Click on image to enlarge.

	Regular				Club
You Pay:	$7.99				$6.79

eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: The final game ... David, Melanie, Scott, and Tyrone have been playing their private fantasy game for more than two years. But now Gamearth has taken on a life--and a magic--all its own. It's been seeping into their lives through shared nightmares. But tonight the magic has gone too far, trapping them, forcing them to play, even trying to injure them. Only David understands the danger and knows he has to end their gaming one way or another. But as the four are mobilizing their human and monster armies for a final titanic struggle, the last Sorcerers on Gamearth are undertaking a desperate quest of their own. By uniting the four Stones of power--Earth, Air, Fire, and Water--they hope to free their world from the Players' control before David can destroy it completely...

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com
Fictionwise Release Date: November 2004

14 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [1.5 MB], eReader (PDB) [299 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [307 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [272 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [240 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [296 KB], hiebook (KML) [663 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [339 KB], iSilo (PDB) [252 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [314 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [342 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [412 KB]
Words: 92039
Reading time: 262-368 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

David kept watching the clock. As Sunday afternoon ticked toward evening, fear grew inside him, echoes of nightmares and impossible things. Tonight they would play the Game again--or it would play them.

The empty house buzzed with silence. David opened the curtains, showing the gray afternoon and the cold drizzle outside. Every once in a while, a gust of wind rattled the windows. The house felt fragile, as if at any moment some powerful outside being might crush the walls and sweep him away.

As he had done to characters on Gamearth.

David thought of the flat, colorful game-board that Melanie had painted. For the past two years, he and Melanie and Scott and Tyrone had acted out their adventures on Gamearth, following rules they had created and adapted from other game systems. They enjoyed their quests for treasure, their battles, their magic. They had fun. That was the primary rule they all agreed on--to have fun.

But as the four of them poured their imaginations into the world, built generation after generation of characters, backstitched history and made the entire place whole and real in their minds. The players created a synergy with their imagination, a force that had pushed their made-up world into a life of its own.

And Gamearth began to strike back at them.

David saw this sooner than any of the others. He suggested they all stop playing before it went further, before it got out of control. But the other players out-voted him. Scott, with his technical "Mister Science" mind, simply could not believe that anything supernatural would happen. Tyrone, with his delight in the game, noticed nothing out of the ordinary.

Melanie, though, recognized the same thing David did--but she ignored what could happen if Gamearth continued to grow in power, continued to gain its own identity. No, Melanie wanted to nurture it, watch in amazement as the Game took over their lives, breaking free from the restrictions the players placed on it. David had seen her eyes glaze over as Gamearth exerted its survival instinct on her.

David tried to create ways to squelch their creation, and Melanie fought against him with her characters. She placed them in conflict with everything he tried to do to save himself, to save them all. She refused to listen when he tried to explain it to her. David felt a shudder of desperation run through him.

The house felt gloomy from the cold and wet outside. David went to the fireplace and busied himself starting a fire, using some of the fragrant wood they kept in a cardboard box beside the hearth. He thought about turning the stereo on, but decided he would rather think in silence.