Multiplayer

Hector West is a typical kid. He plays soccer, rides dirt bikes, and hangs out with his friends. But all that changes when his father is killed in Iraq and the family moves back to his mom’s dull hometown. Bored and angry, Hector escapes into the online game Omega Wars, where he can reconnect with old friends through his character Izaak Ersatz. In the virtual world, there are few rules, no algebra, and death isn’t permanent.


When Izaak is robbed by a rival gamer known as Mal-X, Hector abandons questing and assembles his clan, the Spartans, to find the cheater and take revenge. But it is real life that turns deadly when Hector discovers that Mal-X’s clan is actually using Omega Wars to plan and train for something that could plunge the real world into a devastating war. And only Hector can stop them.


The seed for Multiplayer sprouted in author John C. Brewer's head from encountering gamers from around the world while Brewer and his three sons played HALO on XBox-Live. As a physicist and rocket scientist, he was also aware of the technical difficulties government authorities would have monitoring for voice evidence of criminal activity in a mixed data stream, and the idea for the book was suddenly obvious. The military family setting, and the trials that it brings, was a natural backdrop for him, having grown up in a family with a long military history. While Multiplayer's joys, tragedies and real life challenges appeal to a wide range of readers, Brewer hopes the novel's context will also draw in those game-playing teens who have given up on books as a source of entertainment.