Review by New York Times Review
GAMES HAVE UNINTENDED consequences, good and bad. Their mini-marketplaces and ersatz economies are just as hard to predict as their real-world counterparts. Anyone who has suffered family fallout over an evening of Monopoly, or lost sleep over a Fantasy Football roster, knows this all too well. Now look at what the Internet has wrought. Over the last decade, massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) like World of Warcraft have broken down the barriers between millions of players around the world; they've also created strange new occupations such as gold farmers - menial workers, mostly in the developing world, paid a pittance to gather in-game items for wealthier players. Is this fair? What can be done about it? Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang ask these questions in their brief but layered graphic novel "In Real Life." At first, Doctorow and Wang seem to be spinning a tale of female empowerment. An Arizona teenager named Anda Bridge, inspired by a school visit from an older gamer named Liza the Organizer, joins Liza's all-woman gamer group within Coarsegold Online, a fictional MMORPG with upward of 10 million players. The group, Clan Fahrenheit, only accepts girls who play as female avatars - a rare occurrence in an online realm where girls are always on their guard against unsavory elements, Liza tells us. Although Doctorow wrote "Anda's Game," the short story that forms the basis for "In Real Life," in 2004, this is a timely tale to tell. A controversy known as GamerGate erupted this summer and rages on, sparked by a campaign of online harassment against a female developer whose games dealt with social issues. Questions of misogyny in MMORPGs are more pressing than ever. But Clan Fahrenheit and its girlpowered mission become strangely incidental to this story - or at least, Doctorow and Wang suggest that groups of proudly female players are just as likely to be corrupted by the game as their male counterparts. Liza disappears from the narrative, and Anda is offered an in-game assignment for real-world money: Shadowy clients want the girls to wipe out the avatars of those loathed gold farmers. Anda agrees, and in the book's most disturbing scene, finds the gold farmers to be harmless, weaponless pixie-like creatures with wide eyes, clinging to each other in terror. Obeying orders, she slaughters them anyway. The cartoonish style in which Wang draws the scenes spares us the blood, but there's no escaping the consequences of the virtual killing - especially when Anda befriends a gold farmer named Raymond, who is actually a 16-year-old working a night shift at a gold-farming operation in Shenzen, China. Raymond is sick and has no access to health care. Anda tries to help him - with disastrous results at home, at school, in Clan Fahrenheit and in Shenzen. Ultimately, Doctorow and Wang want us to consider what it means to be part of groups that hate other groups, and how technology and persistence can help us overcome such barriers. They've shoehorned rather too much into the story for this to be entirely effective. But "In Real Life" is a powerful narrative nonetheless, and it's easy to imagine many young gamers - not to mention many young gamers' parents - moved to consider the consequences and limitless potential of the worlds they helped create. CHRIS TAYLOR is the author of "How Star Wars Conquered the Universe."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [November 2, 2014]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* While in programming class, Anda is invited to join a girls-only fighting guild in a new MMORPG, and she jumps at the chance. Soon, she's recruited by another player for paid missions to exterminate gold farmers, low-level players who use the game for profit. It all seems like good, honest fun until she talks to one gold farmer, Raymond, a teen in China who is also playing the game, but for him, it's a job, and his working conditions are unsafe. Anda encourages Raymond to foment a strike, but it doesn't go well. Guilt-ridden, she attempts to find other ways to help, and she becomes more in tune with global injustice and labor issues in the process. Doctorow's story brilliantly ties together real-world economic and labor issues in the context of an online game, and he emphasizes the implications of actions taken in the gaming world that many players may take for granted. Wang's gorgeous, jewel-toned panels give lively, expressive shape to both chubby Anda's real life in Colorado and the fantastical battles in the game. The combination of girls-only gaming; gorgeous, stylized artwork; and a meaningful, sophisticated message about online gaming makes this a surefire hit for readers everywhere, especially girls.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In a heartfelt and of-the-moment story, Doctorow draws on his technology acumen and activism to portray the intricacies of 21st-century global citizenry, while also touching on what it means to be a gamer (particularly a female one). After joining the massively multiplayer online game Coarsegold, Arizona high schooler Anda meets Raymond, a boy from China who works as a "gold farmer," collecting in-game resources to be sold for real-world cash (a concept Doctorow explored in-depth in 2010's For the Win). Initially, Anda is led to believe that Raymond and his ilk are corrupting the game, but after she discovers their tenuous economic circumstances and poor living conditions, she begins urging Raymond to demand better treatment. It's a noble cause, but it comes with potential consequences for both Raymond and Anda. Characters come to life through Wang's (Koko Be Good) fluid forms and emotive faces, and her adroit shift in colors as the story moves between the physical and gaming worlds is subtle and effective. Ages 12-up. Author's agent: Russell Galen, Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-Anda begins playing Coarsegold Online, a massive multiplayer game, after a gamer specifically looking for girls to play as female characters visits her school. Immediately adept at the game, Anda meets a player who tells her she can make money by killing characters farming for gold. These farmers sell gold to players, allowing them to essentially cheat at the game by quickly buying items they have not earned. Anda meets Raymond, a Chinese teen who works as a gold farmer. She learns about his real life-he works long days and has no health coverage. She encourages him to demand health care or strike, a choice that ends up having real-world ramifications. The narrative toggles between the in-game story and real life. The illustrations of the game are vibrant and dynamic, contrasting well with the muted browns and drab greens of Anda's reality. A detailed introduction by Doctorow about games, economics, politics, and activism serves to ensure readers "get" the story. The author attempts to tackle these large issues and others (like gender and privilege) but only does so superficially. The writing can feel heavy-handed, with the message overpowering Anda's voice. The problematic notion of a white character speaking for and trying to save minority characters (that all look identical) is addressed, but the too tidy ending makes that issue, and many others, feel oversimplified. The subject matter will have a built-in audience, and the appealing artwork will move this off the shelves, but readers may ultimately find the story unsatisfying.- Amanda MacGregor, formerly at Apollo High School Library, St. Cloud, MN (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Online gaming and real life collide when a teen discovers the hidden economies and injustices that hide among seemingly innocent pixels.Anda, a shy, overweight gamer and a recent transplant to Flagstaff, Arizona, is beyond excited when a guest speaker in one of her classes invites her to join in playing a massive multiplayer online role-playing game called "Coarsegold." With her parents' approval, Anda joins the presenters' guild, a group of girls playing the game as girl avatars. Once in "Coarsegold," Andaknown online as Kalidestroyeris confronted by another guild member named Lucy, who asks her if she'd be interested in earning "real cash." When she accepts, she's pulled into a world of real-money economies where workers "play" the game, garnering items they can then sell for actual money to other players. Doctorow takes a subject that many people probably haven't considered (unless they've already read his For the Win, 2010) and uses the fictional frame to drive home a hard truth: that many of the games we play or items we buy have unseen people tied to them, people who have their own struggles. Through Wong's captivating illustrations and Doctorow's heady prose, readers are left with a story that's both wholly satisfying as a work of fiction and serious food for thought about the real-life ramifications of playing in an intangible world. Thought-provoking, as always from Doctorow. (Graphic fiction. 12-16) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
