Early
science fiction speculated only here and there on the possibilities of gaming
and alternate realities in virtual space.
Arthur C. Clarke’s The City & the Stars mentions the idea in passing, and in William Gibson’s Neuromancer the larger possibilities
begin to emerge. Later writers, like
Neal Stephenson, Greg Egan, Ted Chiang, and David Marusek for example, expanded
life in virtual reality into whole stories and novels. But it is Charles Stross who has fully
understood and embraced the ever-expanding realities of gaming and second lives
and included them in fiction. A science
fiction realm if ever there were, his 2007 Halting
State—part gamer’s gush, part conspiracy theory, and all nerd rapture—is a
prime example of contemporary society’s involvement in virtual worlds.
Halting State is the story of three people and the
political, technological, and virtual mess they get themselves into with a
popular computer game. Edinburgh
detective, Sergeant Sue Smith, is called to the scene of a bizarre crime in the
opening chapter. What looks like a
concrete bunker on the outside is actually the headquarters of Avalon 4, a massive multiplayer online
game, and they have just been robbed.
Not the petty cash drawer or the source code of their wildly popular
game, rather the virtual bank that exists inside Avalon 4, and all of its virtual items and money. Elaine Barnaby is an insurance fraud
investigator. Her company called in to
investigate the Avalon 4 case, her
job only becomes more surreal as the investigation moves from the real world
into the virtual, and her own role in the proceedings even murkier as the sides
lose concrete shape. And lastly is Jack Reed.
Waking up hungover and handcuffed to a signpost in Amsterdam, his status
as an unemployed programmer takes a turn for the better when Elaine’s firm
requires his technical expertise to help investigate if or how the virtual
crime was pulled off. Insider
trading? An opportunistic
hacker/player? Insurance fraud? As more and more details of the case are
unveiled, the more and more complex the world—and our world—become.
