Review: VIRTUALLY DEAD, Peter May

ISBN 978-1-59058-708-9
Poisoned Pen Press 2010, I read an ARC on my Kindle courtesy of the publishers.

Michael Kapinsky is a crime scene photographer still grieving over the death of his first wife Mora 6 months before. His therapist suggest that he join her Second Life therapy sessions. Initially Michael does not think this sounds like something for him, but he agrees to give it a try. He downloads the Second Life (SL) software onto his computer, sets up his avatar, and then begins to explore.

He realises that one of the homicide victims he recently photographed had SL running on his computer.

In Real Life (RL) Mike is running into some financial problems. His late wife had been the source of the money and their Californian beachside house is mortgaged for several million dollars. The rest of the money is tied up in shares that he can't touch. It is beginning to look as if he will have to sell up, and even then will walk away with nothing.

Then all of Mike's problems appear to be solved when a huge amount of money, more than the mortgage, appears in his SL account. Mike decides to take it out to pay the mortgage. That's when his SL and RL lives cross over and he finds that he owes "the mob".

VIRTUALLY DEAD is a crime fiction thriller in which, among other themes, Peter May explores connections SL residents have with each other, and with their RLs. He raises some interesting issues including the ways in which people use SL to explore things such as sexuality in ways they can't in RL. He looks too at crime in SL, and how it is dealt with. Mike Karpinsky finds himself investigating deaths in RL that coincide with the death of the SL avatar. Mike's mortgage issue links to the possibility of using SL for money laundering and tax evasion in RL.

I'm not sure VIRTUALLY DEAD will appeal to readers who know nothing about Second Life, and I suspect that to appreciate the nuances of the story you may need to have spent some time there and understand some of the possibilities. I think it will be a novel that will appeal to a "Second Life" readership.

It is a very different book to the last Peter May title I reviewed, THE RUNNER, and despite a personal interest in exploring virtual worlds like Second Life, it was not nearly as engaging for me, for at least the first half of the book. Perhaps this was partly because along with the avatars the author took considerable delight in exploring the sexual world of SL. One aspect I did find interesting was that May ceased to specifically tell the reader which world, SL or RL, the action was taking place in, and you had to use other indicators such as what was happening, or the names of the avatars. I liked also his exploration of how much most SL residents know about their RL personalities. In my explorations of SL I have always known who the avatar had been created by, but I accept there will be times when you will never know.

My rating: 4.2

If you are interested in reading more about crime fiction set in Second Life you might like to read my posts about WICKER by Kevin Guilfoile.

WICKER just won't go away

A few days back I wrote about WICKER by Kevin Guilfoile. I was talking to the friend who lent it to me and also the one that I handed it on to, about what has remained with me about it.

So, if you haven't read it, you may not want to go further here, just in case I spoil it for you.
What I'm going to do here is talk about some of the ideas about it that I have been mulling over.
I'm not going to repeat what I've already written either, so if you do want to read on, you might want to check my earlier "review" first.

First of all I think it is really two books in one. In fact it is divided into 2 distinct parts.

The first part is about cloning from DNA, the ethical issues that arise from that, and what you actually get when you clone a human.

• is the clone the twin of the earlier person, a duplicate perhaps?
• Is everything exactly the same? birthmarks, physical things like twitches
  
• is the mind/soul cloned too, or is there something outside the body that is the soul of the body? Is it possible therefore for a soul to have 2 bodies?
• what is the role of environment in shaping the child?
• is the baby born with "adult" intelligence, and just spends the years waiting for the body to catch up? Would their IQs be the same?
  
• Is there any sort of empathetic bond between the original and the clone?

The second part of the book is almost entirely about a virtual world called Shadowland, a game that people play. It is very similar to Second Life in being a 3D world inhabited by avatars.
However it differs from Second Life in the way it is constructed. Second Life is built by its inhabitants and often does emulate the real world, but is also often seen as place where the avatars can attempt things not possible in real life. The creators of Shadowland in WICKER have created a recognisable replica of the real world, and many of its inhabitants are TTLs (True to Lifers)

Here are some of the ideas explored

• a virtual world can be a release valve for people in the real world who have anti-social tendencies, or who want to understand "what it is like" to kill someone, or steal, or just drive a car extremely fast etc.
• Virtual worlds may have a beneficial social effect on the real world by keeping the crime rate down, or reducing the murder rate, by allowing players/avatars to commit these things in the virtual world, rather than the real one.
• A murderer may practice his technique in the virtual world, before he/she murders in the real one
• restraints that hold us back in the real world have been relaxed in the virtual one
• People may use the virtual world for establishing relationships in the real one.
• Life is cheap in the virtual world. Values as we know them don't exist.
  

There have been some interesting reports of this issue which perhaps Kevin Guilfoile had in mind.

• SL "represents an unhealthy disengagement from, and evasion of, the real world."
• Just Killin': Avatar Murder: the act of two consenting adults simulating murder, killing, and war are not only permitted without debate in SL, they are accommodated
• Virtual Rape is Traumatic but is it a crime?
• Hidden Virtual World Prison Revealed. Dubbed the "The Corn Field," the moonlit environment contains only rows of corn, two television sets, an aging tractor and a one-way teleport terminal allowing no escape.
• SL Community Incident Report: the crimes detected recently include assault, illegal gambling, littering, spamming, and use of a weapon
• Child abuse, pornography in Second life
  

Make you think doesn't it?