What’s going on in the world of virtual worlds?
Snow Crash (1992) — Okay, follow this: Facebook recently bought Occulus VR — the Federal Trade Commission said OK — because of course we all want to live in the Occulus Rift. OVR’s CEO even mentioned the Metaverse, which is where things get done in Neal Stephenson‘s amazing book, Snow Crash.
Snow Crash is credited by some to be the model for Second Life, introduced in 2003, where users’ avatars can create their own islands or buildings or whatever else, and interact with everything and everybody. (There are plenty of other virtual worlds, too, and yes, there’s a journal about them).
Reamde (2011) — Neal Stephenson again. I’m only about 200 pages in (it’s 900+), but the world of T’Rain seems to have an infrastructure that’s far more solid and detailed than most others. I can’t wait to get back to it. Yes, we have it, so dive in.
Disclosure (1994) — Written by Michael Crichton of Jurassic Park fame, this story of corporate back-stabbing describes a pretty cool virtual world for its time. And the movie (Michael Douglas, Demi Moore) is incredibly fun. Get the book through our new Borrow Direct service.
Ready Player One (2011) — Our world is a broken-down, overpopulated mess, but if you have a computer, you can go to OASIS, a fantastic virtual existence. Now the genius billionaire who created OASIS is dead, and if you can solve the puzzles that he left, it can all be yours. Warning!! This is going to become a movie so read it as soon as you can! Get the book through our new Borrow Direct service.)
If you put the phrase “virtual worlds” into the catalog as a TITLE, you get more than 200 results. But you can explore the topic more precisely by choosing any of the interesting related subject headings:
- Virtual reality
- Virtual computer systems
- Virtual reality – social aspects
- Shared virtual environments
- Computer games — social aspects
- Second Life (Game)
- Internet games — social aspects
- World of Warcraft
Which virtual world (in any medium) would you choose to move into and become a citizen?
All I can say is, get ready to ‘Goggle in’
I LOVE *Ready Player One* and am not at all surprised it is being made into a movie–but folks should definitely also experience it as a book, the original virtual reality platform! I’m also a big fan of Neal Stephenson’s *The Diamond Age* (1995), which is another interestingly predictive fiction w/r/t nanotechnology.