In Nick Cole's Soda Pop Soldier, the worlds of online gaming and real life corporate rivalries come together. Gamer PerfectQuestion is trying to make a living as a soldier for ColaCorp, but they can't seem to beat WonderSoft. If he doesn't come up with a win, his status as a professional gamer will be at risk. In the meantime, he needs money for rent, so he tries his hand at a quest in an illegal game.
Most of Soda Pop Soldier is narratives of these two games. Cole's descriptions of the battles, the scenes, and the interactions in the game world bring the games alive, making the reader forget that this is just a programmed world. We are a long way from technology that gives a realistic in-game experience, and even in PerfectQuestion's world, he's interacting with the game world via his keyboard and a typical 2-D monitor. Still, to PerfectQuestion and the other gamers, the experience is all-encompassing and the stakes are high.
The stakes get even higher for PerfectQuestion when people in the real world take notice of him and try to recruit him to do his bidding in the game worlds. When he doesn't go along and he has people trying to kill him in both the real world and the game world, things really get interesting. This is where Cole kept me reading. A narrative of a guy playing video games doesn't sound like much of a novel. But Cole pulls back to reality just enough to see the real forces at work. The glimpses we get of the real world, including orbital cities, colonists heading to other star systems, and gaping class divisions, seem prophetic and realistic.
Does our world hold a future where corporations' armies fight battles in cyberspace to win advertising space? Will world financial markets hinge on the outcomes of online wars? Will audiences tune in to watch professional gamers do battle? To a certain extent, I think Cole is already tuned into present realities. As to the rest? He may not be far off.
Thanks to the author for the complimentary electronic review copy!
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