Like many gamers, I have played Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) at some point in my past. For me it was Multi-User Dungeons like Valhalla (now rebuilt as Asgard's Honor) and Genocide. I never got into the World of Warcraft (WoW) and Everquest games. My daughter did play around in WoW a little and that always made me smile a bit. Now I do play Path of Exile which falls nicely into this genre. I do know that there are a lot of problems that have evolved with the MMORPG format. Not the least is bullying of players and real-money economies building up around the game where those with time sell the fruits of their efforts to those with little time and lots of money. I was then pleasantly surprised to find out that Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang had combined to develop a young adult focused graphic novel, In Real Life, that explored these subjects all with a girl protagonist.
The story focuses on Anda, a young girl who's family has just moved to a new town. There she hears about an online game, Coarsegold Online, and convinces her parents to let her play. After that we follow the story as Anda meets other players and learns a lot about the world of Coarsegold Online, our world and the impact of one's actions.
The artwork by Jen Wang is vibrant and fully enhances the story being told. This is a great book for anyone with children that are getting ready to play online games. It broaches the subjects I mentioned before as well as opens up the opportunity to talk about those topics with your kids. Along the way they can learn for themselves the best way to interact with other people online where doing what is right or wrong is sometimes more than just a choice of following the rules or not.
Pick up a copy of In Real Life, read it and share it with someone else. You will be glad that you did. Written with a young adult audience in mind, there is still enough depth and story here for adult readers and, again, I think it is best when thought of as a story you read together with a teenager for the dialogue it will raise. Once you finish In Real Life, there is a short story on Tor.com called Con/Game with the same characters. Due to the short length of Con/Game, I don't recommend reading it first as you will not have an understanding of the characters or backstory and thus Con/Game will not be as entertaining as it could be. In Real Life, 4 Mick Happies, is available digitally and in paper form at all booksellers. Enjoy.
No comments:
Post a Comment