DREAM PARK: Larry Niven & Steven Barnes Signed 1st Phantasia Press Edition

DREAM PARK 
 
Larry Niven & Steven Barnes 
 
Fantastic Cover Artwork By Rowena Morrill 
 
1981 Signed 1st Phantasia Press Edition 
 
ONLY 600 Published - This Being No.13 
 
Signed By Niven & Barnes 
 
PLOT - Most Games are reruns, with team after team of players attempting to complete the pre-packaged adventure. But someone always has to be first - and every player wants to be part of the initial team that beta tests a Game. To have the author/programmer themself serve as the game master, to face surprises no one has seen, even the most jaded of elite players compete fiercely for such a spot.
 
And "South Seas Treasure Hunt" promises to be a doozy. The Game Master, Richard Lopez is one of the best authors in the business, while Chester Henderson (team captain of the players) is a living legend . . .and the two hate each other. Players from around the world have gathered for a chance to play in the biggest grudge match in Gaming history . . .or even just to watch. 
 
And the Game opens with a bang. Sent to (simulated) Melanesia to retrieve some sort of World War II-era superweapon, dark magic rips Henderson's team out of the sky, forcing them to fight their way across New Guinea. Demigods, Cargo Cult magicians, and an army of laughing zombies stand between them and victory. 
 
But even as Henderson's team hacks their way through the jungle, the real world threatens the Game. A multi-million dollar experimental prototype has been stolen from Dream Park R&D, and a guard murdered. And all the evidence suggests that someone from within the game is responsible. 
 
Caught between the loss of millions from the prototype, and the loss of millions if they stop the Game, the higher-ups hit on an unusual solution. Alex Griffin, the head of Dream Park security, will go undercover as a player in the Game. Solve a murder mystery, help a bunch of crazies play dress-up . . . How hard can it be? 
 
 
Dream Park is a 1981 sci-fi/murder mystery novel written by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes set in a futuristic amusement park of the same name. It was nominated for the 1982 Locus Award and later expanded into a series of cyberpunk murder mysteries: The Barsoom Project (1989), The California Voodoo Game (1992), The Moon Maze Game (2011). The books describe a futuristic form of live action role-playing games (LARPs), although the term was not in use when the original novel was published. The novels inspired many LARP groups, notably the International Fantasy Games Society, named after a fictional entity in the book. 
 
A tabletop role-playing game was also produced under the title Dream Park (making it a role-playing game based on a book about a role-playing game). The book was written by Mike Pondsmith and published by R. Talsorian Games.