Virtual Reality Books

Here's a book that's great fun. It's not one of the great books, but I can't picture a science fiction fan that won't enjoy it.

Like several of Stross' books it blends technology, expanded into the future, and economics. In this case it is computer gaming on a mega scale, tied into a rather classic genre mystery novel. Quite simply, a theft takes place in a game, and the heroes set out to find out who-done-it. There is a pleasant recognition that this society may be the way the world's heading.

Stross often seems to try to set himself a literary task in his writing, and this time it's telling the story from the second person point of view of three different individuals whose lives become linked by the crime. What happens is predictable but the nerd in us will love the way he intertwines the story with technical aspects of on-line gaming (and other computer technology) carried out to the ultimate degree. Moreover, each of three main characters is likable so that we root for them right from the beginning. By rotating between the points of view of these characters the author is able to hold to hold back critical information for a little while, and then, again and again, give us the burst of pleasure that comes from recognizing what's going on.

Along the way Stross gets to satirize many aspects of society from the way policepersons think to the long term consequences of a united (and divided) Europe. At the same time, we recognize that many aspects of human behavior, like organizational politics, never seem to change.

Have some fun. Read "Halting State".

The starting premise is enough to carry the story through the first half of the book, but it disintegrates from there. The last quarter of the book is rushed and stumbles along into an unsatisfying ending. The book is worth reading, but it won't wind up on your shelf for a later second reading. I recommend getting a used copy of the paperback.

As a fan and sometime inhabitant of Second Life, my first reaction to this book was a solid "Whoa!" The basic premise is that a robbery has taken place in a virtual setting. How did the criminals get in? Of what value is the stolen treasure? Amazingly, millions of dollars are at risk. This book has an interesting structure as it flashes viewpoints from a police sergeant (Sue), an accounting auditor, a programmer, as folks try to figure out the who, what, where, when, and if (was it a crime?)of this crime. The ramifications for both finance, national borders, future warfare, etc are enormous. And, amazingly, it is all plausible! I recommend this book to anyone who loves science fiction, virtual reality, and doesn't mind an interesting narrative style. good job, Mr. Stross!

Like so much of Stross' work, HALTING STATE alternates between excitingly imaginative and annoyingly ... well, just plain annoying.

As everyone else has noted, HALTING STATE is a sort of crime/suspense novel in which our three heroes must somehow solve a mystery that initially seems silly and trivial yet becomes deeper and more serious with every chapter ... or every fifth chapter, anyway.

The story unfolds through alternation between three protagonists -- Jack the hacker, Elaine the forensic accountant, and Sue the cop. This is done through chapters written in the second person (e.g., "You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike"), which, at least formally, places the reader in each of the characters' roles, as if the book itself were a type of role-playing game (RPG), like the RPG in which the focal crime takes place.

The most innovative and enjoyable aspect of the novel is the notion that, in the near future, life will become like a chaotic collision of multiple RPGs, each with its own version of reality. Elaine the accountant shuttles between virtual meetings with her co-workers and "facials" (face-to-face meetings) but she also dips into the SPIES RPG and other alternate realities, often moving from one to the other with little boundary between. It's not that "life is a but a game" is a new idea, but it's never been done before (to my knowledge) with MMORPGs in as a model.

What's annoying about the novel are the second person storytelling, which makes the storytelling awkward without adding anything, the relatively slow plot development that results from the frequent switches in point-of-view (it's all second-person, but the persons differ), the jokey hacker references (which include the "twisty little passages" bit above, referring to the original text "Adventure" game that many of us played in the 1970s and 1980s), Sue's thick Scottish dialect (which Ian MacLeod has handled much better in some of his novels), and the cutesy awkwardness with which he handles most of his female characters. The ridiculousness of the (don't ask) spy subplot (not the computer security issues, but the politics) isn't really annoying, even if it is disappointing.

I didn't get hooked until about halfway through the book. I DID get hooked, however, and I DO recommend finishing the book even if you have difficulty slogging through the first ten or so chapters. Stuff does happen, the mystery becomes more interesting, and while I can't say whether or not the nerd gets the (sort of) babe, the romantic byplay adds some spice to the mix.

You probably want something more consistently entertaining for a vacation read, but if you're a Stross fan or a SCI-FI-y MMORPG fan, HALTING STATE is worth kicking around the house for a week or so.

I was so angry about the time and money that I had wasted on this book that I broke a personal precedent to write this, my first book review. I normally read science fiction purely for pleasure and relaxation, and have never tried to play "English Major" with my selections.

I struggled through 150pp of Mr. Stross' book before I finally put it down in disgust. It was taking an extraordinary amount of time to read, and I could not remember from session to session who the characters were, and what the story was about.

The author's silly literary device of describing each character's activities in the second person was driving me crazy. (From the start of each of the first three chapters - each from the viewpoint of a different character: "You're four hours into your shift..."; " You are sitting...in an armchair"; "...so it's off to work you go"). If I broke in the middle of a chapter, and returned later, I would have no idea whose viewpoint I was now reading.

Such an affected approach - devoid of objective context or reference - is distracting enough, but the author further muddies the mess by over-using another literary card trick: long single-sentence rambles through dozens of loosely-connected thoughts. After 10 or 15 lines, and at least that many phrases, I would find myself with no clear idea of what point the writer just made. It reminded me of some of the more tedious legal documents that I encountered in my business career.

If you enjoy structure over content, and your intellect is tickled by unusual approaches to telling stories, then perhaps you may find enjoyment here. Personally, I like to flow with a book, caught up in its cadence, action, and characters. Reading this was like trying to flow down a river full of rocky rapids. "Halting State" is a good description of the book itself.

Caligari trueSpace3 for dummies is an excellent resource guide not just for the beginner. It covers from animation (Inverse and Forward Kimatics), organic modeling (metaballs), texturing, tips, and best of all: how tSx (trueSpace Extenssions) increases the overall usefullness.

The book is only for those of you who have picked up Truespace3 as a toy, it's merely a manual that is lacking much of any useful content. For those who pirated the program, it's a manual, for anyone else, it's a paperweight. Our only hope is that Peter Plantec, Frank Rivera, or someone with a great skill of writing AND Truespace3 will write a Truespace3 Bible, so that this book will be forgotten. Note: I have nothing against E. Swan, it's just that a poorly written book deserves a realistic response.

I must say that writing a Dummies book was both a blessing and a curse in many ways. It sure wasn't easy trying to describe the complexities of 3D in a way that the bare-bones novice could grasp... but luckily IDG lays down a very good approach for the authors.

The biggest problem with writing the book was its length. I was told to keep the thing under 325 pages or so but before I knew it, I'd written so much I was cutting entire chapters. (Imagine giving birth to a baby only to be told to chop off one of its arms... sob.)

I must apologize for a couple of things:

1) The humor overload... what can I say? I thought I'd put enough in there, but they had me ramp it up even more. Deke McLelland (author of the Photoshop for Dummies series), I certainly am not.

2) The physical simulator (physics) chapter. I wrote it, but because I went on blabbering about all the other stuff in the program, I had to cut it. (See above.)

Now of course the book and the program are both horribly behind the times, and I really don't use Caligari products anymore... but I must say that the Caligari staff were always wonderful to me and trueSpace will always hold a special place in my heart.

Thanks everyone for the reviews, good AND bad.

I think truespace 3 for dummies is not a really bad book. Everything is really easy to understand and I am sure that if you are a first timer you wil understand everything. sometimes the humour is a little bit irritating but that's a personal comment. If you're a more advanced designer please do not buy the book, it will not do you any good. But for beginners the book wil be perfect.

This book is claimed to be for dummies, but even at this level, many of the ideas in Truespace 3 are presented poorly - i.e. it is just DESCRIPTION of the tools and offer no ideas in how to APPLY them. There is just no point in buying a manual which you already have. I strongly recommend Truespace 2 Bible - which is also for 'dummies' but explores many of the tools with EXAMPLES and ILLUSTRATIONS.

but in a good way. Like many people, I thought the cover sucked, but the cover is definitely not the book. The reason I give it only three stars is because I can't give it a 3.5. It should deserve more but I can't, in good conscience, rate it higher. For me, a three is a readable book; four is pretty darn good; five is a Great Book that will probably be read for the next 50 years.

I loved certain things about the writing, other things nagged me. Matz doesn't tell you things about the world he's created for the book, he shows you, which is something I think is good. Infodumps are for people who don't read SF and can't handle painting a picture of a world using offhand comments and small details that are revealed in descriptions. On the other hand, it felt a bit like a sequel in a series where only longtime readers can really appreciate the multitude of characters and half explained situations that pepper the book. Assuming he keeps writing (and I hope he does) he will probably fill in the details with forthcoming books.

The references to art and music made for dense reading since my education and interests left me a bit unprepared for this kind of extensive name-dropping. I actually kept a reading journal when I re-read this book recently so that I could look up all the references I missed the first time. I admire the eclecticism, and it educated me in some areas I about which was under-informed, but I felt these kinds of details sometimes got in the way of the story. He definitely writes for a well-informed readership. Dunces and cultural illiterates need not apply.

Like a Raymond Chandler story, the convolutions the hero goes through to find out the information he needs makes for the complications. Without his jumping through hoops, talking to this person or that person, and taking various side trips (some of which are completely fruitless) there would be no real story. For some people, that means that the ending comes as an anti-climax. Indeed, one reviewer wrote that there are about two pages of action. I would dispute that, but the action is rather scarce as most of the story is the preparation.

The only reason I can't rate this book higher is that despite the attention to detail, the depth, and the character development I found in this book, it didn't affect me much emotionally. I wanted to like the character, but he felt distant and uninvolved, despite being the center of the action. Maybe it was supposed to be a reflection of his state of mind, but I felt as if I wanted to get more submerged in the viewpoint relationship, but the character had commitment problems.

As a side point, having practiced martial arts for over 10 years, the limitations Robie puts on himself are just barely borderline realistic. To fight someone who is also a trained fighter and limit yourself to disabling moves to the exclusion of possibly lethal ones, you have to be worlds better than your opponent, otherwise you are toast. It's actually easier to fight to kill someone than to just disable them since disabling is so much more risky, especially when your enemy is armed.

This is a good solid book, but there are some (non-fatal) flaws. I hope Matz keeps writing so that we can find out more about Robie, and so that the potential I see here can develop.

Very much on the bright and thoughtful side of SF. I am hard pressed to say why, but this book has much the same feel as the Repairman Jack novels; however, there is no fantsy as the engineering and political science is strongly realistic. Simply the best book I read the year it came out. I look forward to more and wonder why there has not been any follow up. Just as when the Anita Blake series first came out, there is a rush to reading this work; followed by confusion as to why our current SF readership takes so long to discover these treasures.

Loved it. My educated male friends loved it. I have additional praise for this book. I enjoy books of this genre, however I weary of the inevitable sex scenes. They're usually written by male authors or from the viewpoint of a male hero. As a heterosexual female, I find the scenes doubly onerous. It's sooooo refreshing to read a book that *doesn't*. The protagonist thinks about it sometimes, and gets offers, but actually has some self control. And hey, this action hero actually *cares* about women as people. I really appreciated the author's descriptions of his character's thought processes and mental strategies behind the male dominance behaviors when jockeying with other males. I've only read female authors who try to do that with their characters. So interesting to read a male author's description. My friends and I eagerly await Mr. Matz's next novel.

I was very pleasantly surprised by "Nocturne for a Dangerous Man." This is Marc Matz's first novel, who, by all indications, is a very talented writer indeed.

While reading this novel I was struck by how difficult writing in this genre must be. The James Bond/Doc Savage/Buckaroo Bonzai/Bruce Wayne type of character has been done to death. Whats more, to do it effectively, one must tread a very fine line between being just hokey enough, but not TOO hokey.

A previous reviewer mentions Heinlein, which is very apt. This novel reminded me of a good Heinlein novel, and it impressed me because it avoided becoming a BAD Heinlein novel. The protagonist is very well written, and given just the right amount of depth. Despite being a borderline superhero, we identify and empathize with him. The future world/society Matz creates is very interesting and textured. The "sci-fi" elements support the setting and plot well. The world of "Nocturne for a Dangerous Man" could easily support future novels, with or without Gavilan Robie.

-----------------------------------------------------------
While Nocturne is unquestionably SF, Matz's "dangerous man"
reminds me more of classic noir detectives like Ross Macdonald's Lew
Archer & John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee. Stir in a dollop of Wire
Paladin and you have Gavilan Robie: a near-future P.I., now a
specialist in the recovery of stolen art, but a man with a darker history
of dangerous 'recoveries'. Between cases, or when tension mounts,
he relaxes by playing his Guarneri cello, a gift from a grateful client
after a particularly hairy rescue.

Robie is asked to 'recover' Siv Matthiessin,who's been kidnapped by an
eco-terrorist group that is demanding an enormous ransom and an end to
her employer's Congo Basin construction project. Robie seems to offer
her only chance of surviving her ordeal, in a future that's grown
warmer, darker, meaner....

This is a book that worked really well while I was reading it, but won't
stand up to much post-reading poking-about. In particular, hero Robie
is just too omni-competent to be real. But superman power-fantasies are
an honorable SF tradition, and Nocturne is a fine and absorbing
entertainment. I'm looking forward to Matz's next.

Don't be put off by the lurid cover, which looks like a Baen reject,
& has virtually nothing to do with the book...

Happy reading--
Peter D. Tillman

It's still version 3, but it doesn't matter. Mastering Maya 3 is one of the best beginner/intermediate books you can buy. I used Maya 4 and now Maya 4.5 and have had only benefits using this book. It has helped me along from being a beginner to being very familiar and capable with the software. I've used and seen a lot of the other books out thee, but I haven't seen a better book that covers things in the depth and range that Mastering Maya does. It's not for people new to 3D, but if you have experience in another 3D package and are moving over to Maya, it is excellent.

I think the sheer bulk of this book was the problem the author was having. He over extended himself. He tried to write about too much.
The instructions are not specific enough. You can't utilize this book. Maya has way too many buttons to speak in generalities.
I want specific examples. What screen will pop up? What button do I push? How exactly is my hypershade supposed to look?
I think he knows what he is talking about. But I don't. Next time, pay attention to detail and do better.

Finally a book, from intermediate level to advanced users. However it's a pity that this book doesn't cover unlimited Maya version with cloth, fur and live Maya plugins. This book covers the basic features to improve you level skills in Maya. I also buy Maya fundamental 4 and that's the best choice you can make if your are a intermediate level. So don't hesitate if you're thinking about which book you should buy with a tigh budget.

This book is excellent for beginners OR intermediates. It is crystal clear - no beating around the bush!
I took Maya at school and found this book really good to review topics that I had forgotten or havnt used in awhile!

A +++++++

This book is great for beginners. I can't really say anything about it's worth for professional artists and advanced Maya users, as I am but a mere beginner. Anyway, I downloaded the free trial version of Maya 4 and bought this book and I am now cranking away! I didn't know anything about 3D modeling before, although I have a CAD background.

The book is very well organized and each chapter (that I've worked through so far) has lots of examples of how to apply the techniques described in the book.

It is excellent with respect to teaching you how to do things in Maya, but it lacks in general 3D design principals, which is to be expected from a book with the word Mastering in its title.

Now, if I could just find some good books on basic techniques (ie. when to use NURBS over polygons), etc. I'd be set!

Corgan has spent all of his fourteen years living in a box. Sure, the box can appear to be anyplace he wants. Virtual playmates and pets can be created for him. He has a virtual companion who teaches and nurtures him. But he is still in a box.

The problem, he has been told, is contamination. Ever since the Earth went through nuclear war, and ever since deadly diseases like Ebola and AIDS and hanta virus killed off all but about two billion people on Earth, everyone has had to live in sterile environments. Corgan is especially important, so he has never been exposed to any people or places that might cause him contamination. Corgan is a genius.

Corgan has a super developed sense of time. He can keep track of time down to hundredths of seconds, and he is aware without counting how much time has passed at any given moment. He also has a superior sense of touch--he can bring his hands to within a hair of something without touching it. Corgan's abilities will help his country to win the war.

In all of Earth, nowhere is left uncontaminated. Well, nowhwere until the Isles of Hiva are examined and it is found that they are without contamination. There will be a war to see which government will have control of these Isles and will be able to populate them. Corgan and two other children--Sharla, a super codebreaker, and Brig, a super strategist--will fight in this virtual war to determine possession of the Isles of Hiva.

I liked the concept of this book, and I liked the descriptions of a future in which Earth is contaminated to this degree. However, Corgan was too passive to be a good character. He should have rebelled more or at least questioned his life more. Also, his crisis of possibly losing his time-splitting abilities would have been an interesting side plot, but it is just dropped instead of examined.

Many of my sci fi loving boys loved this book - couldn't put it down. Also, many of my "I don't like to read" boys. Girls liked it too, since there is also a strong female character. Takes X-box and other gaming to its fiercest and most logical conclusion.

I did not like virtual war. Virtual War is 6th grade material all the way. Basically this is a simple science fiction novel with a simple plot that has been done before with boring,predictable characters. The story takes place in a world that has been contaminanted by nuclear disaster. In one of the last remaining bubble cities in the world. Inside the city a boy has been raised all his life in virtual reality to train for a virtual war. Near the start of the war the boy meets a his advisers. They show him what the world is like outside his virtual paradise. So the main character begins to question what he is fighting for. I give it 2 out of 5 stars because it is too simple to be in a high school library. Maybe in a elementary school. The actual war doesn't start untill the end of the book and is only a few chapters long.So for for pretty much the whole book no real action happens. And the character doesn't even really fight. He just controls soldiers with his finger. I only recommend it to people who need a quick read for a project or something because i fineshed it in about 2 hours.

This book brings you to the edge. It is like the matrix but better! it has twists and turns that are unbelivealbe! the cast of charactors and the plot mix so well and everything just flows from thing to thing. The best book I have ever read is by far this one. If u get the chance, READ IT!!!! u wont regret it1

This is a really good book. I used to hate Science Fistion Books but for school I had to read one. One of my friends told me to read it. It is a bout a fourteen-year-old boy who lives in Wyoming in the year 2080. After Earth is infected but many diseases there is a war over an island that is not infected. Corgan and two other people Sharla, and Brig. They have to help Corgan win the war. This is one of the best books I've read. If a 12-year-old girl tried it and liked it you should too. It is fun and exciting. It gets you hooked in the second chapter.

Some books can trick you into thinking that there is going to be something to say when there really isn't. Sadly, this book falls into that category. Bound between the covers are 400-plus pages of common sense, rants about Windows, praises for OS/2, and constantly repeated philosophies that are never truly demonstrated.

There is an interesting section on memory and the way people learn, which are important considerations for designing UIs, so it's not a complete loss, but when the book actually got down to putting something together, it doesn't really have much you can look to for guidance. The iceberg analogies and the perspective models weren't very helpful either.

At the start of every chapter, the author cites numerous quotes from people no one has ever heard of and doesn't give any context as to why we should listen to them.

The most ironic aspect, however, is that the book, at times, is poorly structured. The sections don't seem to have any logical ordering to them making whole portions sound like a rambling of loosely connected topics, and of the text will cite a table or figure and then display it in a completely different section or even two pages down the line from where it was cited, making the examples seemingly irrelevant to the text.

All-in-all, this is one you can easily avoid.

I've just seen the author present a full-day tutorial at Seybold Seminars and I've read his books. Dr. Mandel offers practical, easy-to-understand advice and insight about interface design and usability.

In his books and tutorial, he uses examples to highlight the many principles of good design. Dr. Mandel's web site also provides valuable presentations and links on web design and usability.

I would recommend this book for anyone needing to gain an understanding and appreciation for the art and science of interface design.

I'm a usability / human factors / HCI professional, and I thought I'd already read all the standard UI design books I'd ever need. After reading Mandel, I realized this book was an excellent standard reference. It belongs on the desk of anyone who is currently doing UI design, is planning to do UI design, or is merely curious about how good user interfaces can be created. This work has a good balance of friendly, accessible readability, and pointers to the basic scholarly research upon which the principles are based. Highly recommended.

Mandel's book was one of several UI books I got when I was trying to implement a process for designing Web user interfaces at my workplace. Mandel has an entire chapter on it, "The User Interface Design Process", which on flipping through the pages seems quite comprehensive.

It turns out, however, that Mandel's intention in this book is to introduce the theory and practice of Object Oriented User Interfaces (OOUIs), through a brilliant "foundations" part that covers the concepts and evolution of user interfaces, two OOUI parts that profile and detail OOUIs, and an "Advanced" part that looks at evolving user interface concepts and issues.

Unfortunately, not only are Web interfaces covered in but a single chapter in the last part of the book, but the chapter merely explores, without a conclusion, how the Web interface is strikingly different from the traditional PC desktop interface. OOUI principles are in no way applicable to building Web applications (Consider what impact the OOUI tenet "Users must Understand Direct Manipulation (Drag and Drop)" would have on download time and cross-browser development costs in a Web project).

Overall, the book is a great read, a necessary reference for any UI designer, but avoid it if you're looking for solutions, especially for Web-based applications.

the book isn't a bad book but it's more of a reference and a little on the novice side. If you haven't already, check out "The Human Interface" by Jef Raskin. That is a far superior book.

You know those books that promise you untold wealth and secrets to make you rich? This isn't one of them, which makes it one of the best reads I've seen in a while. It gives a realistic depiction of making money in virtual economies (which is pretty amazing in and of itself). It even explores and gives some interesting perspectives on work vs. play and the emergence and confidence of virtual economies.

Play Money, [...] Amazon.com, is an enjoyable three hundred page softbound book from Indiana author Julian Dibbell. Prior to this particular effort, Dibbell also authored another non-fiction book entitled My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World. Dibbell is currently a contributing editor for Wired magazine, and he's also had several lengthy pieces published in Details, Harper's, Le Monde, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Spin, Time, and the Village Voice.

Laughingly, Dibbell began selling virtual goods to members of online gaming communities - EverQuest, Final Fantasy, Star Wars Galaxies, Ultima Online, and World of Warcraft. - in hopes of developing a second career in early 2003. His goal was to get rich, document the process for a blog and book, and then exit. But while Dibbell started this venture optimistically - mingling with various weirdoes along the way - he lost his marriage due to this financial pursuit.

Aside from that downer, Dibbell's book soars when examining legal implications of virtual economies. Dibbell introduces Blacksnow Interactive - a company that mined wealth from the in-game economy of Dark Age of Camelot early on in Chapter Two. Mythic Entertainment owns intellectual property rights to Dark Age of Camelot and frowned upon in-game items being auctioned on eBay. Soon thereafter, President Mark Jacobson called Meg Whitman and shut those auctions down. Prompting lawsuits.

You sense Dibbell was skeptical when he began writing about MMO economies in 2002. Dibbell discovered John Dugger had bought a virtual house (for $750) previously owned by Troy Stolle inside Britannia, the mythical world of Ultima Online. Dibbell couldn't fathom why anyone would do this for a game, so he interviewed the 29-year-old Indianapolis construction worker that sold the house, and interviewed the 43-year-old Stillwater bread delivery man that bought the house.

Much of Play Money concentrates on the vagaries of play, work, and a condition called flow. Dibbell also introduces us to [...] - reseller of second-hand items that mines wealth from the in-game economy of Ultima Online in Chapter Six. Bob Kiblinger, sole proprietor of [...], first spotted Stolle's UO account for sale on eBay. He then bought the account for $500, split up the items, then sold Stolle's virtual digs to Dugger for $750.

Of the people profiled here, West Virginian Kiblinger comes off as the most likable. It's implied Kiblinger derives a six figure income off his online bartering, and that he has $15k tied up in "online inventory" at any given moment, but all of that could disappear at any given moment. For some reason though, Electronic Arts has chosen not to go after [...], unlike what happened between Mythic Entertainment and Blacksnow Interactive.

Next, Dibbell compares the imaginary gold of UO to e-gold's gram. Launched in 1996, e-gold is one of six metal-backed currencies circulating online. Dibbell further compares the gold of UO to the Ithaca Hour, a paper currency launched in Ithaca during 1991 and backed by local labor. Finally, Dibbell compares the gold of UO to crypto cash - secure untraceable digital money proposed by mathematician David Chaum that lives on in finance geek sub communities.

Eventually, Kiblinger informs Dibbell of a suspicious gold devaluation, and both realize another player called Ingotdude is involved in "gold farming." In short - Ingotdude was running a bot (composed of 22 PCs, each running a copy of the game, with characters in macro mode) inside Ultima Online which was generating real world payouts on the order of more than $300k. Dibbell is amused to later find that Blacksnow Interactive is behind Ingotdude's exploit.

You'll be surprised to learn that over the course of a year, Dibbell did manage to earn $47,000 by selling intangible virtual goods online through Play Money. His goal was to earn more than $55k (his best year as a writer) but he failed in that respect. Spending 50 hours a week online cost Dibbell his marriage and emotional collapse, but his career eventually recovered and he did manage to finish this exceptional book.

This is really just another blog-turned-book, with a little bit of filler. The title misrepresents the book - he didn't quit his day job and he didn't even hit his fairly modest goal of a month's earnings exceeding his best as a writer, which is far short of the "millions" the subtitle advertises. I'd give him a pass if the title was obviously sarcastic, but it seems like a cheap ploy to up sales figures. The real slap comes about halfway through the book when blog posts are reproduced wholesale, which can easily be found on the internet on Dibbell's website.

Dibbell is a good writer, but this book just doesn't come close to delivering. If you want a basic account of how you could have exploited Ultima Online five years ago, then by all means, this is the book for you. For everyone else, it's an extended blog post - a quick, basic read that doesn't have a whole lot of substance to it.

I read this book because I had begun to hear about the world it describes and wanted to learn more. I was REALLY happy with my purchase! Dibbell combines personal experience, interesting interviews, and a broad intellectual reach to make comprehensible the "brave" "new" world of massive multi-user gaming and the way it is making us rethink a variety of taken for granted forms of common sense.

The result is a lot of fun to read and highly educational at the same time.

What if you could spend your day playing video games and still make a fortune? Wll, now it's possible for the best of what is called the 'gold farmers' to play games and buy and sell fantasy goods in the virtual world and make between 6 and 7 figures a year! Yes, and this author Julian Dibbell did just that -- quit his day job as a writer and became a virtual mogul. Along the way in 12 chapters he looks at the virtual marketplace for virtual loot and the growing economy online in multiplayer online role playing gams MORPGS and Virtual worlds like SecondLife.com to buy and sell virtual real estate, avatars, islands, services and even real life objects in virtual stores. From Ultima Online to paying the IRS -- it's an amazing new world online and whether it's reel or real is still to be determined by the players in the newest game in town.

The novel "The Night Room" is a book about seven high school students that go into a computer program, called Argus, that simulate their high school reunion. Each of them goes into Argus and each one finds out something has happened to one of them, death. They try to figure who died and try to prevent her from dying. This book didn't appeal to me because even though it would seem interesting and exciting, it is very boring, with little action and a small amunt of mystery. I would only recommend this book to people who like stories that aren't very exciting and people who like to read anything.

The reason it was boaring was because they do the
same thing over and over until the end of the book.
It would be more interesting if they had a better conflick or problem in the story.When i said that they do the same thing over and over again I mean that the teenagers kept going in and kept going out until the end of the story when the things start to change up.

I found Night Room an entertaining book. I found myself not having to rack my brain in order to figure out plots ect. It was a very interesting read with a good concept and great ideas. Finding out the futur of the characters was especially interesting and you got to know and love each of them

The Night Room was a very exciting book! It is filled with adventure and action. The main character in this story is a teenage boy named Ira. Ira is a smart, nice boy that goes to Banting High School. He lives in a small cold town. Later in the book he is asked to join a class that will attend a new technology called Argus that will let him see his future! He later finds out when he is in the program Argus that the girl he had loved since elementary school was to die that year! He tries to find out how to save her. Can he save her? You will just have to find out by reading this interesting science-fiction book yourself. I thought it was very cool because of all the rising actions. Maybe you will like it to.

Ok, I dont usually read books, though if they strike my fancy I might think about it. I have to read books for school for a thing called reading counts. Anyway I like Sci-Fi books more than any other. This was a fairly good book, though draggy in some areas it kept my attention (which is hard to do). Over all this is a fairly good book, read it if you have some free time.

This book was written for people who have heard about online "synthetic" (the author avoids using the over-hyped term "virtual") online worlds such as "World of Warcraft" or "Second Life", and are curious, but assume it's just some nerds in basements, not tens of millions of "ordinary" people engaged in near-billion dollar economies.

If you already have a rough idea of what's going on (you don't need to be an active "citizen" in any of these worlds for that), then the book doesn't have all that much to offer, though there is a great chapter on economics that discusses strategies for avoiding inflation ("MUDflation"), and the chapter on politics may stimulate some thoughts.

The book could have been more interesting if the author had been able to go into more detail and compare different online economies, and get an insider's perspective on why it is that things are the way the are (incl. failed experiments etc). I'd also have liked to see a less shallow discussion of the psychology behind all of this -- is the reason people kill each other online when they can just because that's the nature of humans, and is the reason South Koreans are way ahead online simply down to bandwidth rather than cultural differences?

The book is also (inevitably) a bit outdated. The author frequently mentions how virtual items are traded on Ebay; Ebay prohibited sales of items from World of Warcraft and EverQuest beginning of 2007. There is no mention of the "farming" phenomenon. And I was surprised that the book didn't mention Second Life (which I'd imagine should be more interesting than most fantasy worlds from an economist's point of view) much except in passing.

It is impossible to change the address when you first have placed the purchase. It makes it difficult when you the moment you buy the book discover that you made an error (wrong address), and then it is already to late to change the address. What can you do? Probably nothing, other than accept that you lost your money, and buy the book elsewhere.

Were this book explicitly a marketing tool for virtual worlds, I would say job well done. But as a work of scholarship, it is downright embarrassing. The only thing I have to say for it is that the economic analysis in part II does not seem patently ridiculous, but the same cannot be said about the political analysis, and both are predicated on the validity of part I's predictions of the growth and impact of virtual worlds. His logic explaining this predicted growth can only be referred to as spurious.

Published in 2006, this book is already dated, and in ways relevant to the author's predictions. His prediction that passive TV watching will decline in favor of virtual worlds is only half-true: instead, we have a flourishing YouTube where people interact with passive media by creating more passive media. The niche of on-line communication medium has been filled by social networking sites. The author predicts that people who grow up with technology will be drawn to virtual worlds, but this has not been the case. The adoption rate of virtual worlds among teenagers pales in comparison to the use of text messaging, social network sites, and other available technologies. This comes as a surprise given how inherently compelling he portrays these virtual worlds.

Castronova does not seem to take into consideration the reality of differing preferences. He claims the "natural" place for getting together is cyberspace, and there's no reason to type when you can talk. This kind of thinking permeates his discussion of the future growth of synthetic worlds. Because they can offer, for a certain value of "offer", interaction with a potentially more pleasant world, this does not mean that everyone down on their luck will flock to them-- regardless of how realistic the worlds may get. I think it would be difficult to argue that even enough of a critical mass for the phenomena he describes in part II has the right kind of inclinations to "live" completely in virtual worlds.

Castronova frequently employs the rhetorical device of referring to these worlds and everything about them as "real". Certainly, they are "real" in the sense that they are something that people occupy their actual time with, but this does not make them "real" in the sense of an equal alternative to actual life. Throughout the book he uses terminology to blur the line between the two meanings of "real", presumably with the goal of validating his claims about the importance of virtual worlds. He talks about it as a "way of life", about the players as "migrants", and that they have the "potential to become permanent homes for the conscious self" (p. 238). He claims game makers should allow avatars to have all the same human rights in-game as their players do in the real world. It's an argument that only makes sense if you accept that there's no fundamental difference between virtual worlds and the real worlds, and that's a claim that has a much higher burden of proof than his tricky rhetoric can meet.

Virtual worlds are a hot topic, and the buzz surrounding them has allowed a scholar to put out absolute crap, assured that the audience will call it "stimulating", "important" and "insightful". If you're going to read this book, cut through the hype and read with an eye towards the logic of his argument. But other than as a first-hand view of the type of faulty reasoning used to convince people that virtual worlds are the Next Big Thing, it's not worth the read.

Best book discussing online worlds that I've read.

The author's background in economics makes for an interesting perspective. He goes to great lengths to point out where and how virtual worlds cross over into the "real" world.

He doesn't, however, take things quite as far as I expected. For instance, he doesn't suggest that any interaction, social or otherwise, if conducted online might well be considered as having occurred in a virtual world. And he doesn't spend any effort exploring online to offline gestural equivalence.

But I don't think he can be faulted. There's enough material in this area to fill several volumes. What he does cover, he makes accessible, interesting, and relevant.

[...]

To be honest I was expecting more on this book.It didnt tell all the info I wanted to know and the author focus too much on 2D games like Everquest and not so much in 3D games like Second Life.In most of the book the author is a little superficial in his analysis,he could go deeper.However the book is good for people who wanna have a general idea about on line games,specially Everquest,World of Warcraft and Star Wars.

I don't have number 13 the Cyberstalker one. Elizabeth goes to this Library with a trap or secret door. I think she secretly dates William White. Jessica rents this ruby necklace for an awards show. She loses it. William White helps her find it.She was trying to make Lila jealous. I think William disappears in a fire or something.

I really thought the first one was better than the second part. The Return Of William White Part 2 is interesting I thought it was really slow but when I read the ending I actually like it. Anyway if you need a book to read this is one.

I think the author needs a lesson in human psychology. I mean, REALLY... William tried to kill Elizabeth and all she could do was despise him for it but now they're together? I agree that the book was hard to put down but the author needs to put herself in her character's shoes. Would she date the person who tried to kill her? And honestly, no one in the Sweet Valley University series (thriller or no) ever dies. Someone is always coming back to life...

Book would have received all points if it had not stolen the idea from Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece movie thriller, "Psycho." Anyone who has seen the original movie (with Janet Leigh) knows that William's actions (killing his shrink and then speaking for him) is a direct knock off from the movie. I was sorely disappointed that the author went this way. I guess the author thinks that since the newer version of "Psycho" came out that the younger generation would not think to look at the original. Sorry, Laurie John, but..."Gotcha!"

The start of the book was good, realistic up to a point. But, again, the author failed to follow reality again. As a victim (a repeated victim for that matter) to William White's "deadly terror", Elizabeth and even her friends were entitled to be informed of William's survival and release from prison. This is called victim's rights; where the victim (in this case Elizabeth primarily) has the right to be informed about the status of her attacker. The detective that handled her case should be fired for his lack of interest in her welfare as well as in his supposed police ethics. Of course the author knows next to nothing about actual police methods or law practice (read any book concerning law enforcement in the SVU books and see what I mean). Research involving criminal justice should be done if an author is going to write about it i.e. arrests, criminal behavior, trials, victimology and victim's rights.

William's sudden return gave the book it's rating. He's the madman that everyone loves to hate. I did enjoy his misleading throughout the book, amazed that he could actually snow investigative reporter, Elizabeth Wakefield. Although that part was farfetched since any real person would never give a psychotic killer the time of day. But this is Elizabeth give-them-the-benefit-of-the-doubt Wakefield. So naive and trusting that she almost gets herself killed...again...by this madman.

Other than the listed flaws, the book was great. William's insane behavior is somewhat humorous in a scary way. My favorite quote from him was at the end when Elizabeth is trying to find her way away from him in library archive tunnels and she sneezes, loud enough for him to reply back to her "Bless you, darling." Classic line, not to mention freaky at the same time. A great read. If you love to hate William, this is your last chance to enjoy him because, alas, since he goes out in a blaze of glory.

Though it was tough believing the whole William White is back thing, I thought the book was a great read. It was suspenseful and funny at the same time.