FOR THE WIN

Tor, New York, 2010, 1^st/2^nd pr.  ISBN 978-0-7653-2216-6.  Hard cover, 475 pages plus Acknowledgments.  Very good plus; light edge wear, upper corners lightly bumped; binding tight with headbands.  Dust jacket with price intact shows light edge and cover wear.  Interior clean and unmarked with lightly tanning pages; appears unread.  ‘At any hour of the day or night, millions of people around the globe are engrossed in multiplayer on-line games, questing and battling to win virtual gold, jewels, and precious artifacts.  Meanwhile, millions of “gold farmers,” trapped by abusive contracts and physical threats, toil in electronic sweatshops in the world’s poorest countries, harvesting virtual treasure that their employers sell to First World gamers for real money.  Mala is a brilliant fifteen-year-old from rural India … In Shenzhen, heart of China’s industrial boom, Matthew defies his former bosses to build his own successful gold-farming crew.  Leonard, who calls himself Wei-Dong, lives in Southern California … All of these young people, and more, become entangled with the mysterious woman called Big Sister Nor, who builds them into a movement to challenge the status quo. … Nor’s network of gamers is so successful that it incurs ruthless opposition from organized crime, from Western corporations, and from the Chinese authorities.  Ultimately, Big Sister’s people devise a plan to crash the economy of every virtual world at once – a Ponzi scheme combined with a brilliant hack that ends up being the biggest, funnest game of all.’ (from front flap)