From Publishers WeeklyStarred . Williams (The Rift) weaves intriguing questions about games, gamers and their relationships with real life into this well-paced near-future thriller. Game designer Dagmar specializes in creating alternate reality games that muddle the line between fantasy and reality. Trapped in riot-torn Jakarta, she reaches out to the gamer community for help. Once back in Los Angeles, Dagmar is caught up in a web of murders and financial manipulation that she begins to blend into her latest game, using the community of players to solve clues and sift through large amounts of data. The line between real life and the game blurs as the action builds to a satisfying and thoughtful conclusion. Though the technology talk occasionally becomes intrusive, it's convincingly written; the characters are realistic and absorbing, and the story deeply compelling. (Mar.) Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. "Interstellar adventure has a new king, and his name is Walter Jon Williams." --- George R.R. Martin"A spectacular far-future space opera." --- Locus on The Sundering"This series is great fun to read, one of the most entertaining space operas in many years." --- SF Site on The Sundering"[Williams'] meticulous inner eye creates a landscape so rich in concrete and metaphysical imagery that it alone is practically worth the price of admission." --- Scifi.com on City of FireAbout the AuthorWalter Jon Williams has been nominated repeatedly for every major SF award, including Hugo and Nebula Award nominations for his novel City on Fire. His most recent books are The Sundering, The Praxis, Destiny's Way, and The Rift. Walter Jon Williams lives near Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his wife. what products are trending in year This Is Not a Game (Dagmar Shaw)
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. A Masterpiece for GamersBy Patricia FuldaThis is a masterpiece for gamers or those who look on and observe. Beautifully plotted!1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. "they were all young and games were all they knew of life"By lb136This is not my favorite genre. But I figured Walter Jon Williams would put a new twist on the cyber thriller. And he does. This is not a serious work. The subtitle, "a novel of greed, betrayal, and social networking," whether supplied by the author himself or the publisher, gives that away. This is not a true whodunnit. There are only a few suspects, and the last part of the book, after the villian is revealed, is more of a how'll the protagonist will thwart the bad guy and, oh yeah, save the world than anything to do with the science of deduction. This is not a complaint. Mr. Williams does this smoothly, credibly, and with a great deal of suspense.This is not a ponderous tale. It's fun, you'll probably like the way the online game players get together to first extract Dagmar Shaw, the protagonist-game creator, from a riot-torn Indonesia and back to LA, and then how they get together to help her thwart the bad guy and, oh yeah, save the world. But it's all more than a bit tongue in cheek. And one of the characters is really more of a running gag than anything else.This is not an era that the author particularly likes. Along the way you'll get his take on the way science fiction writers are treated by their publishers, as well as his feelings about toilers in the service-industry vineyards--to say nothing of his obvious discontent with the present politico-economic system. This is not a book to pass by, if you're looking for something to pass the time.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Decent, but WJW is normally better than "decent"By N. HelfinstineNo point in recapitulating the plot, there are other reviews for that.The first part of the book is strongest, with the heroine drawing on the collective power of internet gamers to escape a dangerous situation. It'd make an excellent stand-alone novella. The rest of the novel becomes a murder mystery, but not all that good a one. The problem is a lack of characters: the tradition of a murder mystery is, that the guilty party is sufficiently present in the novel that the reader can figure it out shortly before the protagonist does. In this book, there just aren't enough suspects: two or possibly three. With such a thin field, it's easy to guess whodunnit.On the plus side, the heroine's inability to guess is quite understandable, as she's been portrayed all along as a naive geek, trusting everyone unless proven otherwise. That means it's not one of those novels where a character gets handed the Idiot Ball; in this book, Dagmar's blind spots are carefully delineated, and also quite believable.tl;dr:Decent book. Not award-worthy, but not a waste of time either.