BOOK REVIEW: Otherworld by Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller
Have any of you readers played MMORPG games before? What in God's name am I blabbering about you may be thinking? MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) is an online role-playing video game in which a very large number of people participate simultaneously.
When I was younger I used to play Ragnorak online and World of Warcraft. I used to have avatars, characters that I create myself in the gaming world so that other gamers would recognize me. The games used to pull me into their depths, denying me access to my surroundings. I have since left the gaming world though I occasionally visit them for a breath of fun.
However, I believe I'm going to lay off them for good after reading this book. It gave me an insight into how twisted the gaming world has become and how those responsible for creating the video games have little conscience with their only aim of making gamers addicted for life on games.
In this novel, there is a company called The Company because they are one of the giants in the corporate industry. One thing they are most famous for is the creation of Otherworld, a virtual reality MMORPG that has gamers hooked on its life-like graphics and they even give you the sensations of the worlds you are in using cutting edge technology (haptic booties and gloves to feel cold, heat, pain, etc.).
Just like any other gamer, Simon thinks Otherworld is just a game. What he doesn't know is that the software is being tuned to make people enter a dangerous new world of virtual reality that can practically get you killed...When his friend Kat is diagnosed with locked-in syndrome (which at the end of the book you find she doesn't, The Company made her fall into the dreaded syndrome) after a freak accident, she is used as a beta-test for The Company's new software called The Disk that promises a new life in virtual reality for those who are in a coma.
Simon begins to unravel The Company's darkest secrets and what he finds leaves him shell-shocked and fighting for his life with many others stuck in the virtual world.
A gripping read for this year, I highly recommend this book to anyone who is addicted to gaming or for those who want a read that has you clinging to your seat. I'm definitely looking for the second book in the series due late this year which is Otherearth.
