Series
Dream Park
Larry Niven & Steven Barnes · 4 novels · 1981–2011
Larry Niven and Steven Barnes's Dream Park novels are set in a futuristic amusement park built around elaborate live-action role-playing games, staffed by professional 'gamemasters' who stage vast constructed adventures for paying participants. Each book pairs a murder-mystery plot unfolding backstage with the in-game fantasy or historical adventure playing out in parallel, starting with the original Dream Park and continuing through three further novels over three decades. It's an early and influential vision of live-action gaming as narrative fiction.
Summary by Loreful, from public sources
Reading order
The order the books came out.
Best read in the order they were published.
Map
Dream Park at the centre, its books fanned around what holds them. Pick anything for its details, and zoom out for similar series in orbit — the reading order above lists the same books as text.
Stats
By decade
- 1980s2
- 1990s1
- 2000s0
- 2010s1
Shape
4 novels
2 authors
reads like:science fictionmurder investigationnorth americanear futuremysteriousadult
Mood
Grim and intense: 75% of this series' placed works, the catalog's 46%.
this series · the catalog · one dot = one book4 of 4 works carry a tone
Edges of the map
- The Barsoom Projectdarkest · calmest
- The Moon Maze Gamebrightest · most intense