User Unfriendly is the one Vivian Vande Velde book I come close to actively disliking, so I was disappointed when I discovered that Heir Apparent would be a sort of companion book, also dealing with fantasy role-playing games. Happily, it isn't at all necessary to have read User Unfriendly to enjoy Heir Apparent, which is by far the best of Vande Velde's more recent books.

Heir Apparent is an entertaining twist on the been-there-done-that fantasy cliche of Lost Heirs. (See Diana Wynne Jones's entry in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland.) Giannine, the protagonist and narrator, plays one of those ubiquitous misplaced heirs in what at first appears to be a standard fantasy setting in a virtual reality game, full of courtly intrigue, wizards, magic rings/boots/crowns, dragons, etc. The only problem: the virtual reality equipment has been damaged, and Giannine must finish the game within a certain amount of time before suffering very real brain damage in actual life. Every poor decision resulting in death means starting over at the beginning of the game, and Heir Apparent is lacking that most essential option of all computer games -- the ability to save a game.

Because Giannine dies so many times, particularly at first, the beginning sequences can become a little repetitive. But she learns very quickly, and every mistake makes her warier, wiser, more diplomatic and better prepared to make good judgments. In the end, navigating through a maze of people and events, equipped with newly gained assurance and leadership, Giannine is seriously kicking....

Unfortunately, it isn't just a matter of winning the game; it's winning the game within a set period of time, and she's running seriously short on time.

Giannine is an instantly likable narrator -- smart, sarcastic and far from perfect. Her first-person narration makes Heir Apparent very immediate and accessible, and the rising tensions from both the internal world of the game and Giannine's external reality make the book nearly impossible to put down unfinished. The framing device requires a little suspension of skepticism, but the science fiction of Heir Apparent is no less plausible than, say, hyperspace engines and little green men.

The pace is rapid, the dialogue snappy and the characters quirky. In other words, Heir Apparent is Vande Velde at her best: thoroughly entertaining, and yet with some substance. The intersections between Giannine's experiences in her two worlds are particularly thoughtful, as is the book's commentary on censorship. This is not a book for anyone who thinks Harry Potter should be banned! Although technically science fiction, Heir Apparent should be readily accessible to YA fantasy fans, particularly of fractured fairy tale cliches.

For a very different take on a similar theme, try Diana Wynne Jones's Hexwood.