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This is Not a Game - Walter Jon Williams

By Walter Jon Williams

Release Date: 2017-10-15

Genre: Science Fiction

4.5 (5 ratings)
Read Download
“Walter Jon Williams is a visionary of tremendous power and originality . . . He kills every damn time.”
--Junot DĂ­az, Pulitzer Prize-winning author

When you play one of Dagmar’s online games, you can’t just shut down the computer and walk away.  The games pursue you into real life: you start getting emails and phone calls from fictional characters, perfect strangers ask you to help solve their problems, and sometimes you’re asked to volunteer for a mission to discover a vital clue.

But now something is pursuing Dagmar.  

From the anarchy of a street riot in Indonesia to the brutality of a Mafia killing in Los Angeles, from the seedy glitz of Hollywood to the ruthless international currency market, Dagmar finds herself at the center of an intrigue far more desperate than those she devises for entertainment.

And somehow, she knows, the key to the puzzle lies in her own past, and the gaming group she joined in college.  

Dagmar must draw on all her skill to preserve her life, not the least of which is her circle of online gamers whose well-honed puzzle-solving skills may be vital to preserving her life.

This Is Not a Game.  And there is no Second Life. 

“Williams (The Rift) weaves intriguing questions about games, gamers and their relationships with real life into this well-paced near-future thriller.”  --Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)

“This Is Not a Game is a compelling mystery, one that threateningly demands—like a militant nun, ruler in hand, your knuckles spread before her—for you to continue, to finish. Stopping, it’s not an option. It’s not even a thought. You turn the pages of the book not just to get answers, but to get the questions, also. And neither disappoint. There is no letdown, no clumsy resolution, no descent into lameness. Everything works, the story coming together beautifully like a well-played game of chess, Williams maneuvering the reader, skillfully. Like a pawn. A very happy pawn.    –Paul Stotts

“Williams, from his own experience, knows how these games work and how the participants react, and the result is that This Is Not a Game succeeds only as a suspense novel, but as an incisive portrait of a subculture for whom reality is increasingly contingent, and increasingly mediated.”  --Gary Wolfe, Locus

“Combines droll satire, cyber-fu knowingness, ingenious extrapolation, social commentary, and techno-thriller suspense.”  --SciFiWire.com

“[An] eerily prophetic thriller.”--- SFX

This is Not a Game - Walter Jon Williams

By Walter Jon Williams

Release Date: 2017-10-15

Genre: Science Fiction

4.5 (5 ratings)
Read Download
“Walter Jon Williams is a visionary of tremendous power and originality . . . He kills every damn time.”
--Junot DĂ­az, Pulitzer Prize-winning author

When you play one of Dagmar’s online games, you can’t just shut down the computer and walk away.  The games pursue you into real life: you start getting emails and phone calls from fictional characters, perfect strangers ask you to help solve their problems, and sometimes you’re asked to volunteer for a mission to discover a vital clue.

But now something is pursuing Dagmar.  

From the anarchy of a street riot in Indonesia to the brutality of a Mafia killing in Los Angeles, from the seedy glitz of Hollywood to the ruthless international currency market, Dagmar finds herself at the center of an intrigue far more desperate than those she devises for entertainment.

And somehow, she knows, the key to the puzzle lies in her own past, and the gaming group she joined in college.  

Dagmar must draw on all her skill to preserve her life, not the least of which is her circle of online gamers whose well-honed puzzle-solving skills may be vital to preserving her life.

This Is Not a Game.  And there is no Second Life. 

“Williams (The Rift) weaves intriguing questions about games, gamers and their relationships with real life into this well-paced near-future thriller.”  --Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)

“This Is Not a Game is a compelling mystery, one that threateningly demands—like a militant nun, ruler in hand, your knuckles spread before her—for you to continue, to finish. Stopping, it’s not an option. It’s not even a thought. You turn the pages of the book not just to get answers, but to get the questions, also. And neither disappoint. There is no letdown, no clumsy resolution, no descent into lameness. Everything works, the story coming together beautifully like a well-played game of chess, Williams maneuvering the reader, skillfully. Like a pawn. A very happy pawn.    –Paul Stotts

“Williams, from his own experience, knows how these games work and how the participants react, and the result is that This Is Not a Game succeeds only as a suspense novel, but as an incisive portrait of a subculture for whom reality is increasingly contingent, and increasingly mediated.”  --Gary Wolfe, Locus

“Combines droll satire, cyber-fu knowingness, ingenious extrapolation, social commentary, and techno-thriller suspense.”  --SciFiWire.com

“[An] eerily prophetic thriller.”--- SFX

More by Walter Jon Williams

The Praxis

The Accidental War

The Sundering

The Rift

Conventions of War

Destiny's Way

Fleet Elements

Ylesia: Star Wars Legends

Imperium Restored

Hardwired

Angel Station

Quillifer

Voice of the Whirlwind (Hardwired Series)

Brig of War (Privateers & Gentlemen)

Knight Moves

Quillifer the Knight

Metropolitan

Lord Quillifer

Investments (Dread Empire's Fall Series)

Days of Atonement

Ambassador of Progress

Solip:System (Hardwired Series)

Daddy's World

To Glory Arise (Privateers & Gentlemen Series)

This is Not a Game

Aristoi

Cat Island (Privateers & Gentlemen)

Implied Spaces

City on Fire (Metropolitan 2)

The Tern Schooner (Privateers & Gentlemen Series)

The Crown Jewels

The Macedonian (Privateers & Gentlemen Series)

George R. R. Martin Presents Wild Cards: Sleeper Straddle

Wolf Time (Voice of the Whirlwind)

Impersonations

Deep State

Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 111

House of Shards (Maijstral 2)

Rock of Ages (Maijstral Series 3)

Diamonds From Tequila

Prompt. Professional. Pop!

Dinosaurs

The Fourth Wall

Surfacing (Novella)

The Best of Walter Jon Williams

Video Star (Voice of the Whirlwind)

The Boolean Gate (Dead Romantics)

The Tang Dynasty Underwater Pyramid

The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories

The Last Ride of German Freddie

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