Level 4 - Computer crime series

Level 4 - Computer crime series is a book series for young people by Andreas Schlueter , which was published from 1994 to 2007 by Altberliner Verlag , Arena Verlag and dtv junior . All volumes were published several times and u. a. also published as paperback editions.

General information on the content of the series

A large number of Andreas Schlüter's books for young people deal with the experiences of a group of thirteen-year-old children with various computer or technology problems that are not (yet) possible. The protagonists, along with other classmates, are the computer geek Ben, the sports ace and his best friend Frank, the technology skeptical girlfriend Jennifer and in turn her best friend Miriam as well as the passionate collector Thomas and in the first volumes of the series also Kolja, the opponent of children will.

The paradoxical feature of these characters is that they are always thirteen years old in all volumes, although they gradually deal with ever newer technology. While in the first books Ben is the only one who knows about computers, but the use of a cell phone has to be explained by adults, in the later books all the protagonists deal with computers and cell phones as a matter of course.

Contents of the individual volumes

The following brief descriptions of all volumes published so far in chronological order:

Level 4 - The City of Children (1994)

While Ben is playing a new computer game The City of Children , which he got from his best friend Frank, everyone over the age of 15 disappears from the city. The only residents seem to be the children from Ben's school. When they realize this, chaos breaks out. While Ben and his friends Jennifer, Frank, Miriam and Thomas try to reorganize the children in the school, the schoolyard rabble Kolja tries with his gang to gain control of the city. Meanwhile, the children who remain in school take on responsibility and plan to survive in the city.

At some point Ben realizes that the disappearance of the adults is related to his computer game, which has exactly the same starting situation, and that it is not the adults who have disappeared, but the children were somehow put into the game as characters. With his knowledge of the rules of the computer game, Ben and his friends manage to defeat Kolja and gradually solve the different levels of the computer game. Ultimately, Ben succeeds in gaining access to the game's programming code and by reprogramming the game to end. The children find themselves back in the real world, in which no time has passed.

The ring of thoughts (1995)

Ben finds a strange ring. After a few incidents, he discovers that the ring can be used to anticipate events and read minds. He tells his friends about the ring and Miriam finally uses it to cheat on a class test. Before the children can decide how to proceed with the ring, it falls into the hands of Kolja, who wants to use it to commit crimes. When Ben and Frank try to set a trap for Kolja, Kolja manages to draw suspicion for his crimes on the two. Nevertheless, the two manage to get the ring back. Kolja then takes Jennifer prisoner. With the help of the ring, he manages to convince Kolja that nobody should read other people's thoughts. Kolja allies with Jennifer and her friends. Together they manage to track down the inventor of the ring. You destroy his laboratory and the ring and can finally convince the inventor to give up his project.

This book deals with the question of whether it is morally justifiable to actually use possible technology. This is a frequently recurring element of the series. This book also marks the point from which Kolja is no longer the antagonist of the series, but changes to the protagonists.

Attention, time trap! (1996)

On a school trip to Florence Kolja, Frank, Ben, Jennifer and Miriam seem to find their way through a kind of time tunnel into the 15th century. Since the building through which they entered the past was not yet built at this point in time, they cannot find a way back. While exploring ancient Florence, children will notice a number of obvious mistakes. Ben realizes that you are in a virtual space in which everything but yourself is just an optical projection. This poses a huge problem for the children; Since food and water are also not real, the children are in danger of dying of thirst. As they desperate for an exit, they find that they are not the only real people in town. The children learn that they have got into a fight between one of the programmers of the simulation and his clients. The simulation should apparently replace the real Florence as a tourist attraction and the works of art in the museums should be sold to the highest bidder. With the help of the scientist, the children manage to escape from the virtual space, and the scientist promises to prevent the real works of art from being sold.

This book deals with the boundary between reality and virtuality. Above all, Jennifer's doubt that a computer can never replace a person's creativity is a recurring motif in the book series.

Hunt on the Internet (1997)

Ben and Frank are on vacation on the Hallig Langeneß . At the same time, Jennifer and Miriam are camping on Mallorca. The friends stay in touch via the Internet. In doing so, they happen to come across a large-scale Internet blackmail, the money of which is to take place in Mallorca. In cooperation with the blackmailed, the four children manage to convict the blackmailer.

This book deals with the uncertainty of digital communication.

UFO of the Secret World (1998)

Frank watches a UFO while walking , when his friends don't believe him, he tries to find evidence and disappears without a trace. Ben, Jennifer, Miriam and Thomas investigate the disappearance and discover the UFO. You get on board unnoticed and fly into a futuristic, robot-inhabited city on the bottom of the Pacific. While the children look for Frank there, they wonder more and more who they are actually dealing with. Eventually they find out that this self-sustaining city was built by the governments of the G8 , who want to use it to survive the impending environmental collapse of the earth while the rest of humanity dies. However, some of the robots have become conscious and decided that humanity does not deserve to survive. The five children find themselves caught between the front lines of a robot war in which the UFO and the city are damaged and become uninhabitable for humans. The children manage to get out of the situation by traveling back in time.

This book deals with the concept of artificial intelligence and at what point it can be viewed as living beings . Furthermore, the irresponsible handling of humanity with natural resources is criticized.

Escape from the Moon (1999)

During a visit to the German Aerospace Center , Ben and six of his classmates are shot down after being mistaken for a space shuttle. They dock at an unknown space station and notice there that no one is interested in clearing up the mix-up. Instead, they try to capture the children. After this has been successful, they are taken to a secret juvenile prison on the moon , in which young people who are considered uneducable are subjected to psychological experiments. Ultimately, the seven children and a few other inmates manage to break out of prison and flee by shuttle to a secret yet thriving lunar tourism station.

2049 (1999)

To earn some money , Ben, Frank, Jennifer, Miriam and Thomas take part in a brain scan attempt. The entire content of their brain is supposed to be copied, which the children do not believe. After the procedure, the children wake up in a completely strange world. While they are first working on another virtual room, as in Caution, Time Trap! believe it is instead in 2049, 50 years in the future. The children puzzle how they got there and how they can get back, but they are hunted by all kinds of people and they don't know why. In the dystopian portrayed future they find Chip and Kosinus, two allies of the same age who help them to escape. On the run, Jennifer notices again and again that her body reacts strangely. After Frank survived a normally fatal injury without any noticeable impairment, the children find out that they are artificial structures or organic robots into which their brains from 1999 have been incorporated and they can therefore never return. This is also the reason why they are hunted, attempts with brain scans have been banned in the future and those responsible want to destroy the evidence, as there is still a lively black market in substitute bodies. The children's copies manage to make the scandal public before they are shut down / killed.

A plot described in the story's epilogue, in which Ben buys a painting through the bonus for the brain scan in 1999, shows that the children's copies in the plot of the year 2049 also encountered their own, aged “originals” .

Chaos in the Network Clan (2001)

A group of worm-like aliens make contact with Ben and a number of his friends during a LAN party . Those aliens with biological abilities like teleportation and manipulation of wireless communications are just kids too. Your supervisors wanted to propose a trade deal to the governments of the world, but then disappeared without a trace. The extraterrestrial children suspect that they were captured and therefore sought the help of other children, as otherwise they could not trust anyone. The children decide that their only option is the press. Before they can turn to them, Jennifer and Miriam are captured by the military . Ben and Frank can flee with the aliens across different cities around the world. The remaining friends around Thomas and Kolja manage to organize a live broadcast on television about the hiding place of the aliens. Before this can take place, however, a second delegation of aliens succeeds in freeing the prisoners and leaving Earth. The children are left with no proof of their story and no one believes them.

The Hacker's Trail (2002)

Ben was broken into, and shortly afterwards he disappeared. His friends are investigating the matter and discovering a plan by the software monopoly Protzosoft. Apparently, one of Ben's friends hacked into the company's new operating system, which can be activated online. He discovered that all activations should be deactivated at the same time when a certain market share has been reached. After that, the software company would have had the opportunity to blackmail the entire world in order to release the computers again. The children manage to pass the data on to the press before the company manages to destroy all traces.

Reality Game (2003)

Frank takes part in a reality show in which he has to hide from a group of other young people in a strange city and solve puzzles in the process. His pursuers can see what Frank is seeing at any time via a webcam on his head. Another candidate tries the same in Ben and Frank's hometown. Ben and his friends try to help Frank over the Internet and at the same time to find the so-called runner in their town. In the course of the game show, the friends discover that the show is a covert test for a non-lethal weapon that manipulates the emotions and body reactions of the attacked. They manage to abort the game before one of the candidates suffers permanent damage.

Level 4.2 - Back in the Children's City (2004)

The children around Ben find themselves again in the city of the children from the first volume. This time the city is already populated by children who consider themselves adults and who do pointless tasks. Apparently someone took advantage of the mistake in the game and deliberately kidnapped children in the computer program. This person has also expanded the game so that they can control children remotely. This time there are also major changes to the city such as a castle or a multitude of secret passages. Ben and his friends try to defend themselves against the apparently overpowering king of children. After they managed to catch him, he sabotaged the computer program in such a way that it would freeze and the children would be trapped forever. But Ben succeeds in ending the program beforehand with the same trick as in the book Level 4 - The City of Children .

The Sunshine Chip (2005)

Ben and his friends are taking part in an experiment to test an artificial habitat in Northern Germany. In this habitat, which is a beach, all the weather is created artificially. A serious malfunction occurs in the first night and the habitat has to be evacuated. The children are forgotten. They end up in a second habitat, in which a winter landscape is simulated, and barely survive a number of natural disasters. Looking for the exit, they find the weather control machine and discover that it is apparently used to generate artificial weather all over the world against an order. The malfunction created an artificial tornado that threatens to destroy large parts of Germany. However, the operators of the system do not dare to switch it off, as this could destroy it. Ultimately, the children manage to switch off the system and escape the operators.

Level 4.3 - The State of Children (2006)

Ben's class is drawn to Children's City for the third time. This time, however, the city is not functional as it was last time, but completely empty. Nevertheless, the children are attacked by a group of figures dressed in green. Kolja is kidnapped. A little later, Achmed is arrested by a superhuman child and taken to a prison island. The remaining children are given the task of building the city by a stranger. Little by little the children find out that there seem to be two different cities, the city of the children, which they know from their previous adventures and an empty city in which they are currently located. The green-clad figures are also children who have been trapped in the children's city for months and try to hide from the stranger who is terrorizing the children. Sarah, the leader of the so-called Frogs, persuades Ben's friends to play the game of the unknown in order to gain access to the old city of the children, since the exit is there. Sarah is arrested shortly afterwards and also taken to prison island. Achmed and Sarah barely survive an attack by a horde of neglected and starved children.

The book ends with an open ending in which the children decide to conquer the leadership positions in the children's state and thus democratically overthrow the rule of the unknown.

Level 4.3 - Uprising in the Children's State (2007)

This book continues the story of the previous book. While Achmed and Sarah try to escape from prison island through a labyrinth with deadly traps, Ben's friends try to conquer key positions in the children's state. At the same time, the Frogs are preparing for war with the almost invincible cops of the unknown. Finally, after a long struggle, the children manage to overthrow the stranger and end the program.

reception

In particular, the first volume in this series is now part of the reading canon for schoolchildren as well as the content of seminars for didactics and teacher training . There are also quite a few positive reviews for this volume, which also gave the author its international breakthrough.

Awards

• 2006: "The best at Radio Bremen and Saarländischer Rundfunk " for the band Level 4 Kids - Thieves on the Net

literature

• Ulrich Blode: Level 4 - The computer thriller by Andreas Schlueter . In: fantastic! news from other worlds . No. 22, 2005, pp. 52-55
• Bartholomäus Figatowski: Where a child has never been before ... - Childhood and youth images in science fiction for young readers, Bonn 2012, ISBN 978-3-929386-35-6 . Pp. 337-354. [to Schlüter's children's novel "Level 4 - The City of Children"]

Individual evidence

1. ↑ portal.dnb.de Query for editions listed in the German National Library and new editions of titles in the Level 4 computer crime series by Andreas Schlueter
2. ↑ schlueter-buecher.de Website of the author for the Level 4 - computer crime series
3. ↑ schiller-buch.de ( Memento of the original from December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Student opinions on level 4 
4. ↑ zum.de Summary of C. Schneider on Andreas Schlüter: Level 4 - The city of children with links to pages for students to work on
5. ↑ seminar-sindelfingen.de ( Memento of the original dated December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 196 kB) Suggestions and material for working in class on Level 4 - The City of Children 
6. ↑ fictionfantasy.de Ulrich Blode to Andreas Schlüter: Level 4 - The city of children
7. ↑ luise-berlin.de Irene Knoll appearance or non-appearance on Andreas Schlüter: Level 4 - The city of children and the time trap ; Berlin Reading Signs, Edition 03/97 (c) Edition Luisenstadt, 1997
8. ↑ sr-online.de ( Memento of the original from December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. For the award “The best at Radio Bremen and Saarländischer Rundfunk ” in 2006