In this book, Tim Guest writes about his experiences in virtual worlds like Second Life, his interviews with people who take part in virtual worlds, the different ways virtual worlds get used, and more. It's not a systematic exploration of topics pertaining to virtual worlds, but it's often interesting. My favorite parts of this book were Guest's interviews and anything that discussed some of the creative ways virtual worlds have been used.

Guest spoke with people at Linden Labs (the creators of Second Life), a Korean man who is the king of kings in Lineage II, a few people who managed to make money in virtual worlds in ways that would be clearly illegal if they were done in the real world (replicating virtual gold, for example) but aren't always so clearly illegal when done in virtual worlds, the man behind a virtual mafia don, and more. Many of these people were fascinating, and I found myself wishing that Guest would talk less about himself and more about these other people.

Although I realize that Guest's discussions about his own background were outnumbered by his discussions about everything else, it got to the point where I was a little annoyed about reading, yet again, about Guest's perpetual money problems, his bad luck, his girlfriend, and his mother (who was apparently in a cult, had a guru, and whose interests meant that her son grew up in a commune). Guest's own life and experiences color how he views virtual worlds - I thought it was particularly interesting how his experiences in the commune led him to see Linden Labs as something like a cult - but I picked this book up to read about virtual worlds, not about Guest, and I sometimes felt that Guest was getting a little repetitious when bringing himself up.

In addition to Guest's interviews, I also enjoyed reading about the various ways people have used virtual worlds. There are many people who might hear about virtual worlds like Second Life, EverQuest, and others and believe them to be just about entertainment, but they often get used and created for other reasons. People find love, make lasting friendships, and have experiences that they couldn't possibly have in the real world (the best example of this is Wilde Cunningham, a Second Life resident played by a group of nine men and women with cerebral palsy).

Real world reporters have given a lot of attention to those who manage to make a living in virtual worlds, and Guest discusses that as well, mentioning Anshe Chung (an incredibly wealthy avatar in Second Life, one of the many games where virtual currency can be turned into real world currency and back again) and others. However, he tries to balance his discussion by saying that very few residents of Second Life (and, presumably, other virtual worlds) actually make enough money to live off of in the real world. Later on in the book, Guest writes about virtual worlds that have been created for training purposes, such as virtual worlds used by the military to train people in tactics and strategy or to train people to more effectively evaluate situations (if players mess up in a virtual world, no one dies and they can try again until they get better, whereas similar mistakes in the real world are less forgiving).

In addition to some of the more positive ways virtual worlds get used by their players, Guest also writes about other ways players use these worlds. There are griefers, people who play these games simply to harass and aggravate other players - these players may view their style of playing as entertainment, but the targets of griefing often do not agree with them. There are virtual mafiosi - the activities of these people depend upon the game being played, but in Second Life, for example, they might be hired to make certain players violate the game's terms of service, thereby getting their accounts suspended. There's also the virtual sex trade - at one point, to get an idea of one aspect of Second Life's sex trade, Guest uses a Second Life avatar to hire a virtual hooker.

I started reading this book shortly after finishing The Second Life Herald: The Virtual Tabloid That Witnessed the Dawn of the Metaverse by Peter Ludlow and Mark Wallace, and I couldn't help but compare the two. Although I occasionally felt that Ludlow and Wallace's writing was a little confusing, I enjoyed their book more than I did Guest's. Like Guest, Ludlow sometimes wrote about himself, and he often wrote about his personal experiences in virtual worlds, but when Ludlow did this it was rarely repetitive and usually added something to the reader's knowledge of virtual worlds. Also, when Guest begins his book, he is in awe of virtual worlds, and this awe never goes away - he loves writing, again and again, about how someone in Second Life can pull a building out of his or her pocket, or fly, or jump off tall buildings for entertainment. This may sound like a good thing, but, as with Guest's writings about himself, it can get a little repetitive. It also makes Guest seem like a perpetual outsider when it comes to virtual worlds, despite the home he decided to purchase inside one. Ludlow, on the other hand, manages to be both an insider and an outsider, trying to stay objective as he investigates his stories, but investigating them as though the virtual world were any other place.

I imagine that some readers will prefer one style of writing over another, and, for me, Ludlow and Wallace's book was a better read. Both books cover many of the same topics and involve interviews with some of the same type of people (Linden Labs people, griefers, people involved in the virtual sex trade, etc.), but often one book covers certain topics better than the other.

Overall, Guest's book was nice, with some very interesting moments (I loved the interviews with Wilde Cunningham and Kyu Nam Choi, Lineage II's king of kings).

(Original review, with read-alikes and watch-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

This was an intriguing (and fairly up to date) look at the various worlds of virtual reality currently available on the Internet, like Second Life, World of Warcraft, and EverQuest. The author visits these worlds, chronicles their explosive growth and describes the characters (avatars) inhabiting them. He interviews the real people behind the worlds, both the developers and the actual persons who created some of the best known avatars and attempts to figure out just why these worlds are so popular. One of the most interesting threads running through the book is his comparison of some of the online communities to the cults and communes that he explored in his previous book. (The author spent several years of his childhood in a commune and is thus in a unique position to make this comparison.)

I don't know if I would characterize the writing as great but I do know that I was carrying the book around with me so that I could read the next few pages at the earliest opportunity. Definitely recommended to anyone interested in the subject.

Tim Guest starts of on a very interesting note looking at the impact Second Life has had on the life of a group of people with Cerebal Palsey. Unfortunately from that point onwards he seems to have become rather more enamoured with spending his time in game rather than writing his book. Too much time is taken up with Tim Guest's personal issues and obsession and the book sometimes retreats to the quality of a blog. There is insight here and some commentary but if he had stuck to his original plan and lived up to the promise of the first chapters then this could have been so much more. Patchy. ( )

I found this book last month as I took a stroll down the "new book" shelf here at Providence College library. As I'm very curious to learn what makes Second Lifers tick, I dove right in and hoped to be enlightened. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed. The author has some very interesting insights and experiences, but tells them in such a convoluted way that I gave up after about 60 pages. Opinions and events are sometimes expressed multiple times, to the point where I thought perhaps I had already read the pages I was currently on! I did very much appreciate the story of the folks at the group home in Massachusetts, who collectively controll a Second Life avatar, and who where overjoyed to conquer their real-life physical handicaps via virtual reality.
However, I felt so confused by this already-confusing world that I ditched this book and am now reading "The Unofficial Tourists' Guide to Second Life" by Paul Carr and Graham Pond. I am still baffled on the Second Life mentality, but at least the "Unofficial Guide" is easier to follow. ( )

This book is the journey of meatspace avatar Tim Guest into Second Life, and through that into WoW, Lineage II etc. It is a mixture of his first and second lives, and some of the people he meets through SL and other virtual spaces.

I felt obscurely let down, and definitely confused about the details from his first life - in one chapter he is splitting up with his RL gf, in the next he's shopping for furniture first in RL then in SL with his gf - new one? old one, and the chronology is off? ( )