Book: This is not a game
Feb. 15th, 2010 09:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livAuthor: Walter Jon Williams
Details: (c) 2008 Walter Jon Williams; Pub Orbit 2009; ISBN 978-1-84149-657-3
Verdict: This is not a game is an enjoyable, though lightweight, cyberpunk thriller.
Reasons for reading it: I really, really loved Aristoi when![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lethargic_man lent it to me many years ago. So when I saw a new book by Williams in the library, I had to grab it.
How it came into my hands: Library.
The premise of This is not a game is a bit unpromising; it's a near future cyberpunky setting where people socialize online and MMOs cross over into the real world. That sort of thing was cool and futuristic in the 70s; it's a bit overdone by now, and not even very futuristic. Still, Williams writes well, his characterization is top notch, and I got really into the story even though it's not terribly original.
The thriller plot, with the real world financial effects of some online events causing some geeks to be the targets of hitmen, is very exciting and less implausible than a lot of thrillers. I very much like Dagmar as a viewpoint character; she's very three-dimensional and doesn't fall into either of the pitfalls of dripping about needing rescuing, or being self-consciously "kick-ass", going around wearing a big sign saying "look at me, I'm so enlightened, I made a female protagonist." She's very much a believable geek, intelligent and independent but having no experience of dealing with violence. And the way the book depicts the culture of people who play live-action games and join fan message boards is really good; it's neither derisory nor glamourized. The way that Dagmar uses crowd-sourcing to tackle problems seems plausible while still exciting.
So generally, it's an exciting, readable story that keeps up the pace. I very much cared about what would happen to all the characters (and Williams isn't afraid to kill important, thoroughly developed people, so the danger felt real). The plot twists were unpredictable but satisfying. The problem is that TiNaG barely feels like SF; there's almost no sensawunda, and the world is so close to our own that it almost isn't the future. I'm not sure if it really takes a moral position even; perhaps a very obvious point about how cyber-security is directly related to financial and real world security. However I couldn't recommend it to people who prefer mimetic novels, because it's very much in SF style and its outlook is deeply geeky.
The most comparable thing I can think of is Vinge's Rainbows End. It's fun, but it's somewhat disappointing to pick up something by an author who does really mind-blowing far future SF, and find that it's middling cyberpunk.
Details: (c) 2008 Walter Jon Williams; Pub Orbit 2009; ISBN 978-1-84149-657-3
Verdict: This is not a game is an enjoyable, though lightweight, cyberpunk thriller.
Reasons for reading it: I really, really loved Aristoi when
lethargic_man lent it to me many years ago. So when I saw a new book by Williams in the library, I had to grab it.How it came into my hands: Library.
The premise of This is not a game is a bit unpromising; it's a near future cyberpunky setting where people socialize online and MMOs cross over into the real world. That sort of thing was cool and futuristic in the 70s; it's a bit overdone by now, and not even very futuristic. Still, Williams writes well, his characterization is top notch, and I got really into the story even though it's not terribly original.
The thriller plot, with the real world financial effects of some online events causing some geeks to be the targets of hitmen, is very exciting and less implausible than a lot of thrillers. I very much like Dagmar as a viewpoint character; she's very three-dimensional and doesn't fall into either of the pitfalls of dripping about needing rescuing, or being self-consciously "kick-ass", going around wearing a big sign saying "look at me, I'm so enlightened, I made a female protagonist." She's very much a believable geek, intelligent and independent but having no experience of dealing with violence. And the way the book depicts the culture of people who play live-action games and join fan message boards is really good; it's neither derisory nor glamourized. The way that Dagmar uses crowd-sourcing to tackle problems seems plausible while still exciting.
So generally, it's an exciting, readable story that keeps up the pace. I very much cared about what would happen to all the characters (and Williams isn't afraid to kill important, thoroughly developed people, so the danger felt real). The plot twists were unpredictable but satisfying. The problem is that TiNaG barely feels like SF; there's almost no sensawunda, and the world is so close to our own that it almost isn't the future. I'm not sure if it really takes a moral position even; perhaps a very obvious point about how cyber-security is directly related to financial and real world security. However I couldn't recommend it to people who prefer mimetic novels, because it's very much in SF style and its outlook is deeply geeky.
The most comparable thing I can think of is Vinge's Rainbows End. It's fun, but it's somewhat disappointing to pick up something by an author who does really mind-blowing far future SF, and find that it's middling cyberpunk.
