TINAG by Walter Jon Williams
The novel portrays a very believable world of gaming development and seamlessly tells the story of how technology and the smarts of the geeks could have impacted the rest of the world.
It began with the protagonist, a game writer, being trapped in anarchist Jakarta after an economic meltdown. She was just returning from a trip that involved a huge scale ARG (alternate reality game) based in Bangalore. Every attempt to rescue her failed, and each time she was informed about it through her satellite phone. Which makes us wonder if everything was just a huge set up to put the game writer as a player in one of a game like the ones she wrote. In the end, she was rescued by the collective efforts of gamers who played her previous games, via discussion on forums and them asking help from real people that they know.
It was a good start for the rest of the novel, as it provides the reader a miniature of whats happening in the rest of the story. It helps the reader grasp the concept of ARG and its possibilities, and it charts the plot of the novel.
This novel is a thought provoking novel. It entertains the what ifs of the techno-savvy gaming world. Many instances in the novel, the characters are confused whether an event belongs in the make believe world of the game or to the real world. Often, the decisions they take as a result of this misunderstanding, impacted the real world and moved the story along. The technocrats in the story, although were portrayed as very intelligent and belonging to a class of their own, are prone to mistakes and follies as ordinary human beings. Just that theirs has bigger consequences.
Although I sound so like a noob in the above paragraphs, I would still recommend this novel to those who loves a story with smarts. It is a well researched and thoughtful novel. It is as if you are looking through the eyes of a technocrat themselves, not only tech-savvy but very learned and cultured. It is a thriller with brains that is unputdownable.
