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    Warcross
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    Warcross
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    Warcross
    Ebook439 pages6 hours

    Warcross

    By Marie Lu

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Para ellos, Warcross es mucho más que un juego, es un modo de vida.
    La obsesión comenzó hace unos años y ahora los seguidores de Warcross están dispersos
    por todo el mundo, algunos ansiosos por escapar de la realidad y otros, esperando
    hacer algún negocio. Emika Chen, una joven hacker, trabaja como cazarrecompensas persiguiendo a los jugadores de Warcross
    que hacen apuestas ilegales. Pero el mundo de los cazadores es muy competitivo y sobrevivir
    en él se convierte en una verdadera hazaña. Emika necesita dinero y se arriesga
    a ingresar ilegalmente al juego inaugural del Campeonato Internacional de Warcross...
    y, por una falla técnica, termina metiéndose dentro de la acción y convirtiéndose en furor de la noche a la mañana.
    Convencida de que la arrestarán, Emika no puede creerlo cuando recibe una llamada de Hideo Tanaka, el creador del juego,
    con una oferta irresistible: necesita un espía dentro del torneo para desentrañar un
    problema de seguridad y quiere que ella se encargue. Rápidamente, la envían a Tokio,
    donde se ve sumergida dentro de un mundo de fama y dinero. Pronto su investigación se vuelve cada vez más oscura y se da cuenta de que la persona que está violando la seguridad
    del juego puede traerle consecuencias terribles al imperio de Warcross.
    LanguageEspañol
    PublisherVRYA
    Release dateDec 14, 2015
    ISBN9789877473469
    Unavailable
    Warcross
    Author

    Marie Lu

    Marie Lu is the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of the Legend series, The Young Elites trilogy, the Warcross series, the Skyhunter series, Batman: Nightwalker, and The Kingdom of Back. She graduated from the University of Southern California and jumped into the video game industry, where she worked as an artist. A full-time writer, she spends her spare hours reading, drawing, playing games, and getting stuck in traffic. She lives in the traffic-jam capital, Los Angeles, with her illustrator/author husband, Primo Gallanosa, and their son.

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    Reviews for Warcross

    4/5

    472 ratings45 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      It was a good story but it drag in the middle. The ending makes me want to read the next book.
    • 5/5
      Wow! If you are looking for a book starting with action and ending action-packed, this book will keep you on your toes! This YA novel takes a bounty hunter, Emika, into War Cross, a popular virtual reality game. The game creator hires her to hunt a hacker. Should Emika believe everything she hears and sees in this virtual world?
    • 4/5
      I wasn’t expecting to like this as much as I did! I only picked it up because it fits the LitRPG prompt in the popsugar reading challenge this year. The characters and plot were great! The world building was slightly lacking, but I tend to have high standards for sci fi. I still liked it enough that I will be picking up the sequel.
    • 4/5
      After Reading Throne of Glass, this was a huge contrast. Same vague premise--kick ass heroine who thinks she’s all alone against an unnamed menace— but I liked Emika soooo much better. She’s both kick ass and vulnerable, and I like her a lot better for it. Genius yet damaged— but realistically so. Hated that it ended on a cliffhanger.
    • 4/5
      A quick and engaging read, sufficiently twisty to keep me surprised, despite being yet another entry into the well-worn YA genre of "outsider ends up in major SF sport competition for Reasons, is unexpectedly good at it."

      (note - spoilers for this book and for the first episode of the CW series Batwoman behind the cut) I'm deeply amused that in three hours of time, I experienced two different storylines involving the plot twist of Surprise I'm Alive & Your Antagonist Sibling! Having watched Batwoman before finishing this book did make me catch that one a little earlier than I might have otherwise . . .
    • 4/5
      I really liked this and I'm glad it sat so long in my TBR pile because now I can grab book 2 of the series.
    • 5/5
      POW! SMASH! WHAM!
      Emika Chen takes us on a ride and it never slows down! I am not a Gamer,
      and I was entranced by the virtual worlds, game playing, and the characters.
      Kept me guessing until the cliff hanger ending!
    • 2/5
      Eh

      Too predictable, too bleh. The mid 30% moved at a good clip but the rest was a bit of a chore. I hated some of the protagonist's inner thoughts "this is about Hideo." But in the next breath she'd say "What does he say about me that make Kenn think that?"

      Sure, it's about him.

      Apparently I'm slow on the uptake b/c this was 1/n but I won't be continuing.
    • 4/5
      I give this book a 4.25. It was such an enjoyable read. I read this after reading Ready Player One and I was totally feeling the whole virtual reality world. This was a very different take on it than in Ready Player one which was a good thing. Though I absolutely loved Ready Player One, I found Warcross to be a bit more realistic. It seemed as if this was something that could possibly be a real thing in the not too distant future, which is really cool. I seriously want to play Warcross. Can someone please make this a real thing? Anyway, this was such a fun addictive and cute story and I cannot wait for Wild Card (Book 2 in the duology) to come out!
    • 4/5
      It is solid but predictable. She hit all the right notes, but I felt like I knew what the notes were ahead of time. I appreciated a lot of the details of her world-building, and the action scenes were very good.
    • 5/5
      So, this is also one of those "this is what happens when technology has no limits to it" books, but less obviously in the begining. But you have to understand, it is also an accurate prediction. And also terrifying.
      10/10
    • 5/5
      This was an exciting action roller coaster of , wait what? You mean another series. Oh God!! Okay, I’ll accept this if only it’s a duology. But on the other hand, this was really good. I mean really really good - thought it might be another incarnation of James Dashner’s “The Eye of Minds”’ but not in the least. Ms. Chen can rock it out and she’s the real deal !! Rock On Marie Lu- this was fantastic !!!
    • 4/5
      Warcross is young-adult science fiction novel which, while not actually a part of the cyberpunk genre, seems to take place in the future space just as the relevant technologies to create such a world are emerging, pre-cyberpunk if you will. It is a fun and vividly described universe. The gaming sequences in it are fast-paced and exciting. In fact, the first sequence was so well-executed that I found myself dodging things on my couch.The ending ... the ending has me thinking. The evil plan has me thinking. There's a level of moral ambiguity and complexity to this that I simply don't expect from most books, much less when they are YA. I live for that. The ending was also a bit surprising. I thought I had it nailed early on, but I was wrong.The only thing I disliked about this book will actually be a plus for many - romantic subplot. It is, however, mercifully actually a subplot and not the focus. If you like the suspense of romance don't open this spoiler tag, but if you are more like me and you want to know exactly what you're going to have to tolerate: You'll have to make your way through two dates and one first-kiss scene. Just a few pages for each and at YA level text, so short. You can easily skim past them without missing anything terribly relevant to the real story. There are periodic mentions scattered throughout as well, but there are no long passages of pining. There are also no huge chunks of just thinking about each other. Some of the mentions are so brief that I couldn't even finish rolling my eyes before they were over. There aren't even any full chapters dedicated to it. It's way less intrusive than the one in The Hunger Games, and there's not freaking love triangle.I hope they make a movie of this. :)
    • 4/5
      Okays I LOVED this book (except for the parts when Emika seemed so freaking needy) and I almost figured that Zero is Sasuke towards the end of the book. That ending tho!!!!! Can't wait to start reading the next one!
    • 5/5
      I just loved this book, it was so much fun to read. Great YA. For people who read the book Ready Player One this is most likely a book for you. A female unlike heroine, school drop out / bounty hunter / hacker emerged in a virtual reality game called Warcross. And the end, I did not see that coming. She is definitely leaving us on a cliffhanger. How long do I have to wait until all the question get answered in the next book?
    • 2/5
      So, I'm somewhat bummed to write this because I'd heard and read such fantastic things about this book. I'm glad that it's found readers who love and respond to it.I'm not one of them.Honestly, I found this book to be mediocre. I managed to finish it, but will not carve out any precious reading time for additional entries in the series.My main issues with the book for anyone considering it:1) Low stakes action: This book gets a lot of comparisons with Hunger Games, but I'm not sure why. Hunger Games was dramatic, had a tone of urgency, and stakes were the participants lives. This book carries none of that emotional weight or stakes. It's more like a joyless and dumbed-down Ready Player One without the 80s pop references.2) A "hook: that never pays off: Warcross is a cool name for a game, but, the 'rules' are never explained. Far as I could tell, it's like a more boring version of Capture the Flag, with digital power-ups. While there are team roles within the game (hunter, architect, etc.) mentioned, they aren't built out in any meaningful way. No actual stakes for winning or losing the game = a story lacking interest or purpose. I ended up skimming entire pages during the game sequences cause they were just that boring and meaningless.3) Protagonists, supporting characters, and plot with about as much depth as a Fortnight skin: Just like a videogame, this book is a mindless diversion that passes the time. The author has built a world that ceases to exist (and that I ceased to care anything about) as soon as I set down the book.4) There's a sugar-daddy romance that not only isn't believable (both characters are empty vessels in their own right, what in the world do they see in each other?), but that is a little gross because it's based on money, celebrity and power (he has it, she doesn't, he bestows it upon her, she gets heart eyes for him). It's basically the plot of Pretty Woman meets VR gamer setting.For as big a book release as this was, I expected something far better, interesting, and challenging.
    • 4/5
      Warcross is totally in the vain of Ready Player One. In this book a new video has sweep the world and millions of people play everyday. Yet, there is a whole dark world lurking underneath where people bet on Warcross games illegally. This is how Emika Chen makes here living. She is a bounty hunter and she tracks down people who owe money on illegal betting and is paid a cash reward for every person she captures. But bounty hunting is hard work with little reward and now Emika desperately needs money. Emika is also a brilliant hacker and on impulse she hacks a Warcross game and trouble soon comes knocking on her door. Maybe even more than a she can handle. This is a good start to a YA Sci-Fi series. IF you liked REady Player One you will enjoy this one.
    • 4/5
      I can't remember why I bought this book about a video game - I'm not into gaming and actually I've never really played a video game. Maybe it was a book bullet here or at Litsy? Maybe because I really like the cover design? Whatever it was that made me buy this book I'm happy for that influence. I enjoyed this book; the action moves quickly, the characters, for the most part, act like normal people and the gaming sequences move quickly and aren't slowed down with tons of technical jargon.Emika Chen, a teenage orphan and computer hacker makes a living as a bounty hunter. Or, at least she tries to make a living at bounty hunting. She's on the verge of being evicted from her apartment. The story is set in a future where most people spend their time in VR games or betting on VR games. Emika logs into the opening ceremony of the Warcross Championship games. She attempts a hack that will get her closer to the action. The hack glitches and she shows up in the stadium, visible to everyone. She is summoned to Tokyo to speak with Hideo Tanaka, billionaire and Warcross creator. He asks her to become a wild card player in the game to discover the identity of someone, probably an insider or player, that has been hacking into the game. She accepts his offer. Despite her history of experience dealing with those who deal on the Dark Web, Emika finds herself in more danger than she bargained for.
    • 4/5
      A young girl is able to enter into the Warcross games after she shows rare talents for beating the game. If you loved Ready Player One you will like this
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed the first two thirds of this book very much! It is well written, and I liked the main characters instantly. The end, though, was a complete surprise to me, and regrettably I did not like this twist in the plot. Nevertheless, I am curious how the story will evolve in the second volume. And one is always free to imagine alternative endings...
    • 4/5
      Wow! What a thrilling, action-packed book "Warcross" turned out to be. From the gorgeous front cover, right to the last page, I was hooked. Marie Lu did a fabulous job of creating a virtual world that connected gamers from across the globe to Tokyo to watch and compete in Warcross, a computer game that has everyone in raptures. Boy, were those games an adrenaline rush. I was on the edge of my seat when Emika and her team mates were playing.I loved Emika; she was fantastic. She was a clever bounty hunter, an expert computer coder and a skilled hacker, AND she had rainbow coloured hair, a sleeve of tattoos and an electric scooter - what more could you want in a female protagonist? Also, she wasn't your typical geeky, awkward girl. Instead she was confident, independent and able to think on her feet. The secondary characters were also great, especially her team mates and Hideo, Emika's love interest and creator of Warcross.The plot was gripping and a real roller-coaster ride with a number of twists and turns along the way to keep this reader guessing. Although, I knew who Zero was fairly early on, my goodness, I DID NOT see the end at all, and now I have to wait until mid to late 2018 to find out what happens next. A terrific Year 8 Literature Circles contender.
    • 5/5
      Emika has been dealt a rough hand in life. On her own at 18, in debt, criminal record, etc. Each day is just a numbers game as she hacks her way to finding bounties that have become too much for the local police to handle. But this is not the world as we know it. This is the future. Many people live in Warcross, a gaming, social media life experience. It is to the characters generations what the cell phone was to mine. It is a way of life, but when you have been banned from computer use… well, life is complicated. In an effort to survive by theft, Emika hacks her way into the biggest digital sporting event in the world. And gets caught. You would think this makes her a convict, and instead it makes her a celebrity. She gets to meet the young founder of the Warcross, and to play in the annual Warcross Games celebration. This is just the start of a wild and crazy novel with a cliffhanger ending that will leave you screaming NOOOOOOOO. MUST HAVE NEXT BOOK!This book is part Ready Player One, with a similar world, but very different execution and story line. It’s also part Hackers (the young Angelina Jolie movie). Plus a little Speed Racer. If that sounds like a wild and crazy mix, then you are correct. It is a joyride. Yes, it has a romance that sometimes overshadows the bigger plot, but really it’s Baymax and Big Hero 6 to the rescue. Adventure, danger, and broken hearts await, but what a ride.#Beatthebacklist#LitsyAtoZ#MountTBR#Booked2018
    • 5/5
      Emika Chen is eighteen and a bounty hunter who tracks down Warcross players who bet illegally. She lost her beloved father when she was eleven and spent time in foster care. Now she is barely making a living and is within days of being evicted. She is an excellent hacker. While watching the beginnings of the current Warcross Tournament, she glitches in and becomes visible to all. Fearing that she'll be arrested for disrupting the game, she is surprised when the game's creator Hideo Tanaka chooses to hire her instead. Someone is trying to sabotage the current tournament and Hideo wants her to find him and stop him. Emika finds herself in Tokyo, a member of one of the sixteen teams chosen to play the current tournament, and falling in love with Tanaka who has been her idol since he first popped on the scene as the game's creator when he was thirteen. She also finds herself in danger as the mysterious villain Zero doesn't want his plans disrupted.This book is filled with future technology and a game that is a world wide sensation. I loved the worldbuilding. I also loved Emika who is bright and capable. I wasn't at all prepared for the twist at the end or the cliffhanger ending. I can't wait to read the sequel to find out how things all work out.
    • 4/5
       Emika Chen is drowning in debt. Ramen is even expensive, and her bounty hunter gig isn't raking in the cash like she had hoped. But when she accidentally glitches herself into the world-wide VR tournament, Warcross, the inventor of the games hires her to track down a powerful hacker attempting to disrupt the games forever.Marie Lu is a masterful storyteller. While I normally shy away from "video game books," Lu's novel kept me reading and rarely pushed my suspension of disbelief too far. Different from most VR and video game novels, Lu's world does not operate solely in the computer. In fact, the majority of it happens on the outside. Virtual reality only makes up part of the entire story, with *augmented* reality taking up a much larger part of Lu's world. That way, the real world is superimposed with a digital layer, but computer program never dominates. It's a unique and fresh concept.I will say there are times I had trouble picturing what's going on. Computer code doesn't work the way science fiction writers like to picture it, so some of Emika's hacker abilities are a bit far-fetched. I also had trouble imagining what she was seeing in her VR or AR view. Memories, for example, are recordings made with your eyes and stored for later viewing. While it would seem that Memories can only be viewed from the person recording them, there were a number of times I felt like we were watching a Memory from third-person. Other things like language subtitles from non-English speakers and interacting with the software didn't flow as smoothly as it could have in writing, but was subtle enough to overlook mostly.I also felt like the love plot moved unnecessarily quickly. The characters had forced chemistry through the entire novel and just did not feel natural because of the way we were introduced to the male character. Neither character felt deep enough to generate a convincing relationship, and in fact, the romance drove them directly opposite of their established characters. Thankfully, this plot line doesn't dominate the entire book.Another positive point for Marie Lu, however, is her ability to weave the story to places least expected. The twists in the novel were able to rejuvenate me when the plot might have dragged. While she could have done to place more foreshadowing throughout, I enjoyed the twists.Things to Watch Out For:Sex: A passionate kissing scene pg 248; two characters get into a hot tub together, presumable naked or scantily clad pg 262; two characters are implied to be gay, but are not on speaking terms and not crucial to the plot; a dream about implied sex in bed.Language: A number of H and D words. God's name is used occasionally. S-1 pg 136; B-2 pg 149, 306Violence: Video game violence such as stabbing and falling from great heights, but since the physical characters are sitting safely in a room, no one is injured. An explosion wounds several characters.Drugs: None that I can rememberNudity: Two characters of the opposite genders are presumably naked or scantily clad in a hot tub together. A dream about implied sex in bed.
    • 5/5
      4.5/5 stars.

      Loved the world-building, especially as someone who has watched and played a lot of video games. The lines that blur between reality and augmented reality are fast becoming something similar to the world of Warcross, and this only heightened the realistic feel of the novel.

      The pacing of the story was also appreciated, I read this book over the course of a few hours on a plane, and I never once was bored! The main cast of characters is diverse in a way that never feels forced, just an honest reflection of the way the world is. I look forward to reading the next book!
    • 4/5
      Amica Chen is struggling, working as a bounty hunter in NYC to try to get enough to make ends meet. When the billionaire creator of Warcross, the virtual reality game that everyone in the world plays, wipes out her debts and whisks her to Tokyo for a job, things get even more complicated. Amica is a great hacker and a frequent visitor to the Dark World, the underground beneath Warcross. Amica is looking for zero, a hacker who seems set on trying to destroy the annual Warcross games. Hideo and Amica develop a relationship. The action and intrigue are compelling, but I did see the end (at least zero's identity) coming.
    • 3/5
      It's a good, high-energy quick read and Emika is an awesome protagonist, but it feels cobbled together from a lot of other things—The Hunger Games, Ready Player One and even the Wachowskis' Speed Racer movie (and probably a zillion things I'm too old or uncool to recognize)—and never quite comes into its own. The "twist" at the end was so obvious that I was disappointed when it happened. However, all that being said, there is a scene at the very end of Emika wrestling with her internal conflict that made me excited to read the second book. Marie Lu has a talent for writing compelling characters who do the wrong things for the right reasons and making readers understand an empathize with their choices. She has left Emika facing a dilemma where either choice she makes is going to have some long-reaching negative repercussions and that, that is the story I'm looking forward to reading.
    • 5/5
      Omg this book.
    • 5/5
      If you fancy being transported into a fictional world within a fictional world, this book is for you. If you like a main character who can really show others who’s boss just by being her smart self, this book is for you. In fact, if you enjoy something as general as amazing, super descriptive and creative writing, then this book is most definitely for you. Warcross was written for you, my dear fellow book lover, as it was made for me.It follows Emika Chen - rainbow-colored-hair, all around super chick – around a futuristically situated world where a virtual reality game, the one-and-only famed “Warcross”, becomes more of a reality for some than real life actually is. She’s a bounty hunter, a hacker, and most importantly a teenager trying to make ends meet after her father dies with massive amounts of debt leftover to pay. Warcross, to her, was a way of life. Without it she wouldn’t get paid and probably would be rotting away on a street corner. That’s why when she accidentally glitches herself into the next Warcross championship, life as she knows it… will never be the same after Hideo Tanaka (aka Warcross creator, aka genius, aka most times annoying, aka predictable love interest but overall a puppy who cooks and takes care of his parents, also, he is a liar and that makes him real but so infuriating) calls her as a wildcard in the next games. She is suddenly thrown into a darker world, with the promise of the light at the end of the tunnel being just beyond her reach (also 10 million dollars which made me go on a mental rant because c'mon Hideo, why?! stop bribing people with money already, geez).I went into this book as blindly as you can get. Seriously, I didn’t even read the description. At first, I thought this would be a slightly-twisted version of Ready Player One because when it started mentioning glasses and virtual stuff I was all like… !!!. Turns out I wasn’t close. The two books touch on some similar technology but they cannot be compared in the slightest, story-wise. This is a YA, pure YA.The thing I loved about this book was the immense detail Marie Lu used to describe the world. I have no knowledge whatsoever in coding and programming, even less with VR, but it made me want to understand Emika and the decisions she had to make throughout the story. This book was like a pure shot of adrenaline, all set in an alternate world where technology rules. Even though in reality, I’m not a huge fan of unnecessary tech but that’s beside the point. There are also lots of quotable quotes (??) in this book that I want to reuse. The ending though!! I have to say that my senses have been honed down to a sharp point when it comes to guessing endings and plot twists (because I’ve read so much, in so many genres) but man… this ending caught me off guard. **SPOILER**Half-completely (hey I guessed Sasuke would make a comeback and he did, I just never imagined him ACTUALLY BEING ZERO and wanting to murder his brother). **END OF SPOILER**I don’t want to spoil anything else so I won’t say anything else about it. Just, wow. That ending. Also, major cliffhanger so beware. Anyways, this is great for when you’re in the mood of something not quite like any other books in YA but still want that teenager-y feel to the story. I found myself falling in love with the idea of the game, not so much with the characters (though Emika was pretty great, she just seemed to be conveniently placed throughout). Also, be prepared to fangirl over the Phoenix Riders because they’re absolutely amazing and the diversity is insane. I give this a whopping 5 stars. Great job you genius Marie Lu. Now give me the sequel, pretty please.
    • 4/5
      In this future world, Hideo Tanaka, 21, invented the game of Warcross when he was only thirteen. Now, global surveys show that 90 percent of people aged 12-30 play on a regular basis. The official Warcross Championships attract more than 200 million viewers, and Hideo is very, very rich. One of the Warcross fans is Emika (“Emi”) Chen, an 18-year-old "bounty hunter" in New York City. Bounty hunters chase petty criminals in return for monetary rewards from the NYPD. There is fierce competition among hunters, so Emi isn't always successful. But Emi needs money badly; she is behind on her rent and can barely afford to eat. She decides to take a chance to get rich quick during the Warcross Championships; she hacks into a game to steal a valuable game piece for resale. But she doesn’t anticipate that she will actually insert herself into the game, with the whole world watching.Thus she comes to the notice of Hideo himself who tries to contact her, but she avoids the outside world at first. She fears for her future - will she go to jail? But Hideo only wants to offer her a job. He has been plagued by someone messing with the Warcross code, and thinks Emi just may be talented enough to help him find the culprit. He has her enter the “wild card” draft for extra players, and Asher Wing, the team leader from whom she stole, selects her; he too knows talent when he sees it.Emi trains for the games with Asher’s team, and, operating sub rosa on Hideo's behalf, she simultaneously investigates a bad guy Hideo calls “Zero.” Meeting with Hideo for periodic progress reports, she gets to know Hideo, gradually breaking down the walls he keeps around him and his private life. But as Emi comes closer to finding Zero, we encounter a number of twists and turns in the plot. Suddenly Emi, so adept in "alternate" worlds, doesn’t know what is real anymore, nor what is true. The book ends with the promise that the story will continue.Discussion: While I am not into gaming at all, Lu manages to make the games impressively appealing and understandable, situating much of the action and tension effectively inside them. The ethical issue that stymies Emi is one that will be recognizable to those who follow politics today: can you take a chance passing rules and laws that may sound good in theory, but in the wrong hands might give too much power to people with evil intent?Evaluation: The twists weren’t so opaque that most readers won’t guess them, but that doesn’t detract much from the story’s overall appeal. The characters are interesting, well-written and multi-dimensional, and of course there is romance as well, in case gaming isn’t enough to hold your attention. My only complaint is one common to (mostly young adult) novels with physical encounters - what is with the male character always “growling” when the female “bites” him? I could see it in vampire novels, but …. Maybe my own experience is just too limited…. Nevertheless, I look forward to the next “installment” in the series!