Monday, October 25, 2010
Omnitopia Dawn: Omnitopia #1 [Hardcover]
Diane Duane (Author) 
From Booklist
Dev Logan is the eighth-richest man in the world, thanks to his invention of a massive multiplayer online game known as Omnitopia, in which players can venture into all sorts of vibrant, creative worlds and even have a shot at designing their own. The thousands of people Dev’s company employs are working toward a big goal: releasing an expansion to the game. With the expansion rollout just days away, Dev is worried about possible vulnerabilities in the system. His concerns are not unfounded: a skilled group of hackers is plotting an attack at the time the game’s servers will be most vulnerable, and Dev’s former business partner and friend is preparing a financial takedown of Dev’s company. Readers who have never ventured into the intricate world of online gaming will have a hard time seeing what all the fuss is about, but the many who have played World of Warcraft or its ilk will appreciate Duane’s rich description of Omnitopia’s many universes and enjoy the intrigue and drama surrounding the release of the expansion. --Kristine Huntley
Nifty take on a near-future gaming environment. Full of Duane's usual sympathies and understandings of people and play (see her Trek books!) - not to mention very smart computers. Not being an online gamer I'm not qualified to judge how current or likely to be a prediction this book's "future MMORPG" world is (I'm a Mario player, myself) it's still a fun story - and only the beginning of a series. After all, Spock's World uses a now very dated BBS environment on the Enterprise's computer network, and it is still a fun book - one I've read multiple times [just listened to the Audio book a few weeks ago.]
The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation by Barbara R. Rossing
Excellent rebuttal to the "Left Behind" series, and the theological framework behind it. Rossing does a good job at drawing the reader to the Biblical text and pointing us on to the REAL Biblical promise of Christ's return.
