place that her sister frequented – Hyperlia.
At the same time, Jun (game name: Gin) is in Hyperlia when he sees a character that shouldn’t be there. And even more mysteriously, she knows who he is. He soon finds out that she’s a talented star called Hayami Kana. When he runs into Manami, the two quickly find that they’re looking for the same person and team up to look for her. But the game is undergoing changes and they if they don’t find Hayami Kana in time, they may never find her at all.
As you can probably guess from my summary, this is the start of a series. But this first book does a good job of giving us one main story with an objective (get to a certain location) that does is achieved while using the subplots to help with world-building and the greater narrative. This made the book feel like a proper story while making me really, really eager for book 2, which I’ve not seen yet).
The world-building was probably my favourite part of the book. Both worlds were very interesting and I was especially interested in this version of Japan. It’s very similar to modern-day Japan with a few twists. Groups called “karadan” are a pretty big presence in Tokyo and there’s a trend where all the young people wear masks, to name two of the things I noticed. But even with these new additions, the Japan in the book was one that I recognised: the way Manami’s friends gave her nicknames, for example, is the same way we talked in university.
The world of Hyperlia was pretty cool as well. There’s the whole meta-game aspect that I’m hoping will have more detail to it, but I also liked how the book uses the game to look at in-game vs real-life personas, as well as the various reasons why people play games. It’s not as explicitly stated as my review, but rather comes out through the various characters and their motivations in Hyperlia.
Apart from the world-building, I really liked Manami and Jun. Manami is a newbie when it comes to Hyperlia and she does suffer from a lot of self-doubt in the game, but I do admire the fact that she tries her best and she does grow throughout the series. Jun is a classic otaku – quite like a few of my friends – and he has a heart of gold. Since real life is hard for him to navigate, he becomes an expert at Hyperlia and it’s him that helps Manami get started on the quest.
The book goes between Jun and Manami’s perspectives, as well as the real world and Hyperlia. Even though that’s quite a fair bit to keep track of, I had no problems following the story.
I enjoyed this book from the first time I’ve read it, and I’ve enjoy it even more in its current form. Fans of Japan and/or games will probably want to pick up this book. Personally, I’m hoping that the second book comes out soon.