As a grad student at Stanford, Jason Lind leads an active life: computer programming, teaching a course, being a teacher assistant, and sometimes writing papers for pretty girls. So maybe his life is active but not exciting. All of that changes when he becomes immersed in the popular virtual online gaming community in FORTUNA. Quickly, Jason discovers how thoroughly RL (real life) and the game world can merge...and how seriously some people take their games.
A wonderful exploration of the slippery slope of the seduction from a virtual world, FORTUNA is intricately detailed, well-researched, and thoroughly developed.
Longing for escape from his mundane existence as a Stanford
computer science major, Jason Lind signs up to play
Fortuna, an online role-playing game set in Renaissance
Florence.
From the first, fateful mouse click, Jason tumbles into the
vibrant, lush, anonymous world of Fortuna. Swept up in this
highly complex, highly addictive game of fame, fortune, and
power, Jason quickly transitions from casual gamer to
compulsive player.
Soon tangled up in a steamy virtual love triangle, Jason
becomes obsessed with breaking Fortuna's code of anonymity.
But Fortuna is anything but fun and games, and when a
sizable debt incurred in the game spills over into reality,
Jason is forced to leverage the legacy of his father, a
high-tech legend killed in a car accident years before, to
pay off the debt.
What started as a great escape may only leave Jason
trapped, as the game that transported Jason deep into the
past exposes a shocking, present-day reality.
In the world of Fortuna, it's not how you play the game;
it's if you survive.
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