Tom Clancy's Net Force Explorers or Net Force Explorers is a series of young adult novels created as a spin-off of the military fiction series Tom Clancy's Net Force

Tom Clancy's Net Force

Tom Clancy's Net Force is a novel series, created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik and written by Steve Perry. It is set in 2010 and charts the actions of Net Force: a special division of the FBI set up to combat increasing crime on the internet....

.

Plot

In the year 2025 the Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 and its virtual reality network have to be policed by the Net Force

Net force

In physics, net force is the total force acting on an object. It is calculated by vector addition of all forces that are actually acting on that object. Net force has the same effect on the translational motion of the object as all actual forces taken together...

 to prevent computer-terrorists from sabotaging it. Sometimes they need help, which is where the Net Force Explorers come in; they are the young people's auxiliary for computer whiz-kids who have made it through a tough training program. These include Maj (Madeline) Green, David Gray, Matt Hunter, Mark Gridley, Leif Anderson, Megan O'Malley, Catie, and Charlie. They are led by the kindly ex-marine commander, Captain James Winters, who has secrets of his own. Together, and separately, these young people solve cyber-crimes and defeat international terrorists while creating virtual worlds, playing high-tech computer games, and even entering a race.

Though the emphasis of the series is on the Internet, and its virtual world, there are occasional glimpses into the future of the world in general. In one novel, there is a reference to a spy from "flat-films" and his assistant who used to make gadgets for him, probably a reference to James Bond

James Bond

James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...

 and Q

Q (James Bond)

Q is a fictional character in the James Bond novels and films. Q , like M, is a job title rather than a name. He is the head of Q Branch , the fictional research and development division of the British Secret Service...

. The novel states that when the scientist character died, he was replaced with a hologram version of himself, a prediction of the future of Bond movies. In another novel, the characters are involved with a TV-series that appears to be a future version of Star Trek

Star Trek

Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...

with a different name.

Net Force Explorer novels

#	Title	Publication date	ISBN	Plot	Notes
1	Virtual Vandals		9780606204309
2	The Deadliest Game		9780613334655
3	One is the Loneliest Number
4	The Ultimate Escape
5	End Game
6	Cyberspy
7	The Great Race		ISBN 0-7472-6165-2
8	Shadow of Honor
9	Private Lives		978042517367
10	Safe House		9781435246867
11	GamePrey		9780613811606
12	Duel Identity
13	Deathworld
14	High Wire
15	Cold Case		9780747261513
16	Runaways	2001	ISBN 0425181502		also called "Runaway"
17	Cloak and Dagger
18	Death Match		9780425184486		Released in the UK in 2002 as Own Goal

Virtual reality

Almost the entire story of each book is set in "Cyber-Space," and personal Virtual Reality systems called "Veeyars." An introduction to the system comes from these abridged opening pages of the first book, Virtual Vandals.

"The April sky was a bright, cloudless blue, marked only by the thin white contrails of an aerospace plane's jet engines. Matt Hunter squinted his brown eyes, staring up from the Camden Yards stadium.

An elbow in his ribs brought his thoughts back to earth. 'Nice job on these seats, genius,' Andy Moore complained.

You'd think that after renovating this place, they'd put some comfortable padding out here,' David Grey added.

Leif Anderson stretched back in his seat. 'It's comfortable enough from where I'm sitting.

Matt gave his friend a blow. The seat which Leif seemed to occupy was actually empty, the space filled with a hologram. Leif was actually sitting in his parents' apartment in NYC, no doubt sprawled in a very expensive Computer-Link chair. An Implant

Implant (medicine)

An implant is a medical device manufactured to replace a missing biological structure, support a damaged biological structure, or enhance an existing biological structure. Medical implants are man-made devices, in contrast to a transplant, which is a transplanted biomedical tissue...

 beneath his skin connected him to the World Net, allowing his image to be seen here in Baltimore

Baltimore

Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...

, while he experienced everything that was happening nearly 200 miles away."