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Omnitopia #1
Omnitopia Dawn: Omnitopia Series, Book 1
In an increasingly wired and computer-friendly world, massive multiplayer online games have become the ultimate form of entertainment. And the most popular gaming universe of all is Omnitopia, created by genius programmer Dev Logan. For millions of people around the world, Omnitopia is an obsession, a passionate pastime, almost a way of life. But there's a secret to Omnitopia, one that Dev would give his life to protect—the game isn't just a program or a piece of code. It's become sentient—alive. And it's Dev's job to keep it that way.
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First published July 22, 2010
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About the author
Diane Duane
167 books2,416 followersDiane Duane has been a writer of science fiction, fantasy, TV and film for more than forty years.
Besides the 1980's creation of the Young Wizards fantasy series for which she's best known, the "Middle Kingdoms" epic fantasy series, and numerous stand-alone fantasy or science fiction novels, her career has included extensive work in the Star Trek TM universe, and many scripts for live-action and animated TV series on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as work in comics and computer games. She has spent a fair amount of time on the New York Times Bestseller List, and has picked up various awards and award nominations here and there.
She lives in County Wicklow, in Ireland, with her husband of more than thirty years, the screenwriter and novelist Peter Morwood.
Her favorite color is blue, her favorite food is a weird kind of Swiss scrambled-potato dish called maluns, she was born in a Year of the Dragon, and her sign is "Runway 24 Left, Hold For Clearance."
(From her official website)
Besides the 1980's creation of the Young Wizards fantasy series for which she's best known, the "Middle Kingdoms" epic fantasy series, and numerous stand-alone fantasy or science fiction novels, her career has included extensive work in the Star Trek TM universe, and many scripts for live-action and animated TV series on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as work in comics and computer games. She has spent a fair amount of time on the New York Times Bestseller List, and has picked up various awards and award nominations here and there.
She lives in County Wicklow, in Ireland, with her husband of more than thirty years, the screenwriter and novelist Peter Morwood.
Her favorite color is blue, her favorite food is a weird kind of Swiss scrambled-potato dish called maluns, she was born in a Year of the Dragon, and her sign is "Runway 24 Left, Hold For Clearance."
(From her official website)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 154 reviews
hibernating
June 5, 2014This book is badly written, but it is like a train-wreck, I can't look away.
My response to chapter 1:
I was a gamer when I was in my mid-20s. My husband and I would spend every spare moment gaming. One day in the middle of an 8-hour raid one of the other players apologised for being distracted, his children had just came in and bothered him.
I was horrified. He had children and had spent 8 hours game playing with people that he did not know.
For me game-playing is something done by people with plenty of time to wasted, and parents are not those people.
This book is about a guy who plays games, he has three kids and a wife, and they are always working double-shifts at real jobs, and he is also obsessed with this game.
His wife is overworked, his kids are ignored, but he plays this game. It is disgusting. Even more disgusting was when he got a major in-game opportunity, selected to create and run a sub-world in the game, and her reaction was of pride... pride because they game developers had realised how wonderful a specimen of a man he was.
Dear wife-of-this-man.... this is not a wonderful moment, your husband has an addiction and wouldn't it suck to be his kids.
I have only just started this book, I suspect this will all be washed over and it sucks, because it is the sad part of gaming, it is the difference between a bunch of young singles going clubbing a few nights a week (not a great use of time, but relatively harmless to anyone other then themselves) and a father, with a young family, spending hours every day at the local pub (which will have significant impact on his family).
My response to chapter 2:
So now we meet the other guy, the billionaire who created the game. We learn a lot about him, this chapter goes into amazing detail about him, his wife, their house. In some ways the descriptions are really good, and in other ways they are horrendously boring... I don't really care that his wife screws up her eyes while sleeping, it is all way too much detail because non of it comes with any particularly impressive incites into character personalities, or plot-developments. The writing itself was not making me cringe, but every so often I would realise I had just listened to a 10minute description of the inside of his bedroom, and I would think... I don't care, why am I still listening.... at which point I would look back at the sink full of dirty dishes and keep scrubbing (because this entire book will be listened too while I am in the kitchen doing the dishes).
My response to chapter 1:
I was a gamer when I was in my mid-20s. My husband and I would spend every spare moment gaming. One day in the middle of an 8-hour raid one of the other players apologised for being distracted, his children had just came in and bothered him.
I was horrified. He had children and had spent 8 hours game playing with people that he did not know.
For me game-playing is something done by people with plenty of time to wasted, and parents are not those people.
This book is about a guy who plays games, he has three kids and a wife, and they are always working double-shifts at real jobs, and he is also obsessed with this game.
His wife is overworked, his kids are ignored, but he plays this game. It is disgusting. Even more disgusting was when he got a major in-game opportunity, selected to create and run a sub-world in the game, and her reaction was of pride... pride because they game developers had realised how wonderful a specimen of a man he was.
Dear wife-of-this-man.... this is not a wonderful moment, your husband has an addiction and wouldn't it suck to be his kids.
I have only just started this book, I suspect this will all be washed over and it sucks, because it is the sad part of gaming, it is the difference between a bunch of young singles going clubbing a few nights a week (not a great use of time, but relatively harmless to anyone other then themselves) and a father, with a young family, spending hours every day at the local pub (which will have significant impact on his family).
My response to chapter 2:
So now we meet the other guy, the billionaire who created the game. We learn a lot about him, this chapter goes into amazing detail about him, his wife, their house. In some ways the descriptions are really good, and in other ways they are horrendously boring... I don't really care that his wife screws up her eyes while sleeping, it is all way too much detail because non of it comes with any particularly impressive incites into character personalities, or plot-developments. The writing itself was not making me cringe, but every so often I would realise I had just listened to a 10minute description of the inside of his bedroom, and I would think... I don't care, why am I still listening.... at which point I would look back at the sink full of dirty dishes and keep scrubbing (because this entire book will be listened too while I am in the kitchen doing the dishes).
September 22, 2011
While not without at least one serious flaw, Omnitopia Dawn is wonderful, classic sci-fi, and deserves a bigger readership than it's seeming to get.
This is an easy book for "if you're a fan of... you'll like..." - the game company Omnitopia (located right next to the ASU campus, and I'd give limbs to work there!) is so reminiscent of early Kim Stanley Robinson's utopianism that I dreamed about him last night. The black hat/white hat thriller plot driven by strong (if stereotyped) characters is pure Robert J. Sawyer, while the blend of hacking and financial shenanigans is redolent of Charlie Stross. There are hat-tips to numerous SF classics (including one small detail that will give away a major later plot twist, for the attentive reader).
Omnitopia Dawn is charming, thrilling and fun, and a lot of readers will wish they could work and play in either Omnitopia the company or the game.
However. The work is limited by its very black hat/white hat characterization, which might be a product of the author's background in YA. The hero is perfect, perfect perfect, the villain a little richer but terribly whiny. Most of the women are Helpful And Supportive Wives, which is... weak.
So, YMMV with this one. One could easily be put off by the characterization, or not care for a lot of financial thriller in your SF tale. Me, I was engrossed and charmed, and willing to give a pass to the disbelief-stretching characterizations.
This is an easy book for "if you're a fan of... you'll like..." - the game company Omnitopia (located right next to the ASU campus, and I'd give limbs to work there!) is so reminiscent of early Kim Stanley Robinson's utopianism that I dreamed about him last night. The black hat/white hat thriller plot driven by strong (if stereotyped) characters is pure Robert J. Sawyer, while the blend of hacking and financial shenanigans is redolent of Charlie Stross. There are hat-tips to numerous SF classics (including one small detail that will give away a major later plot twist, for the attentive reader).
Omnitopia Dawn is charming, thrilling and fun, and a lot of readers will wish they could work and play in either Omnitopia the company or the game.
However. The work is limited by its very black hat/white hat characterization, which might be a product of the author's background in YA. The hero is perfect, perfect perfect, the villain a little richer but terribly whiny. Most of the women are Helpful And Supportive Wives, which is... weak.
So, YMMV with this one. One could easily be put off by the characterization, or not care for a lot of financial thriller in your SF tale. Me, I was engrossed and charmed, and willing to give a pass to the disbelief-stretching characterizations.
December 4, 2011
In the middle of the first chapter of Omnitopia Dawn by Diane Duane, I kept thinking "I've played this book". Not "I've read this book", but "I've played this book", as in there's a game just like this. And there is. The beginning of the book is from the perspective of a player in an extremely immersive massively multiplayer online world that is so detailed that at first the reader doesn't realize that the perspective is inside a game. Then, he steps back into "real" life, and you realize he was playing his character, and this book is about the game.
Several years ago, I played a series of video games that mimicked both a massively multiplayer online world and the player's online chat experience during the game as it invaded reality. I really thought I was reading dot Hack, which was the game in question. It would have made a pretty good novel. But Omnitopia only started out the same as the game.
Omnitopia Dawn, dot Hack, and also, surprisingly, Fantasy in Death by J.D. Robb, all have an element in common, that of using video gaming worlds to affect the so-called "real" world. But J.D. Robb uses the next step in virtual reality as a murder weapon. In dot Hack, the theme is mind control. But Omnitopia Dawn is much more deeply layered. The company behind the game is intended as a jab at high tech companies with their own internal geek culture, like Apple, Google, and even Microsoft back in the day.
But in Omnitopia Dawn, the real world is going to be affected in real ways, not virtual ones. Real competitors of the corporation behind Omnitopia plan to use the launch of the next upgrade to launch a very real attack on Omnitopia's servers using very real viruses, denial of service attacks and other tools that read like natural progressions from today's headlines. And the intent behind these attacks is to steal very real money from the company, and if possible to drive Omnitopia out of business, so that its competitors win.
Under the fantasy layer, and the business layer, there is a science fiction layer. Omnitopia's server network is vast and its founder has programmed it with its own individual persona and artificial intelligence. The new upgrade to the system has caused something unexpected to happen to that artificial intelligence. It has, like so many systems before it, become self-aware. And in the attack launched by Omnitopia's enemies, it starts to defend itself.
The first self-aware machine I remember reading about was Mike in Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Not all of Heinlein's adult works wear well because some of his attitudes about women (among other things) were very definitely of his time and not ours. But I still remember the character of Mike very fondly. Mike named himself for Mycroft Holmes. But Mike was the computer that ran all the systems on the moon, and eventually accreted enough memory, inputs, data, whatever to become sentient. Two things about Mike stuck with me. His friend, Manny, teaching him about humor and jokes, the difference between funny once and funny always, and that Mike doesn't live to see the revolution he brings about.
There was a long moment at the end of Omnitopia Dawn where I was afraid I was reading about Mike again.
Several years ago, I played a series of video games that mimicked both a massively multiplayer online world and the player's online chat experience during the game as it invaded reality. I really thought I was reading dot Hack, which was the game in question. It would have made a pretty good novel. But Omnitopia only started out the same as the game.
Omnitopia Dawn, dot Hack, and also, surprisingly, Fantasy in Death by J.D. Robb, all have an element in common, that of using video gaming worlds to affect the so-called "real" world. But J.D. Robb uses the next step in virtual reality as a murder weapon. In dot Hack, the theme is mind control. But Omnitopia Dawn is much more deeply layered. The company behind the game is intended as a jab at high tech companies with their own internal geek culture, like Apple, Google, and even Microsoft back in the day.
But in Omnitopia Dawn, the real world is going to be affected in real ways, not virtual ones. Real competitors of the corporation behind Omnitopia plan to use the launch of the next upgrade to launch a very real attack on Omnitopia's servers using very real viruses, denial of service attacks and other tools that read like natural progressions from today's headlines. And the intent behind these attacks is to steal very real money from the company, and if possible to drive Omnitopia out of business, so that its competitors win.
Under the fantasy layer, and the business layer, there is a science fiction layer. Omnitopia's server network is vast and its founder has programmed it with its own individual persona and artificial intelligence. The new upgrade to the system has caused something unexpected to happen to that artificial intelligence. It has, like so many systems before it, become self-aware. And in the attack launched by Omnitopia's enemies, it starts to defend itself.
The first self-aware machine I remember reading about was Mike in Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Not all of Heinlein's adult works wear well because some of his attitudes about women (among other things) were very definitely of his time and not ours. But I still remember the character of Mike very fondly. Mike named himself for Mycroft Holmes. But Mike was the computer that ran all the systems on the moon, and eventually accreted enough memory, inputs, data, whatever to become sentient. Two things about Mike stuck with me. His friend, Manny, teaching him about humor and jokes, the difference between funny once and funny always, and that Mike doesn't live to see the revolution he brings about.
There was a long moment at the end of Omnitopia Dawn where I was afraid I was reading about Mike again.
May 11, 2011
Unsatisfying.
This book describes a conflict between a Good CEO and a Bad CEO; each of them own large companies which run MMORPGs. Corporate America being what it is, the Good CEO and the Bad CEO don't directly interact; in fact all we see of the Bad CEO is a couple of scenes in which he introspects about how guilty he feels because he knows he's a bad person.
(In fairness, a decent chunk of the Good CEO's screen time is taken up with the author narrating how awesome it is that he's such a nice person.)
If I'm reading the hints correctly, the Good and Bad CEOs, and the Good CEO's online game, are actually playing pieces in a larger ongoing conflict between the Forces Of Good and the Forces Of Evil. This explains why they're so painfully archetypal. I'm guessing the author planned to follow up on this in a sequel.
Anyway the book is pretty awkward, as you might expect from a novel that tries to superimpose Absolute Good and Absolute Evil onto Corporate America. It doesn't help that a large chunk of the game takes place inside an MMO, and the author has to slowly and carefully explain how everything works.
This book describes a conflict between a Good CEO and a Bad CEO; each of them own large companies which run MMORPGs. Corporate America being what it is, the Good CEO and the Bad CEO don't directly interact; in fact all we see of the Bad CEO is a couple of scenes in which he introspects about how guilty he feels because he knows he's a bad person.
(In fairness, a decent chunk of the Good CEO's screen time is taken up with the author narrating how awesome it is that he's such a nice person.)
If I'm reading the hints correctly, the Good and Bad CEOs, and the Good CEO's online game, are actually playing pieces in a larger ongoing conflict between the Forces Of Good and the Forces Of Evil. This explains why they're so painfully archetypal. I'm guessing the author planned to follow up on this in a sequel.
Anyway the book is pretty awkward, as you might expect from a novel that tries to superimpose Absolute Good and Absolute Evil onto Corporate America. It doesn't help that a large chunk of the game takes place inside an MMO, and the author has to slowly and carefully explain how everything works.
October 30, 2014
While not an MMPORG player myself, I know a fair bit about them from my geeky RPing friends. (I'm geeky but not RPing, if you see the difference.) That may make me the perfect audience for this book. I suspect actual gamers might object to some of the details.
Published in 2010, this book is near-future, set in 2015. Some of the "future tech" is already obsolete (who has a PDA anymore? just use your smartphone for that), but overall the near/alternate-future is fairly believable.
From fairly early on, I predicted two things: There are few real surprises, but it's a really fun ride, and the universes are lushly detailed and the characterizations layered and complex.
Published in 2010, this book is near-future, set in 2015. Some of the "future tech" is already obsolete (who has a PDA anymore? just use your smartphone for that), but overall the near/alternate-future is fairly believable.
From fairly early on, I predicted two things: There are few real surprises, but it's a really fun ride, and the universes are lushly detailed and the characterizations layered and complex.
November 11, 2010
I had some problems with this book, resulting in a slog through the first three hundred pages. The bad guys are all way too evil, of the twirling-mustache type; the good guys pretty unalloyed good. Lots of business talk which is important but does nothing for me. Very few of the characters change or grow in any way--off the top of my head, I can think of Arnulf and Angela, and Cora, and that's about it. (Not counting Delia, who may change after the action but was mostly being reacted against.) I wonder how the hidden portal within the Telekil world was first envisioned, it seems like an insane idea from the business standpoint. I do like the idea of altruism as a force, and allowing creativity from the public. The imagery of the made-up worlds, as pictures and as codes and as allegories, was wonderful. And I did want to keep reading enough to find out how the bad guys got their comeuppance. But it wasn't the rapid can't-wait read-through that I had expected.
January 30, 2014
This started out a little slow, and took forever to introduce all of the major characters. But most of the characters felt real to me once I got to know them, and I think I'm going to miss them now that I've finished the book! I enjoyed this world, even though I've never really done any gaming like this. The aspect that really fascinated me was the happy work environment with all the loyal employees who loved their job and felt like an important part of a team creating something really great together. What a fun place to work! I enjoyed reading about it.
September 8, 2013
I read this at the recommendation of someone that said this book was a better written "Ready Player One". Unfortunately I can not agree with that assessment. The writing was OK but the story isn't too similar to Cline's novel. It seems the virtual reality world is almost a background element to this book. It is more about corporate espionage in the digital age. It is missing the identifiable hero. And the ending (last two chapters) is disappointing and takes a big 180.
January 4, 2014
I had no idea this book was coming. In fact, I found it completely by accident--a serendipity that completely turned my day around. Disclaimer: anything Ms. Duane writes, I read. That said, I like to consider myself a pretty good judge of literature after almost forty years' practice!
The product description gives a decent synopsis of the plot's frame, but it leaves out how rich the characters are, how complex the game is, and the many threads that go to make up the story. If you like what Ms. Duane did in Tom Clancy's universe, you'll love this one. If you have a special place in your heart for High Wizardry, this will delight you too. But I don't want to say more, lest I give it all away...
This is classic Duane--characters that are instantly real and distinguishable and likeable. I even felt a little sorry for the antagonist, because the character is human, a mix of good and evil; no cardboard cutouts here. There are some wonderfully funny moments (the cow? Really??) and probably a few inside jokes I'm missing. *grin*
The story isn't perfect; there are some unresolved issues and what feels like too many POVs, but that is made less detracting when one considers that this is the first in a series. There are also more than a few typographical errors, which surprised me, but that's an increasing trend these days, alas.
It left me wanting desperately to be able to play too. Maybe someday...
The product description gives a decent synopsis of the plot's frame, but it leaves out how rich the characters are, how complex the game is, and the many threads that go to make up the story. If you like what Ms. Duane did in Tom Clancy's universe, you'll love this one. If you have a special place in your heart for High Wizardry, this will delight you too. But I don't want to say more, lest I give it all away...
This is classic Duane--characters that are instantly real and distinguishable and likeable. I even felt a little sorry for the antagonist, because the character is human, a mix of good and evil; no cardboard cutouts here. There are some wonderfully funny moments (the cow? Really??) and probably a few inside jokes I'm missing. *grin*
The story isn't perfect; there are some unresolved issues and what feels like too many POVs, but that is made less detracting when one considers that this is the first in a series. There are also more than a few typographical errors, which surprised me, but that's an increasing trend these days, alas.
It left me wanting desperately to be able to play too. Maybe someday...
December 24, 2010
It's fun, it's light, it's got glowing trees and swords made out of code.
I was skeptical when I learned the book was about a MMORPG, since that story has basically been done to death, but I held out hope that Duane would surprise me with something new. Unfortunately, there's no new story here. She spends most of her time establishing her cliched characters, the good-guy-corporate-man and the bad-guy-corporate-man. I do like the Omnitopia universe, standard-issue as it is, though its world-building is suspiciously like a techie version of her Young Wizards magic (replace "code" with "Speech" and much of this could have been a YW book). I wish more pages had been dedicated to the world-building rather than ramblings into hacker details and corporate espionage.
I am withholding a certain amount of judgment on this book until I see where the series is going. There is some excellent potential revealed toward the end, and I can forgive a lot of this book if it is just a setup for something much different. The "villain" Sorensen could actually be worth exploring, his motives become more interesting as it goes along. I will hold out hope for Duane to make this into something.
I was skeptical when I learned the book was about a MMORPG, since that story has basically been done to death, but I held out hope that Duane would surprise me with something new. Unfortunately, there's no new story here. She spends most of her time establishing her cliched characters, the good-guy-corporate-man and the bad-guy-corporate-man. I do like the Omnitopia universe, standard-issue as it is, though its world-building is suspiciously like a techie version of her Young Wizards magic (replace "code" with "Speech" and much of this could have been a YW book). I wish more pages had been dedicated to the world-building rather than ramblings into hacker details and corporate espionage.
I am withholding a certain amount of judgment on this book until I see where the series is going. There is some excellent potential revealed toward the end, and I can forgive a lot of this book if it is just a setup for something much different. The "villain" Sorensen could actually be worth exploring, his motives become more interesting as it goes along. I will hold out hope for Duane to make this into something.
March 6, 2012
I liked this story just fine, and I'll probably read the next installment with some enjoyment. But I think it's important that reader's coming into this story know what it is not. It is not an uber-geek exploration of VR worlds and tech. In fact it spend relatively little time on tech and on how the worlds work inside the game--most of it is spent on character and on how cool the games are. There's some neat stuff here, but if you're into gaming on the techie side, this probably will seem a bit fluffy and nonspecific.
Likewise the story is a bit . . . black and white. Not that I don't enjoy that sort of story once in a while, but if you don't like knowing who the heroes and villains are as soon as you meet them . . . well, this isn't your book. Omnitopia is a nice romp through an imagined game world and what happens to it and it's creator when the whole system is attacked. It's definitely on the lighter side of storytelling (don't expect something like Game of Thrones in these pages!) but plenty of fun to read nonetheless.
Likewise the story is a bit . . . black and white. Not that I don't enjoy that sort of story once in a while, but if you don't like knowing who the heroes and villains are as soon as you meet them . . . well, this isn't your book. Omnitopia is a nice romp through an imagined game world and what happens to it and it's creator when the whole system is attacked. It's definitely on the lighter side of storytelling (don't expect something like Game of Thrones in these pages!) but plenty of fun to read nonetheless.
October 28, 2010
I'm a big fan of Diane Duane's Young Wizard's series. This is the first "adult" book of hers that I've read. I can see a lot of similarities in her themes between this book and the Young Wizard's series.
This book takes place in 2015. An online game called Omnitopia (think World of Warcraft meets Second Life times 100) is about to update to its latest release. The main characters are the owner of the company and an experienced player who has just been given the opportunity to create his own little corner of the game called a microcosm. Omnitopia has to deal with the usual obstacles to rolling out such a large update to a hugely popular game as well as a massive attack by an organized group of hackers that plan to steal hundreds of millions of dollars.
I wanted more character development than Duane provides. She spends so much time describing the world that she has created that the story develops very slowly. The end leaves more questions than answers and I hope that she writes a sequel.
This book takes place in 2015. An online game called Omnitopia (think World of Warcraft meets Second Life times 100) is about to update to its latest release. The main characters are the owner of the company and an experienced player who has just been given the opportunity to create his own little corner of the game called a microcosm. Omnitopia has to deal with the usual obstacles to rolling out such a large update to a hugely popular game as well as a massive attack by an organized group of hackers that plan to steal hundreds of millions of dollars.
I wanted more character development than Duane provides. She spends so much time describing the world that she has created that the story develops very slowly. The end leaves more questions than answers and I hope that she writes a sequel.
September 19, 2011
Another story partially set in an MMO. Basically a story of industrial espionage culminating in a hacker attack against the game world. I like Duane's writing and have read a lot of her books, but I'm finding her characters are becoming more and more two dimensional. The good guys are all very similar - personable, competent, inclined to breezy flippancy while they heroically do this or that, never showing the smallest character flaw. Maybe this is a byproduct of all the young adult books she's been writing, but it doesn't work so well in a non-YA book and left me feeling as if this story was a bit shallow and insubstantial. The game world itself was interesting but the descriptions of in-game events trod a very fine line between sounding more like magic than technology. A light enjoyable read but overall I felt unsatisfied.
October 27, 2012
I'm not sure why, but I expected more of the novel to take place in-game. I was expecting it to be more like Ready Player One. The game sounds like it would be fun.
The main focus of the story is actually on getting a new expansion released and the stock price of the company releasing the game. It's actually more interesting than it sounds because a lot of it does play out in-game.
It's not as good as Ready Player One but it was entertaining.
The main focus of the story is actually on getting a new expansion released and the stock price of the company releasing the game. It's actually more interesting than it sounds because a lot of it does play out in-game.
It's not as good as Ready Player One but it was entertaining.
April 14, 2018
By the end of this book I really enjoyed the overall story but found it to be a tough read. I felt the stories “twists”. We’re very obvious but still enjoyed reading through to see just how they were revealed. The author attempted to weave together so many different aspects for the “big reveal” at the end I think she had to divulge too much information for each one that it took away the element of surprise and made some of the early chapters very dry! Overall I just like these geeky stories and all their nerd speak!
December 6, 2010
I had to roll my eyes so often and so hard while listening to this audiobook, folks around me probably think I have some kind of nervous tic.
The good guys in this story are so perfect, so righteous and so very honest it gets kind of ridiculous.
There are no grey areas or moral ambiguities, leading to dull and boring characters.
It's a shame, really. In more capable hands this could have been quite epic.
The good guys in this story are so perfect, so righteous and so very honest it gets kind of ridiculous.
There are no grey areas or moral ambiguities, leading to dull and boring characters.
It's a shame, really. In more capable hands this could have been quite epic.
April 6, 2016
This is likely a gamers dream book. It has everything, VR, WOW like community and gaming, game characters from every genre. At its heart, this is a revenge novel with conflict between competing software developers. While not exactly well written, I was riveted to the story and raced through it. I listened while at work yesterday and kept missing my breaks because I didn't want to pause the narrative. Great book.
August 30, 2010
I so want to play online in the Omnitopedia worlds. Sounds like a combination of WoW and Second Life and something bigger. What variety and what fun! I flew through this book, it sucked me right in and I was even okay with the ending. Can't wait for #2.
September 10, 2010
Doesn't really have any brilliant new ideas, but it was an interesting beach-style read. I'm interested enough to read the sequel.
May 9, 2016
Very enjoyable. I would love to work for that company!
October 13, 2022
Imagine Ready Player One, but good.
That may not seem like a fair comparison to either books, but it's absolutely unavoidable. They're both about virtual reality games that can be whatever their players want, and they both focus on a combination of corporate intrigue and player drama. But Ready Player One (which came out a year after Omnitopia Dawn) is unimpressive nonsense that only succeeded because it was stuffed with surface-level nostalgia bait, whereas Omnitopia Dawn is an excellent, original, well thought-out and realized story.
But because we live in hell, Ready Player One got turned into a goddamn Spielberg movie and Omnitopia Dawn's sequel got cancelled at the last minute.
Before going any further, I'd like to make one small point. Any time TV, movies, or even books depict full-immersion VR, they tend to do it in ways that don't hold up to even a tiny bit of scrutiny. The movie version of Ready Player One is a particular offender, but plenty of other stories are just as guilty. Omnitopia Dawn does VR well.
I do have one quibble about the book itself - some of the subplots feel a little underdeveloped, especially the part with the Time Magazine reporter. I would have appreciated a longer book with fully fledged subplots. As it is. Omnitopia Dawn has a main story that's fleshed out with a few series of vignettes along the way. There's nothing wrong with that.
There is an issue here, though. Modern readers might have a very hard time with several key aspects of Omnitopia Dawn. It's very much a product of its time. The main character, who is very much the hero of the story, is a tech billionaire who's also a good person. He's responsible, kind, and uses his fortune to make the world a better place. Given everything that we've learned about Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk, and even Gates, that's going to be very hard for a lot of people to swallow.
There are bad rich people in this story too - one of them is a major antagonist - but Omnitopia Dawn takes a basically neutral stance on extreme wealth. In the 12 years since it was published, that has become a position that's harder to defend.
Similarly, Omnitopia Dawn takes a utopian view about the promises of VR and persistent worlds. It doesn't embrace blockchains or metaverses, or even VR for anything other than gaming, but the world it depicts is pretty similar to the one that Web 3.0 grifters claim to deliver.
That's not a knock on Omnitopia Dawn. It's saying, in essence, "here's some cool stuff that could be done in VR gaming." The grifters are saying "our technology (which doesn't work and is just a big scam) will deliver some cool stuff in the VR world (but if you read the docs, our version of it will make the world a worse place)". Omnitopia-style cool VR stuff could absolutely be a good thing...but the whole concept has been rather tainted by the grifting community.
I see that I've written a lot of words about Omnitopia Dawn's weak points. I really hope you don't get the wrong impression. It's not a bad book, and it's not even problematic. It is, however, a period piece, written about a particular part of society right before our view of that subculture underwent a massive shift. As long as you read Omnitopia Dawn as a period piece, you're going to have a great time. Seriously, give it a try.
That may not seem like a fair comparison to either books, but it's absolutely unavoidable. They're both about virtual reality games that can be whatever their players want, and they both focus on a combination of corporate intrigue and player drama. But Ready Player One (which came out a year after Omnitopia Dawn) is unimpressive nonsense that only succeeded because it was stuffed with surface-level nostalgia bait, whereas Omnitopia Dawn is an excellent, original, well thought-out and realized story.
But because we live in hell, Ready Player One got turned into a goddamn Spielberg movie and Omnitopia Dawn's sequel got cancelled at the last minute.
Before going any further, I'd like to make one small point. Any time TV, movies, or even books depict full-immersion VR, they tend to do it in ways that don't hold up to even a tiny bit of scrutiny. The movie version of Ready Player One is a particular offender, but plenty of other stories are just as guilty. Omnitopia Dawn does VR well.
I do have one quibble about the book itself - some of the subplots feel a little underdeveloped, especially the part with the Time Magazine reporter. I would have appreciated a longer book with fully fledged subplots. As it is. Omnitopia Dawn has a main story that's fleshed out with a few series of vignettes along the way. There's nothing wrong with that.
There is an issue here, though. Modern readers might have a very hard time with several key aspects of Omnitopia Dawn. It's very much a product of its time. The main character, who is very much the hero of the story, is a tech billionaire who's also a good person. He's responsible, kind, and uses his fortune to make the world a better place. Given everything that we've learned about Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk, and even Gates, that's going to be very hard for a lot of people to swallow.
There are bad rich people in this story too - one of them is a major antagonist - but Omnitopia Dawn takes a basically neutral stance on extreme wealth. In the 12 years since it was published, that has become a position that's harder to defend.
Similarly, Omnitopia Dawn takes a utopian view about the promises of VR and persistent worlds. It doesn't embrace blockchains or metaverses, or even VR for anything other than gaming, but the world it depicts is pretty similar to the one that Web 3.0 grifters claim to deliver.
That's not a knock on Omnitopia Dawn. It's saying, in essence, "here's some cool stuff that could be done in VR gaming." The grifters are saying "our technology (which doesn't work and is just a big scam) will deliver some cool stuff in the VR world (but if you read the docs, our version of it will make the world a worse place)". Omnitopia-style cool VR stuff could absolutely be a good thing...but the whole concept has been rather tainted by the grifting community.
I see that I've written a lot of words about Omnitopia Dawn's weak points. I really hope you don't get the wrong impression. It's not a bad book, and it's not even problematic. It is, however, a period piece, written about a particular part of society right before our view of that subculture underwent a massive shift. As long as you read Omnitopia Dawn as a period piece, you're going to have a great time. Seriously, give it a try.
April 2, 2018
I forget what book I was looking for when I randomly came across Omnitopia at my library. I like the strategy of books about "massive multiplayer online role playing games" (MMORPGs) and so I’ve read several of them. This book, however, simply uses a successful MMORPG as background for a corporate intrigue story. The main character, Dev, is the programmer behind the world’s most successful MMORPG and, as a result, is the eighth wealthiest man in the world. A personal and professional competitor of Dev's arranges a cyber attack on Dev's company in a manner meant to reduce the share price of the company thereby allowing the competitor to buy a controlling interest.
I tend to dwell on the issues I have with books so let me say first that this is a good book. I don't particularly like corporate intrigue books and I did have to force myself to keep reading a couple of times when it felt like the author was artificially drawing things out to create tension. Still the ending was enjoyable and I felt rewarded for reading the whole book.
Given the setting I found the big twist in the book completely predictable even though it wasn't really foreshadowed. To discuss further I will have to give a SPOILER so skip the rest of this paragraph to avoid SPOILERS. The big twist at the end is that the MC accidentally created artificial intelligence. The author does a good job of describing how a unique set of circumstances brought that about. However, the author completely ignores the fact that the world, at least from what I've read, will almost certainly have nascent AI before fully immersive MMORPGs. In fact, depending on how you want to measure such things, it could be argued that we already have weak AIs. So, given the current make up of the world, it is fairly bizarre that this guy would make an AI by accident rather than be trying to make one intentionally and only succeed by accident.
So, without spoilers, all that can be said is the big twist could have been better thought out in light of real world happenings. Additionally the weird relationship between Dev and his father felt contrived simply to be able to pull at the reader's heart-strings that much more. Finally, the twist makes for a pretty convenient resolution. Essentially the twist happens and everything falls into line, which didn't have to be the case. The author could have explored a more difficult resolution and likely would have had a better book for it.
Bottom line: Good book, worth the read, but not great.
I tend to dwell on the issues I have with books so let me say first that this is a good book. I don't particularly like corporate intrigue books and I did have to force myself to keep reading a couple of times when it felt like the author was artificially drawing things out to create tension. Still the ending was enjoyable and I felt rewarded for reading the whole book.
Given the setting I found the big twist in the book completely predictable even though it wasn't really foreshadowed. To discuss further I will have to give a SPOILER so skip the rest of this paragraph to avoid SPOILERS. The big twist at the end is that the MC accidentally created artificial intelligence. The author does a good job of describing how a unique set of circumstances brought that about. However, the author completely ignores the fact that the world, at least from what I've read, will almost certainly have nascent AI before fully immersive MMORPGs. In fact, depending on how you want to measure such things, it could be argued that we already have weak AIs. So, given the current make up of the world, it is fairly bizarre that this guy would make an AI by accident rather than be trying to make one intentionally and only succeed by accident.
So, without spoilers, all that can be said is the big twist could have been better thought out in light of real world happenings. Additionally the weird relationship between Dev and his father felt contrived simply to be able to pull at the reader's heart-strings that much more. Finally, the twist makes for a pretty convenient resolution. Essentially the twist happens and everything falls into line, which didn't have to be the case. The author could have explored a more difficult resolution and likely would have had a better book for it.
Bottom line: Good book, worth the read, but not great.
October 11, 2012
That was certainly a story! I'm not really sure what to say about it.
The book is about a MMORPG that is on a level past what we see today. People actually log into it as a virtual reality, and within the world there are little sub worlds of different themes and game types. In many ways it's like the internet itself with various web pages, except the pages are worlds where people take on roles. Most of the ones described are your typical fantasy tropes with orcs and elves and swords, but it passes through historical scenarios and even one called "Million Monkeys" which is entirely text based, where people are attempting to improve on Shakespeare.
The story spends less time talking about the game worlds and more time talking about *creating* the game worlds. Someone who has no interest in MMO style games and no understanding or interest in computer programming will probably not enjoy this book. Someone who knows a LOT about computer programming might find it annoying, because it uses a made-up futuristic language which falls into a lot of "ooooooh it's the fuuuutttuuurrreee" traps and does a lot of unlikely things that a pedant will be annoyed by, like having a glowing sword that physically leads your programmer to any potential bugs in the system (which would be frikkin cool, but I'd like to see how that would work...). It also attempts to portray hacking attempts as in-game battles which really didn't work for me, but at least the battles were interestingly portrayed, if a little far-fetched. If you are someone who likes MMO style games and either have enough knowledge of the workings of programming, or at least the ability to enjoy sci-fi movies where you don't think too hard about how things were accomplished, you will probably really enjoy this book.
I found the writing style to be very vivid, to the degree that I could easily imagine this being a very good movie. The special effects paint themselves out for you. I also appreciated that the book knew when not to take itself too seriously, while never becoming too silly. There is some quality writing skill on display in this book.
I do have some writing critiques, though:
The story itself is quite slow to get going, and in the end it leaves you wondering how much else could have been included if it had been properly paced. It felt like the author was so excited to describe the world to you that they forgot to get the plot rolling until halfway through, and then they didn't have a whole lot of time left. Fortunately, everything is described really well, so I really only noticed it when I thought about it too hard. Still, it could have been improved. As it is, it's almost as if the plot is the fact that the game world exists, and then it goes "Oh and uh, then they fight." The fight is set up throughout the book, but it feels a little shallow.
There also seemed to be a lot of exposition on things that didn't really matter in the end. We spend a lot of time with Rik and his microcosm, and it was really cool to see how the worlds are built, and the subplot with his wife coming around and becoming involved was all cool... but what was the point? ... sooo was the the entire reason for this character? Because nothing else really important happened, there...
And then the bit at the start with the statue honouring the character/player who discovered how to travel to other worlds. That left me a little confused because it seemed like it was introducing something really important that would be vital to the story. Does it mean the world is actually linking to something outside of code??? Are there other gateways that will be discovered??? Are they going to discover it in this book??? ...nope, we're just never going to mention it again. So, was the gate placed there by the programmers as an in-game event and that character was just the first lucky one to discover it, or... I feel like I'm missing something and I'm not sure that it's entirely my fault.
Chekov's gun: "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the second act you should fire it. Otherwise, don't put it there."
This book is a veritable armory of Chekov's guns that are never fired and have no immediate purpose. Since this is a series, perhaps they will be important later... but I feel like I spent a lot of time reading about things that ultimately didn't matter, which makes me feel like I wasted time trying to get to the plot. Books should not leave their readers feeling like they wasted time :/
Secondly, the characters are entirely too black and white. The worldbuilding is amazing, but the character development borders on cartoonish. The good guy is sooooooo good and everyone loves him and he is so humble and caring and gosh isn't he great? And the bad guy is sooooo bad that he is just a bastion of evilness and bitterness and spite and you half expect the next scene to be him in a big chair stroking his fluffy white cat. There is no human motivation behind either of these characters, and it leaves them feeling artificial. The best characters are shades of grey. Their motivations are clear and relate-able, even if you don't agree with them. The good guy here is a CEO who apparently has such pure and altruistic motivations for his company that he has managed to create a blockbuster company and become the seventh richest man in the world without ever having a selfish thought for himself or his profit margins. Everyone loves him unconditionally (except the bad guys of course. But they're just jealous...) Humans do not work this way. It just usually doesn't happen. Companies who are entirely too altruistic go broke because they don't plan things properly, but this guy just doesn't make those kinds of mistakes. Even when he fucks up, it all works out in the end. When he farts, it smells like roses, and everyone thinks it's hilarious. Meanwhile, bad CEO is so consumed by thoughts of revenge that he's willing to put his entire (currently successful, just not *as* successful...) company on the line just to get back at good CEO. Bad CEO's company probably wouldn't be as successful as it is with such single-minded logic behind it. I feel like it all should have been fleshed out just a little bit more...
Not that I didn't enjoy the characters, I just feel that giving them more human motivations would deepen the story without losing anything. It felt like biased character development, where it was too risky to give the characters flaws or sympathetic points, lest we didn't view them in the intended way. But the result is somewhat artificial...
Those points aside, I really enjoyed this book. The story was unique in that I haven't read a whole lot of books about MMOs like this (maybe they exist and I've just missed them somehow, but I found it refreshingly unique anyway), but the ending was fairly predictable too (especially since the characters pretty much *can't* deviate from their stereotypes). It didn't stop me from blowing through it in two days. You know it's a good book when you get on your exercise bike and then notice an hour and a half later that your butt went numb.
The book is about a MMORPG that is on a level past what we see today. People actually log into it as a virtual reality, and within the world there are little sub worlds of different themes and game types. In many ways it's like the internet itself with various web pages, except the pages are worlds where people take on roles. Most of the ones described are your typical fantasy tropes with orcs and elves and swords, but it passes through historical scenarios and even one called "Million Monkeys" which is entirely text based, where people are attempting to improve on Shakespeare.
The story spends less time talking about the game worlds and more time talking about *creating* the game worlds. Someone who has no interest in MMO style games and no understanding or interest in computer programming will probably not enjoy this book. Someone who knows a LOT about computer programming might find it annoying, because it uses a made-up futuristic language which falls into a lot of "ooooooh it's the fuuuutttuuurrreee" traps and does a lot of unlikely things that a pedant will be annoyed by, like having a glowing sword that physically leads your programmer to any potential bugs in the system (which would be frikkin cool, but I'd like to see how that would work...). It also attempts to portray hacking attempts as in-game battles which really didn't work for me, but at least the battles were interestingly portrayed, if a little far-fetched. If you are someone who likes MMO style games and either have enough knowledge of the workings of programming, or at least the ability to enjoy sci-fi movies where you don't think too hard about how things were accomplished, you will probably really enjoy this book.
I found the writing style to be very vivid, to the degree that I could easily imagine this being a very good movie. The special effects paint themselves out for you. I also appreciated that the book knew when not to take itself too seriously, while never becoming too silly. There is some quality writing skill on display in this book.
I do have some writing critiques, though:
The story itself is quite slow to get going, and in the end it leaves you wondering how much else could have been included if it had been properly paced. It felt like the author was so excited to describe the world to you that they forgot to get the plot rolling until halfway through, and then they didn't have a whole lot of time left. Fortunately, everything is described really well, so I really only noticed it when I thought about it too hard. Still, it could have been improved. As it is, it's almost as if the plot is the fact that the game world exists, and then it goes "Oh and uh, then they fight." The fight is set up throughout the book, but it feels a little shallow.
There also seemed to be a lot of exposition on things that didn't really matter in the end. We spend a lot of time with Rik and his microcosm, and it was really cool to see how the worlds are built, and the subplot with his wife coming around and becoming involved was all cool... but what was the point? ... sooo was the the entire reason for this character? Because nothing else really important happened, there...
And then the bit at the start with the statue honouring the character/player who discovered how to travel to other worlds. That left me a little confused because it seemed like it was introducing something really important that would be vital to the story. Does it mean the world is actually linking to something outside of code??? Are there other gateways that will be discovered??? Are they going to discover it in this book??? ...nope, we're just never going to mention it again. So, was the gate placed there by the programmers as an in-game event and that character was just the first lucky one to discover it, or... I feel like I'm missing something and I'm not sure that it's entirely my fault.
Chekov's gun: "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the second act you should fire it. Otherwise, don't put it there."
This book is a veritable armory of Chekov's guns that are never fired and have no immediate purpose. Since this is a series, perhaps they will be important later... but I feel like I spent a lot of time reading about things that ultimately didn't matter, which makes me feel like I wasted time trying to get to the plot. Books should not leave their readers feeling like they wasted time :/
Secondly, the characters are entirely too black and white. The worldbuilding is amazing, but the character development borders on cartoonish. The good guy is sooooooo good and everyone loves him and he is so humble and caring and gosh isn't he great? And the bad guy is sooooo bad that he is just a bastion of evilness and bitterness and spite and you half expect the next scene to be him in a big chair stroking his fluffy white cat. There is no human motivation behind either of these characters, and it leaves them feeling artificial. The best characters are shades of grey. Their motivations are clear and relate-able, even if you don't agree with them. The good guy here is a CEO who apparently has such pure and altruistic motivations for his company that he has managed to create a blockbuster company and become the seventh richest man in the world without ever having a selfish thought for himself or his profit margins. Everyone loves him unconditionally (except the bad guys of course. But they're just jealous...) Humans do not work this way. It just usually doesn't happen. Companies who are entirely too altruistic go broke because they don't plan things properly, but this guy just doesn't make those kinds of mistakes. Even when he fucks up, it all works out in the end. When he farts, it smells like roses, and everyone thinks it's hilarious. Meanwhile, bad CEO is so consumed by thoughts of revenge that he's willing to put his entire (currently successful, just not *as* successful...) company on the line just to get back at good CEO. Bad CEO's company probably wouldn't be as successful as it is with such single-minded logic behind it. I feel like it all should have been fleshed out just a little bit more...
Not that I didn't enjoy the characters, I just feel that giving them more human motivations would deepen the story without losing anything. It felt like biased character development, where it was too risky to give the characters flaws or sympathetic points, lest we didn't view them in the intended way. But the result is somewhat artificial...
Those points aside, I really enjoyed this book. The story was unique in that I haven't read a whole lot of books about MMOs like this (maybe they exist and I've just missed them somehow, but I found it refreshingly unique anyway), but the ending was fairly predictable too (especially since the characters pretty much *can't* deviate from their stereotypes). It didn't stop me from blowing through it in two days. You know it's a good book when you get on your exercise bike and then notice an hour and a half later that your butt went numb.
October 11, 2018
Dev Logan and past partner Phil Something were best friends and developed virtual worlds together. They had a falling out and went on to create massive competing VR companies. Phil paid for an large scale attack on Dev's Omnitopia servers. There were bugs that the Omnitopia staff were able to fix using antoer characters microism (Rik). Dev disguised himself as a commoner to get into Riks world for testing, Riks world ended up saving the day. Omnitopia became self aware, Phil's plan failed, and everyone loves Omnitopia.
I don't like this author. She spent way too much time describing things in too much detail which felt like unnecessary fluff. A lot of the dialog was internal thoughts, which was sometimes hard to follow. The most interesting part of the story (Omnitopia becoming self aware) wasn't introduced until the final conflict, yet I wish she would have explored that more from the beginning. Parts were unrealistic - most dedicated developers wouldn't touch UI's, let alone spend the time making elobroate visual debugging systems, yet this inctircate and "beautiful" debugging platform was one of the main pieces of the entire plot. Also, it seemed like the author didn't fully understand how servers worked. It just wasn't a very compelling story - I wish the author would have left out the main conflict all together and just focused on the other parts.
I don't like this author. She spent way too much time describing things in too much detail which felt like unnecessary fluff. A lot of the dialog was internal thoughts, which was sometimes hard to follow. The most interesting part of the story (Omnitopia becoming self aware) wasn't introduced until the final conflict, yet I wish she would have explored that more from the beginning. Parts were unrealistic - most dedicated developers wouldn't touch UI's, let alone spend the time making elobroate visual debugging systems, yet this inctircate and "beautiful" debugging platform was one of the main pieces of the entire plot. Also, it seemed like the author didn't fully understand how servers worked. It just wasn't a very compelling story - I wish the author would have left out the main conflict all together and just focused on the other parts.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 29, 2018
This book reminded me of a cross between Diane Duane’s young wizard series and Charles Stross’ Merchant Princess series. I enjoyed the Merchant Princess series but there were many times where Stross would go on long, very technical explanations of economies and I’d feel my eyes glaze over a bit. There were sections of this book where Duane starts talking very technically about coding/computer something and it felt kind of the same way. So far over my head yet not essential enough to the story line that I need to understand any of it in order to enjoy the plot.
This book would be great for anyone who enjoys a good fantasy story (the game has many worlds but are often sword fought battles), or a sci fi story (the game definitely gets there), or an economic sort of thriller (he’s number 8 richest-wait make that 7!). Or just a good story! I really appreciated how Diane Duane’s whole last chapter felt like a satisfying conclusion (as well as setting up a future plot). I feel like I usually get to the end of the climax portion of the book and boom it’s over. I enjoyed getting to see a little happy wrap up post-climax for once.
I’d give this 8.5 of 10 for enjoyment and 2.5 of 5 for readability.
This book would be great for anyone who enjoys a good fantasy story (the game has many worlds but are often sword fought battles), or a sci fi story (the game definitely gets there), or an economic sort of thriller (he’s number 8 richest-wait make that 7!). Or just a good story! I really appreciated how Diane Duane’s whole last chapter felt like a satisfying conclusion (as well as setting up a future plot). I feel like I usually get to the end of the climax portion of the book and boom it’s over. I enjoyed getting to see a little happy wrap up post-climax for once.
I’d give this 8.5 of 10 for enjoyment and 2.5 of 5 for readability.
January 26, 2017
I've had a complicated relationship with Diane Duane's writing over the years. Basically, when it comes to sci-fi and fantasy, she's written everything imaginable: young adult, children, adult, sci-fi, fantasy, original series, franchise novelizations--X-Men, Spider-Man, Star Trek, SeaQuest DSV, of all things. Her Middle Kingdoms series explored alternative sexuality (ie, a high fantasy world where bisexuality over heterosexuality was the norm) in the 70s and 80s, which wasn't really a common thing. And after bouncing off her Young Wizards series when I first tried them around age 10, I returned to them during my college years and found them amazing--The Wizard's Dilemma is one of the most heart-wrenching books I've ever read. But even while I say that, I still have to admit that none of her adult books have wowed me in the same way.
And Omnitopia: Dawn isn't going to be the book to break that streak, unfortunately. It feels very much like an opening arc, and while it may be setting up an interesting second act in the next book, here, it reads like something that's been done before. It's essentially a near future sci-fi, where the world is pretty much the one we have now, only with immersive VR tech being fully integrated into online games. After a bitter split with their publisher, the independent studio publishing Omnitopia is the largest of these games, and they're preparing for a big milestone. The problem is, there are other forces preparing too.
The book has about seven point of view characters: Dev, the founder and head of Omnitopia; his former friend and chief business rival Phil; and a bunch of characters whose names escape me since I don't have the book in front of me--a reporter sent to profile Dev for Time Magazine; a player recently granted his own segment of Omnitopia to design, and his wife;and at least two rank and file types who are part of the teams of hackers working to undermine the game. There's a reasonably large swathe of secondary characters too, mostly centering around Dev--his wife, his daughter, his parents, and the Seven, his immediate underlings, working everything from programming to finance to security. As that may suggest, Dev is pretty much the center figure, with the rest of the story orbiting around him.
The biggest strike against Omnitopia: Dawn isn't that what happens is dull, but that not very much happens,at the end of the day. Dev's company is saved almost offpage by a deus ex machina that will probably be next book's focus; Phil is almost a comic book supervillain in his resolve to fight another day. Duane's characters are... an interesting mix. Oddly, I think Phil is the one who gets the most complexity; Duane spends a lot of time inside his head, showing exactly how his worldview lead him to isolation and his desperate desire to have Dev back as a friend while at the same time desperate to not admit it. The other characters are either very clearly good or bad, or just underdeveloped, like the reporter. It's also kind of weird that the reporter--not counting a few brief scenes with the player's wife--is the only female POV character. It feels a little imbalanced, though there are a lot of women involved in Dev's life. One of the running themes of the book is everyone declaring that Dev is too good to be true; it doesn't quite paper over the fact that he does seem to be too good to be true, and his benevolent corporatism is maybe somewhat unbelievable (although not entirely--there's Gabe Newell, for example, the billionaire lead of Valve and Steam). I guess my main complaint about him is that he is fairly static--he doesn't really change as a person over the course of the story, and when your lead doesn't change, a story feels a bit static too.
That said, there are some ideas I really, really liked. I'm always on board for a book that features videogames prominently, because I'm endlessly fascinated with what aspect of games gets represented in other cultural mediums. Like I said, Duane isn't really exploring new territory here--Tad Williams' Otherland, to give one example, had basically the same premise of virtual immersion online games into worlds, and it came over a decade before this. I suppose the major difference is that Williams' tech is presented as something new and revolutionary--Duane's Omnitopia feels like something much closer to the world as we know it. That in itself is useful, because it says something about how we're moving towards broader acceptance of virtual tech and MMO games. (Meanwhile, the game market itself is shifting away from immersive MMOs to faster, more competitive things or things designed for short bursts of play, but that's another story.) There's some discussion of the tech behind everything, but it's pretty clear that what interests Duane most about the virtual worlds isn't their technology but the larger concept of world building, and the democratization of world building, putting the the ability to inhabit and create worlds into as many hands as possible. It's telling that the climax of the story, for me, wasn't the big hacking attack or the deus ex machina moment that followed, but a scene slightly before that, where Dev passionately delivers a monologuie to the reporter on the value of secondary worlds and world creation. It's tempting to see Duane, someone who has spent years of her career writing her own worlds and working in the worlds of others, peeking through Dev in that moment.
To sum up, I liked the central idea of the book, but neither the concepts nor the characters really compelled me in the end. I'm curious to see what Duane has planned for the future installments, but not so curious that I'll be checking them out right away.
And Omnitopia: Dawn isn't going to be the book to break that streak, unfortunately. It feels very much like an opening arc, and while it may be setting up an interesting second act in the next book, here, it reads like something that's been done before. It's essentially a near future sci-fi, where the world is pretty much the one we have now, only with immersive VR tech being fully integrated into online games. After a bitter split with their publisher, the independent studio publishing Omnitopia is the largest of these games, and they're preparing for a big milestone. The problem is, there are other forces preparing too.
The book has about seven point of view characters: Dev, the founder and head of Omnitopia; his former friend and chief business rival Phil; and a bunch of characters whose names escape me since I don't have the book in front of me--a reporter sent to profile Dev for Time Magazine; a player recently granted his own segment of Omnitopia to design, and his wife;and at least two rank and file types who are part of the teams of hackers working to undermine the game. There's a reasonably large swathe of secondary characters too, mostly centering around Dev--his wife, his daughter, his parents, and the Seven, his immediate underlings, working everything from programming to finance to security. As that may suggest, Dev is pretty much the center figure, with the rest of the story orbiting around him.
The biggest strike against Omnitopia: Dawn isn't that what happens is dull, but that not very much happens,at the end of the day. Dev's company is saved almost offpage by a deus ex machina that will probably be next book's focus; Phil is almost a comic book supervillain in his resolve to fight another day. Duane's characters are... an interesting mix. Oddly, I think Phil is the one who gets the most complexity; Duane spends a lot of time inside his head, showing exactly how his worldview lead him to isolation and his desperate desire to have Dev back as a friend while at the same time desperate to not admit it. The other characters are either very clearly good or bad, or just underdeveloped, like the reporter. It's also kind of weird that the reporter--not counting a few brief scenes with the player's wife--is the only female POV character. It feels a little imbalanced, though there are a lot of women involved in Dev's life. One of the running themes of the book is everyone declaring that Dev is too good to be true; it doesn't quite paper over the fact that he does seem to be too good to be true, and his benevolent corporatism is maybe somewhat unbelievable (although not entirely--there's Gabe Newell, for example, the billionaire lead of Valve and Steam). I guess my main complaint about him is that he is fairly static--he doesn't really change as a person over the course of the story, and when your lead doesn't change, a story feels a bit static too.
That said, there are some ideas I really, really liked. I'm always on board for a book that features videogames prominently, because I'm endlessly fascinated with what aspect of games gets represented in other cultural mediums. Like I said, Duane isn't really exploring new territory here--Tad Williams' Otherland, to give one example, had basically the same premise of virtual immersion online games into worlds, and it came over a decade before this. I suppose the major difference is that Williams' tech is presented as something new and revolutionary--Duane's Omnitopia feels like something much closer to the world as we know it. That in itself is useful, because it says something about how we're moving towards broader acceptance of virtual tech and MMO games. (Meanwhile, the game market itself is shifting away from immersive MMOs to faster, more competitive things or things designed for short bursts of play, but that's another story.) There's some discussion of the tech behind everything, but it's pretty clear that what interests Duane most about the virtual worlds isn't their technology but the larger concept of world building, and the democratization of world building, putting the the ability to inhabit and create worlds into as many hands as possible. It's telling that the climax of the story, for me, wasn't the big hacking attack or the deus ex machina moment that followed, but a scene slightly before that, where Dev passionately delivers a monologuie to the reporter on the value of secondary worlds and world creation. It's tempting to see Duane, someone who has spent years of her career writing her own worlds and working in the worlds of others, peeking through Dev in that moment.
To sum up, I liked the central idea of the book, but neither the concepts nor the characters really compelled me in the end. I'm curious to see what Duane has planned for the future installments, but not so curious that I'll be checking them out right away.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 4, 2019
Audio
It was okay. I would read the second one, but that one seems to have lost favor by the author or the publisher or both, because it's estimated publication date is 2025... so... that's probably a no-go, since this one was published in 2010.
The narration was good. The characters were likable. The villain was... typical. It seems like the big wow of this book didn't really come until 75% through the novel. Like, how did we take so long to get to this? Why is the sum total of this piece of the story amount so little of the whole?
It seemed like the second novel would have more info on that piece, but alas... -_-
Anyway, it was entertaining.
It was okay. I would read the second one, but that one seems to have lost favor by the author or the publisher or both, because it's estimated publication date is 2025... so... that's probably a no-go, since this one was published in 2010.
The narration was good. The characters were likable. The villain was... typical. It seems like the big wow of this book didn't really come until 75% through the novel. Like, how did we take so long to get to this? Why is the sum total of this piece of the story amount so little of the whole?
It seemed like the second novel would have more info on that piece, but alas... -_-
Anyway, it was entertaining.
September 18, 2018
A good entry that is similar to many others in the same vein. Massive World of Warcraft like MMORPG comes alive, corporate intrigue ensues and so forth. Nothing new here but still an entertaining read for being familiar with new faces. Dev Logan is the protagonist and annoyingly there are no real bad traits that he has. Seriously, no hero should ever not be flawed in some way. If the library has the audio book version of the second entry I may try it but not sold on the series.
November 27, 2017
I struggled a bit because I'm not a techno junky but it was a pretty good read. Lots of tension, characters I would like to know better, a place I would love to work. And it's only the first in a series! By the end I was hooked and looking for the next book. Alas, it hasn't been published yet. I am waiting impatiently.
March 3, 2019
Omnitopia Dawn takes the genre of MMORPG futurism in kind of a new direction and I really liked it! There's quite a lot of used up tropes, but some new stuff too and it is a great mix. The addition of the business aspect and the rivalry there was great, but ended in a bit of a fizzle.
I was engrossed and really loved it.
I was engrossed and really loved it.
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