[To see links please register here]
[To see links please register here]
is a collection of connected short stories by Alexander Weinstein that's received a lot of advanced literary acclaim (it officially debuts next week):Children of the New World introduces readers to a near-future world of social media implants, memory manufacturers, dangerously immersive virtual reality games, and alarmingly intuitive robots. Many of these characters live in a utopian future of instant connection and technological gratification that belies an unbridgeable human distance, while others inhabit a post-collapse landscape made primitive by disaster, which they must work to rebuild as we once did millennia ago.
As that description suggests, and as longtime Second Life blogger/voracious reader
[To see links please register here]
confirms, it's a book that virtual world fans should especially enjoy and appreciate:[To see links please register here]
"It's very moving...and very SL, and also very funny," she tells me. "It is definitely a story that will resonate with Second Life residents. This quote[from the book] could be said today by someone in SL: '"In this world, we seemed to understand, we were free to experience a physical connection that we’d always longed for in the real world but had never been able to achieve. Who can blame us for being reckless?'"
She goes on: "'Migration' is another story [from the book] that will resonate with SL folks. It is in a future where nearly everything is done virtually. People put on latex suits that conduct sensations. The narrator teaches virtually. People have sex with avatars quite freely and have multiple genital attachments they can put where they like, so multiple penises and multiple vaginas. It's amusing and inventive. Here is a quote from that story, 'After fifteen years of marriage we still manage to have sex with each other’s avatars two to three times a week.' Hilariously funny and heartbreaking at the same time."
For that matter, she adds, "I knew from that first story that this would be an outstanding book, on my best of the year list."
If that doesn't convince you to give it a look,
[To see links please register here]
.Pic of Cajsa [To see links please register here]
Please share this post:
[To see links please register here]