Unlike the stereotypical “Brady Bunch” family, the characters in “The War That Never Was” battle as if they were hpart of World Wrestling Entertainment.

War is inevitable in the 12 colonies of Luna, D.E., Waldregen’s fictional country. Two pairs of siblings from four opposing kingdoms — Queen Victoria of the East and Queen Alexandra of the West, and King William of the North and King Stewart of the South — ready their troops.

In order to avoid all-out war, 12 competitions are suggested in the areas of athletics, arts and logic.

The activities range from ice hockey to telling riddles to sculpting. The winner of each competition is awarded one colony in order to establish a lasting peace.

Every conversation held resembles a childish argument, which usually reverts to name calling, item throwing, a queen running out of the room crying hysterically and a king dozing.

The main concept behind Waldregen’s novel, “The War That Never Was,” falls short of its goal.

Instead of being an interesting and entertaining read, the novel is frustrating, irritating and hardly worth reading.

To partially enjoy this novel, the reader must throw out all predetermined concepts of monarchs and ignore the words “king,” “queen” or “monarch” in the text. The book utilizes modern clothing, vocabulary and sports, which do not go along with its images of monarchs, kingdoms and palaces.

The majority of the 293-page book is spent explaining how to play the games, along with the moves of each character during their turn in the game. The book also includes graphics and pictures which take up half the page, boosting the page count.

There are some favorable situations, but few in number. Chapter three was particularly interesting, but that was the climax of the book and the interest rate fell quickly afterwards. The reader gets background information on new characters in this chapter, but they disappear after their game is over.

“The War That Never Was” may only make a good read when one is sincerely bored out of his or her mind. Waldregen tries too hard to make the characters loveable, and as a result they are dimwitted and irritating.

The novel is a poor attempt to give science fiction a modern twist.

Grade: CD