Virtual WorldsAbout halfway through Second Lives, the author, Tim Guest, slips away from a dinner party he is hosting for some friends at his home. He then goes to his computer, logs onto his virtual home in a virtual world to chat to the globally-scattered friends virtually gathered there. It is, he admits, not a great way to conduct a social life.
This book is partly his attempt to explain why he became briefly enraptured by this world within a world. The "place" that particularly interests him is Second Life; through it he finds a neat exit from such personal problems as debt and a crumbling relationship, and an outlet for his dedication to sitting down for long stretches of time.
It is mostly, though, about why so many others migrate to these vast virtual landscapes in which they can fight fantastical battles (World of Warcraft), journey across space (Star Wars Galaxies), hunt pixelated rats (EverQuest), or ambush each other in games of inter-planetary piracy (Eve Online). He also mentions, in passing, Sociolotron, in which players can drug and rape each other. A reminder - as if needed - that virtual does not necessarily mean virtuous.
And finally, it is also a history of the phenomenon itself; a look at its short past, and at the possible future of countries that exist yet somehow don't.
Places with royalty and economies and police. Second Life is considered a particular watershed because, unlike most other "games", it has no set outcome, no predetermined aim. Its founders provide the "land" and the means to build on it. Almost eight million people have registered, although how many have persevered with the sometimes slow servers and complex structure is not made clear. But enough people have given themselves new names, and created new bodies in the form of their "avatars" to create a thriving populace, with homes and businesses, culture and crimes, in a DIY environment.
A thriving economy has sprung up, bringing at least one "property" millionaire, who has exploited the yearning for beach views even if that sand exists only in a machine in a Californian warehouse.
IN SECOND LIFE, you can sit on a whale, hang out with Jedi knights, visit one of the innumerable strip clubs, pull a pyramid from your pocket, ride the collapsing Twin Towers, or build your own Ferrari. Although, given that everyone can fly and that teleportation is the main mode of transport, there's not much call for roads.
It's also a generally friendly place, in which it's easy to approach a beautiful man or woman. Although, of course, almost everyone is beautiful.
Second Life gives residents the option of being obese. They don't take it.
Guest's online adventure takes regular detours into surrealism. For example, he visits an online hooker, but discovers that she has gone and kitted herself out with virtual genitals, while he is in the default situation of having none at all. "My first virtual sexual experience looked oddly like Action Man getting it on with a red-light girl."
That he loses a sense of proportion about this alternate world is not hidden from the reader - in fact, it is probably talked up for the sake of plot - but he plays it all a little too straight nevertheless. In his hunt for virtual property, for instance, he says he "fell in love" with a house with a hillside plot. Which is just plain silly.
And if virtual worlds are a digital drug, there are times when we could do without hearing other people's drug stories, because it only leads to anecdotes such as this one on a clash within Eve Online: "When Guiding Hand received a message from Arenis with the attack signal - 'Nicole' - they made their move. A Guiding Hand battleship appeared near Mirial's position. She fled for a nearby space station, but before she could reach safety, Arenis Xemdal turned his 'Navy Apocalypse' battle cruisers and pulse lasers and combat drones on her . . . ". That's even sillier.
OVERALL, THOUGH, IT'S a fascinating topic, and Guest does a good job of trying to put some shape on an ever-changing genre. He is most intriguing when linking his experiences in the new world with his childhood experience of growing up in a religious commune (which he wrote about in his memoir My Life in Orange). Both involve manipulated identities and controlled freedoms, and both are too easily wounded by criticism. However, the most accurate comparison is one that is not fully explored. Briefly, he mentions how some equate Second Life with the annual Burning Man festival, which takes place in the Nevada desert and features a DIY landscape of art and imagination, in which people reinvent themselves and reimagine their lives for a week. This is undoubtedly the closest thing real life has to Second Life. But anyone who has been to the Burning Man also knows that, like its online counterpart, it's a nice place to visit but you couldn't live there.
Shane Hegarty is an Irish Times journalist
Second Lives: A Journey Through Virtual Worlds By Tim Guest Hutchinson, 368pp. £12.99
