Erebos (novel)

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Erebos is a novel for young people and adults by Ursula Poznanski that was first published by Loewe Verlag in 2010 . The title is supposed to remind of Erebos , the god of darkness in Greek mythology . The novel received numerous awards, including the German Youth Literature Prize of the Youth Jury 2011. It was sold around 850,000 times and translated into 30 languages.

On August 14, 2019, a sequel to the novel was released under the title Erebos 2 . The topic of the second volume is the uncontrollable influence of artificial intelligence with the help of cell phones.

action

Mysterious parcels are passed around at Nick's School (West London School of English), but only those who receive them know their contents. Since the parcel appeared, many students have shown changed behavior, are tired and unable to concentrate. Nick's friend Colin no longer shows up for basketball practice and does not come to school. Finally a package reaches Nick too; he is requested, like all other owners, to keep silent about its content. At home, Nick discovers that it is a DVD containing a computer game called Erebos. Nick was immediately drawn to the game.

Shortly after entering the virtual world, a man sitting by a fire warns him not to move on, which Nick does not stop. In the course of the game he meets the so-called “messenger”, a man with yellow eyes. This represents the game, so to speak, and assigns tasks that the players have to fulfill in reality in order to advance in the game. Nick is amazed that the messenger and all other NPCs can talk like humans and understand and formulate complex sentences. He becomes even more insecure when the messenger knows personal things about him and after a while gives him an assignment that he has to fulfill in the real world in order to get ahead. Until the task has been completed, Nick will be excluded from the game. Nick has to look for a box with the inscription "Galaris" on it at the church of St. Andrew, it also has the numbers "03/18", his date of birth. He hides the box somewhere else as prescribed and then receives a t-shirt of his favorite band from the messenger in the real world. However, he only told his brother that he wanted this T-shirt. Nick should always do jobs in real life. So he has to tail a man, another time go out with a girl. Eventually he is told to add a life-threatening dose of a drug to his tea for his English teacher, Mr. Watson. Nick can barely stop himself and tries to keep the failure of the job a secret from the messenger. But he already knows everything and kills Nick's online character, whereupon Nick Erebos can no longer start.

His friend Jamie tries again and again to persuade Nick to stop playing Erebos. Therefore, he receives an anonymous threatening letter, which Nick initially thinks is a joke. When Nick and Jamie talk about Erebos again, they split up in an argument. Jamie drives off on his bike and drives straight to an intersection where he is run over by a car. He suffers life-threatening injuries, as announced in the threatening letter. Jamie is taken to the hospital and placed in an artificial coma . Shortly afterwards, Nick sees Colin sticking a note in the jacket of a schoolgirl, which turns out to be a threatening letter, similar to the one Jamie received. He confronts Colin with it at school. This makes him the official enemy of Erebos.

Nick tries to gather information about Erebos, where Emily helps him by playing against the rules with the disc Emily received. She also introduces him to Victor, who has several online identities and computers and in whose house they meet to gradually get to the bottom of the game.

As they discover, the game contains an extremely developed AI (Artificial Intelligence) that surpasses anything that has come before. Part of the system of the game is that it excludes players from the game until they have completed a certain task in reality. At the same time there are other players - again under temporary exclusion - the task of monitoring whether the other players are doing their job. As a reward, players receive, among other things, the so-called wish crystals, with which they can wish for things in the game or in the real world. A wish of one player is carried out by another player who is forced to do so by the game. As the game becomes widespread and many players become addicted to it, this system works very well.

A resistance group develops from Victor, Nick and Emily. As the game progresses, all players can compete against each other and decide in arena battles who is the best in order to lead the final battle against the great enemy Ortolan. The five best, the so-called "Inner Circle", are given the privilege of being able to destroy the Ortolan Tower.

In reality, the Inner Circle is supposed to kill game developer Andrew Ortolan. Because Erebos was programmed by Larry McVay for this purpose only. Years ago he had developed a game that had artificial intelligence and could think like a human. Ortolan wanted to buy this program, but McVay refused, whereupon Ortolan tried to steal the game from him. Ortolan accused the real inventor of theft so that he could not assert any rights. McVay was sentenced to prison and hanged himself soon after the trial. But before his death, he programmed Erebos to seek revenge. Regardless of whether this succeeds or not, the game can no longer be played afterwards because the mission has been completed or failed. Nick, Emily, Victor and Adrian McVay, the son of Larry McVay, barely prevent Ortolan's murder in his office. Adrian reports that two years after his father's death he received a message from his father's notary, in which his father asked him to circulate two Erebos DVDs, but never to play them himself.

After Ortolan's death is prevented, the game collapses and Nick's group tries to open the eyes of all Erebos players to the true background of the game and to answer their questions. At the end, Adrian McVay plays Erebos, of whom only the starting sequence is still running. Adrian realizes that the starting point of the game is a place in the forest where he and his father have often been. The man by the fire that Nick saw at the beginning of the game is an image of Larry McVay. He has preprogrammed answers in case Adrian would come. Adrian accuses him of leaving his family in the lurch and only concentrating on his revenge. Larry's image begins to apologize, which is apparently the main message of the conversation. Nick drives to the hospital to see Jamie, who has come out of a coma and is completely healthy again. Emily and Nick are now a couple, and she, too, has a raven tattooed on her neck like Nick.

characters

Figures in the book

Nick Dunmore. Nick is the protagonist. He is a 16 year old student, lives in London with his parents and has an older brother, Finn. The two have the same tattoo, a raven on the neck; the tattoo is mostly hidden by his long black hair. His father wants him to be a doctor, which is something he is interested in. Unlike his brother Finn, who has become a tattoo artist. He is secretly in love with Emily Carver, with whom he also gets together. His best friend is Jamie, with whom he plays on a basketball team just as he does with Colin.

Finn Dunmore and Becca. Finn is Nick's brother and lives with his girlfriend Becca. His father wanted him to be a doctor, which he wanted at the beginning too, but then decided to open a tattoo studio with Becca. Now he has fallen out with his father and Nick has to become a doctor.

Emily Carver. Emily is a child of divorce and lives with her mother. She is a good swimmer and goes to the same school as Nick. Her older brother drowned swimming in mysterious circumstances and she misses him dearly. Due to her talent for drawing and her love for poetry, she has an account on deviantart that Nick uses to watch her without her knowledge. She introduces Nick to her boyfriend Viktor, starts playing after initial resistance and joins Nick in order to uncover the secret of Erebos. You and Nick become a couple. She also has dark hair. In the end, she opts for a tattoo similar to Nick's when they appear as a couple. She has Nick's brother Finn tattoo a raven on her neck.

Jamie Gordon Cox and Loen Pember. Jamie is Nick's best friend and plays on a basketball team with him. He refuses to play Erebos. He is critically injured when he tries to prevent Nick from playing and is involved in a car accident because of a sabotaged bicycle. Brynne Farnham and Erebos are responsible for this tragic accident, which he survived without permanent damage. He is described as having brown hair and crooked teeth. He is secretly in love with Loeren Pemper.

Adrian McVay. Adrian lives with his mother, his father hanged himself. He's a 13-year-old classmate of Nick's, whose blonde, short hair sticks out in all directions. He spread Erebos without knowing what it is to comply with his father Larry McVay's last will. He helps Nick, Emily, and Victor prevent Andrew Ortolan's death.

Larry McVay. Larry is the father of Adrian. He hangs himself in his attic after Andrew Ortolan has brought him to his play Götterfunken (Beethoven's symphony gives Nick further information about the game's plans). On the second anniversary of McVay's death , Adrian received two copies of the game Erebos from his notary, on which McVay worked until he committed suicide. Erebos is the altered spark of the gods to recruit players to kill Andrew Ortolan in the final mission. Many clues from Greek mythology are hidden in the game.

Andrew Ortolan. Ortolan is said to be killed in the Erebos game because he robbed Larry McVay of the Spark of the Gods game . However, he never found the complete game. Adrian, Nick, Emily and Victor can only just save him from death. He is divorced.

Victor Lansky. Victor is a chubby computer and games professional who was caught for spraying graffiti. He is a good friend of Emily, Speedy and Kate. Despite his 23 years of age, he is shorter than Nick, on his fingers he wears many silver rings with skulls and snakes as well as skull studs in his ears and an angel necklace. He has a musketeer beard and loves tea. Together with Nick, Emily and Adrian he deciphered the origin of the game and saves Ortolan from the attack planned on him.

Colin Harris. Colin is tall, dark skinned, and plays basketball with Nick. The two are good friends, but Erebos changes him. Colin belongs to the Inner Circle and is present in the attack on Ortolan, but takes on a more passive role. When he is taken away injured by the police, he asks Nick to testify for him, but his decision remains open.

Jerome. Jerome is a friend of Nick's and plays basketball with him. He also plays Erebos.

Henry Scott. A friend of Adrian, is Nick's 3rd rite novice.

Brynne Farnham. Brynne is in love with Nick, who doesn't want to know anything about her. Because of a task set by the messenger, Nick invites her on a date. On the messenger's orders, Brynne unhooks the brake cables from Jamie's bike so that a car runs over it.

Helen. Helen is a classmate of Nick's who is teased by her classmates for being overweight and having acne. A lot of anger has built up in the girl, which is why she chooses a brutal character who becomes a member of the Inner Circle. She is the most extreme devotee of the game and ends up undergoing psychotherapy for shooting Ortolan.

Dan and Alex. Dan and Alex are Nick's classmates and also play Erebos. Alex seems to admire Nick, but Nick always calls them "crochet sisters" because of their boring and uncool appearance. After Dan tells Nick that Alex admires Nick and can't stand the name "crochet sister", Dan asks Nick to stop calling her that; whether Nick does that remains open. Dan claims that Alex plays LordNick in the game, who looks amazingly similar to Nick.

Aisha and Eric. Aisha and Eric go to the same school as Nick. Aisha comes from Turkey and wears a headscarf. She also plays Erebos, Eric doesn't. Aisha receives an assignment from the messenger to tell that Eric tried to rape her. This character assassination is likely triggered by Nick's Wish Crystal, as Nick wished Emily to leave Eric. In fact, Emily and Eric weren't a couple; Eric is with an older student.

Rashid. Rashid also goes to Nick's school, he also plays Erebos and is there as a guard in the attack on Ortolan. But he disappears right at the beginning after Nick has spoken to him.

Speedy and Kate. Speedy and Kate are married. Speedy is a good friend of Victor. The two join the small resistance group. Kate's hair is dyed black, it has a sidecut , and she does the cooking for the group. Speedy gets the game from Victor and finds out a lot with them. He sacrifices his character when he is asked to hang posters at the school accusing Brynne of sabotaging Jamie's bicycle brakes. Kate then gets the game from Speedy.

Michelle and Greg. Michelle and Greg are classmates of Nick and play Erebos. Greg is thrown out of the game later in the book and asks Nick to copy it again for him. But this refuses.

Martin Garibaldi and Eliott. Martin and Eliott are students from another school, but they also play Erebos. Eliott is currently in his final year of school and would like to study English literature afterwards. Like Nick, he is a fan of the band "Hell Froze Over".

Identities in the game

figure player people description
Sarius Nick Dark elves Calling: knight; dies at level 8 when Nick refuses to poison his English teacher
Lelant Dan Dark elves His clothes are completely black. In a scorpion that Sarius defeats, he finds a wish crystal. From this point on, Lelant and Sarius are enemies. In the arena, Sarius defeats Lelant and takes some levels from him.
Xohoo Martin Dark elves Friend of Sarius. Dies in the arena fights. He challenged Lord Nick, who defeated him. Out of frustration, Xohoo stabs LordNick in the leg with the sword when the fight is over. LordNick then kills him.
Arwen's Child Brynne Dark elves tree
Feniel Aisha Dark elves Usually fights with a spear.
Hemera Emily People Calling: bard; In Greek mythology, Hemera is the daughter of Erebos and goddess of daylight. She is dressed in black (sweater, jacket, pants, boots) and has a saber at the beginning, the handle of which is set with emeralds, and a bronze shield. Dies after Emily fails to finish the job of seducing her English teacher.
LordNick Alex People Alex admires Nick, he designs and names his player like Nick. In a duel in Atropos tavern, he defeats Sarius (Nick).
Quox Speedy Barbarians Dies because Speedy doesn't do his job (sticking posters saying Brynne sabotaged Jamie's bike brakes).
BloodWork Helen Barbarians Members of the Inner Circle, take their place in the arena battles
Tyrania Michelle Barbarians Is always ready to fight
Drizzles Colin Vampires Inner Circle and very devious
LaCor Greg Vampires
Blackspell Jerome Vampires Also in the inner circle
Squamato Victor Lizard people
Bracco Henry Lizard people
Sapujapu Eliott Dwarfs Nick's first friend in Erebos, usually fights with an ax
Nurax Rashid Werewolves
Samira Loans Cat people
Aurora unknown
 Cat people Sarius meets the badly injured Aurora in a labyrinth and heals her. But she dies in the same place because she notices a scorpion sneaking up on her from behind too late. Nick suspects that she switched off the loudspeaker because of the unbearable sound that always kicks in when the character is injured. For this reason, she did not hear the Scorpio coming.

Awards

expenditure

Erebos was first published as a flap brochure ( ISBN 978-3-7855-6957-3 ) and in 2011 as a paperback edition ( ISBN 978-3-7855-7361-7 ) by Loewe Verlag 2010. Licensed editions came from the Frankfurter Büchergilde Gutenberg 2010 ( ISBN 978- 3-7632-6389-9 ) and in Gütersloh RM-Buch-und-Medien-Vertrieb. A sound carrier with an abridged reading of the novel for children from the age of twelve was published by Münchner Hörverlag . The reading was by Jens Wawrczeck under the direction of Wolfgang Seesko (6 CDs; ISBN 978-3-86717-571-5 ). For the publication of Erebos 2 in August 2019, Erebos was reissued as a limited hardcover edition ( ISBN 978-3-7432-0531-4 ) with colored trim and a gold-stamped signature as a special collector's item.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Irene Prugger: Tension instead of gurgling with Ursula Poznanski in Wiener Zeitung of March 22, 2020, accessed on July 3, 2020
  2. ↑ General press kit for Ursula Poznanski ursula-poznanski.de. Retrieved July 7, 2015.
  3. ↑ Ursula Poznanski: @ursulapoznanski on Instagram. In: Instagram. April 1, 2019, accessed April 19, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Erebos is back ... and has learned a lot! In: Website of Ursula Poznanski. Loewe Verlag, April 11, 2019, accessed on April 19, 2019 .
  5. ^ Prize of the Moers Youth Book Jury 2011 goes to “Erebos” , accessed on May 13, 2019
  6. ↑ The Limited Edition of Erebos is available now! In: Erebos 2 website. Loewe Verlag, August 15, 2019, accessed on March 22, 2020 .

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