"John Chu is a "sherpa"--a paid guide to online role-playing games like the popular Call to Wizardry. For a fee, he and his crew will provide you with a top-flight character equipped with the best weapons and armor, and take you dragon-slaying in the Realms of Asgarth, hunting rogue starships in the Alpha Sector, or battling hordes of undead in the zombie apocalypse" --

In a strange world of the near future, where virtual reality encompasses all aspects of society and boundaries are limited only by the power of the imagination, a dark conspiracy involving the world's most powerful individuals threatens to destroy everything.

"An exuberantly realized, exciting, and sweet-natured cyber-quest. Cline's imaginative and rollicking coming-of-age geek saga has a smash-hit vibe."--Booklist, starred review. It's the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place. Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play...

"A 1980s cultural assessment of the fantastical future of online behavior continues the story that began in the internationally best-selling futuristic novel, Ready Player One, that inspired a blockbuster Steven Spielberg film"-- Days after winning control of OASIS, the immersive virtual reality environment in which most of humanity chooses to live, Wade Watts discovers a world-changing technological advancement and draws the attention of a merciless...

"The City Inside, a near-future epic by the internationally celebrated Samit Basu, pulls no punches as it comes for your anxieties about society, government, the environment, and our world at large-yet never loses sight of the hopeful potential of the future. "They'd known the end times were coming but hadn't known they'd be multiple choice." Joey is a Reality Controller in near future Delhi. Her job is to supervise the multimedia multi-reality livestreams...

"A mid-level employee of a New York-based public relations firm finds his consciousness uploaded into the company's internal Slack channel"-- Gerald, a mid-level employee of a New York-based public relations firm, has been uploaded into the company's internal Slack channels. At least his consciousness has. His colleagues assume it is just an elaborate ploy to exploit their lax work-from-home policy. Disembodied and alarmed by the looming abyss of...

Murder did that. Took lives, crushed others. But why? Money. Jealousy. Revenge. Secrets. Passion. Whatever the answers, the method had been bold and complex.They were best friends, driven by a shared vision to rule the world of virtual reality games. Their newest invention, developed to transport the player into a fantastical virtual world, is about to be launched. But suddenly, Bart, the brains behind it all, is found brutally killed - defeated by...

"Olivia Huang Christenson is excited-slash-terrified to be taking over her grandmother's matchmaking business. But when she learns that a new dating app has taken her Pó Po's traditional Chinese zodiac approach and made it about "animal attraction," her emotions skew more toward furious-slash-outraged. Especially when L.A.'s most-eligible bachelor Bennett O'Brien is behind the app that could destroy her family's legacy... Liv knows better than to...

"In modern day Los Angeles, a shadowy faction led by the Governor of California develops the arcane art of combat linguistics, planting the seeds of a future totalitarian empire in Scott Moore's Battle of the Linguist Mages. Isobel is the Queen of the medieval rave-themed VR game Sparkle Dungeon. Her prowess in the game makes her an ideal candidate to learn the secrets of "power morphemes"-unnaturally dense units of meaning that warp perception when...