SOURCE: "Lamb Stakes," in New Statesman & Society, Vol. 7, No. 303, May 20, 1994, pp. 37-8.

In the following review, Hutchings provides a summary of the plot elements in Kipper's Game.

Like the famous trick with mirrors, this book endlessly repeats itself in different sizes. The leitmotif is the search for understanding. It starts with an addictive computer game condensed on to three disks: you have to get the scrolls to the wise woman, past the black knights, past all the obstacles in the way. The game is also a pedagogical tool, a summary of all that we are capable of and all we have learned. Hey, these disks can lead to "Enlightenment, the mystic goal of mankind".

The novel follows the same path: Steve, or Kipper as he calls himself, happy hacker and the game's creator, tries to keep the disks out of the clutches of his former employers, the drug-dealing...