Luka and the Fire Of Life, By Salman Rushdie
Reviewed by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Luka is the sequel to Haroun and the Sea of Stories, a book that told the tale of a storyteller – Rashid – who has lost contact with the "Sea of Stories". Rashid's son Haroun literally reconnects his father to his source of inspiration. This would have been a moving story at any time, but for Rushdie to have produced such a joyous defence of free speech in the context of the fatwa was heroic and inspiring. Haroun is not just one of Rushdie's best books; it's one of the best books ever.

Luka is Haroun's younger brother, an enthusiastic gamer who crosses over from reality into the magic world of the Sea of Stories, where he encounters a ghostly version of his own father. Luka realises that this World is a vast multi-level computer game. He realises too that the ghost-father is an avatar of his real father and that the more life the avatar gains, the more lifeless his real father becomes.

A story that works like a game is a great idea. It certainly works in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. It doesn't work here. Rushdie doesn't embrace any of the real pleasures of computer games – the frustration of being sent back to the beginning, the moment of revelation when you reach a new level.