Tom Clancy's Netforce: Spookpiloot

Inhoud

Julio Cortez keert samen met zijn familie terug naar zijn vaderland: het Zuid-Amerikaanse Cortequay. Het land verkeert in een chaos en is achtergebleven ten opzichte van alle andere landen. Virtuele gadgets, computers en toegang tot het World Wide Web zijn alleen voorbehouden aan een piepklein groepje rijke...
Julio's vrienden van de Netforce Explorers missen hem ontzettend. Julio is namelijk een fantastische virtuele piloot en die kunnen ze wel gebruiken bij de wedstrijden die gehouden worden tijdens de zomercursus 'Een eeuw militaire luchtvaart'... Gedurende een ijzingwekkende simulatie wordt een vijandelijk vliegtuig net op tijd aan flarden geschoten, zodat de Netforce Explorers er op het nippertje nog goed af komen. Maar wie was die piloot die schoot, en wat is er waar van zijn verschrikkelijke boodschap? Het is dat je vanuit Cortesquay helemaal niet mee kunt doen in de virtuele wereld, maar anders zouden twee Netforce Explorers zweren dat het Julio was, en dat hij dringend om hulp vroeg...

Bespreking

War games as summer camp education

Together with his parents Julio Cortez returns to his country of birth: Cortequay in South America. This country has missed any technological advancement since the last twenty years and is currently organising its first democratic elections. Julio's father is a candidate for the presidency, but the opposition will stop at nothing to keep him away from power. At home Julio's Netforce friends miss him terribly. Certainly during the flight simulations organised at a summer camp, the absence of Julio influences their results during the fierce simulated air battles. Julio has always been their champion. During one of these simulations, suddenly Julio appears with the message that he got kidnapped in Cortequay. But his friends are not sure what they can do. How can they get in contact with Julio? How do they convince people that Julio and his family are in grave trouble? And most of all: is Julio's message authentic or only a trap set in a world where nothing is what it seems?

Although the story of The Ultimate Escape starts from a great idea, the whole story is lacking much credibility. The denouement is so lame that even the first chapters give you a good idea on how the story will end. But the most worrying part of this novel is its setting. Knowing that this book is written for a young audience it is quite disturbing to see that replaying war battles is considered as a very educational and important way of learning history. Even more, German students are by default forced to replay World War II battles as part of the German forces. This way they are considered to try and reverse the outcome of the war. I do not know what the authors were thinking, but such a simplistic view on the world, can hardly be seen as a good starting point for a novel aimed at youngsters. How wrong can you get?