This is a Photon(TM) novel. I picked it up expecting it to be terribly cheesy. It turned out to be moderately cheesy, but awfully heavy-handed. The premise of the novel is that Photon game centers are actually recruiting centers for an alien alliance (the Photon Alliance) engaged in a war against forces of darkness ("Arrians"). The high school protagonist suddenly finds himself recruited into this army and has a lot of adjustments to make. Unfortunately there's not a lot of subtlety about any of it, and with various other do-good tidbits stirred into the mix (such as his finding himself in a situation (strategy & tactics training) where he has to study, understand history, and deal with all the academic stuff he coasted on back on Earth), and the result is klunky and often predictable. Now there are some fun bits, and the early chapters did succeed in kindling a bit of nostalgia for Photon, a game I've not played in many years -- so it did what Photon Marketing Limited wanted it to do (is it still around?) -- but overall it feels like it was written in a hurry and written to a formula. (Funny thing, but it also made me want to go watch The Last Starfighter again. Go figure.) A perfectly innocuous way to waste an afternoon if nothing more worthy is close at hand, but hardly one to go out looking for. ( )