Customer Reviews

My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I was the character that Dibbell called "Laurel" in his book. I was "there" though the entire story he describes, reading what he read in real time, although I never "spoke" with him (on-line or off). His book is remarkably accurate, although he does not have all the facts straight of the people behind the LambdaMOO characters. He deserves a lot of credit -- he got it closer than anyone else possibly could have.

My Tiny Life largely succeeds in its presentation of the evolution of a "Tiny" society, one that -- if you believe Dibbell's writing -- struggles through serious birthing pains as its population swells and it must contend with the issues of relationships, sex, gender (and gender's possible non-relevance online), ethics, law and self-governance. Not to mention how much LambdaMOO can absorb of your "real world" life.

Dibbell's voyeurism and exhibitionism becomes somewhat annoying and distracting from time to time, although I do see the value of showing how his MOO life affects his relationship with his significant other. This is part of any journalistic writing in which the author is also participant, I suppose.

If, like Evandra in a previous review, you were there when these events unfolded, it may not be of interest or of great enough depth to you -- but the insider's attitude that the book is without merit simply doesn't ring true and smacks of elitism.

Overall -- extremely thought-provoking and very enjoyable.

Unlike most books on cyberculture, which either dryly recount someone's meteoric rise at an Internet start-up, or seek to explain the unprecedented growth of new media and to predict its endgame, this book is actually a page-turner. I couldn't put it down. In fact, I read part of it while sitting on a giant rock in a palm oasis in the middle of the Borrego Springs desert. What makes My Tiny Life a page-turner is how effectively Mr. Dibbell turns the typed-in shorthand of the LambdaMOO residents into the epic drama of a metropolis in a state of ascent or decline, depending on your point of view. Mr. Dibbell also presents himself in a brutally honest light, detailing his inner demons and conflicts and peccadilloes, as his obsession and entanglements grow. He writes with little regard as to where this book will place him in the pantheon of the new media elite. He eschews the usual smart-*** cynicism for real analysis that while sometimes layered in college dorm late night semantics, is not altogether dismissible as this new form of communication tries to understand itself.

See the full revew at BETA Online...

I found this book compulsively readable. I was a regular on LambdaMOO at around the same time that Dibbell was, and I found his descriptions of the experience of MOO-ing (what it's like to be there and participate in various ways) quite accurate. As for his version of MOO history, I wouldn't take it too seriously, but then, he makes it pretty clear that the motivations behind and significance of the events that he recounts are disputed. What impresses me about this book is the way it captures the feeling of being in the MOO, and the analysis of the issues that got raised in various conflicts.

This book is an instant classic of an emerging genre -- the computer memoir. Mr. Dibbell's personal accounts of his experiences with LambdaMOO are fascinating, not only for those unversed in the ways of the online world, but also for "virtual oldtimers." Whether or not the reader agrees with his opinions, his frank and sometimes painful descriptions of his life, both on- and off-line, are compelling and sincere. To view his story as a definitive history of the development of LambdaMOO would be to miss the point. Through his soul-searching, the author presents us with a very human account of what most would consider an entirely technical subject. Dibbell is a rarity -- a computer-literate humanist. Required reading for everybody.

I have had a character on LambdaMOO for several years. I know the characters he writes about. His depiction of life there is accurate, and it's well done. Those LambdaMOOers who have trashed his book simply have an axe to grind.

The book is indeed a page turner. Online life and community presents opportunities and problems that are similar, yet different than RL. Julian's account was very subjective, but he opened himself up sharing the experience and the results on his RL relationships. If you accept that MOO users controlled what he experienced while online, then Julian could only report the experience. If his experience was so controlled, then it does support the Power Elite theory. I was fascinated.

Mr. Dibell arrouses our curiosities in the realm of virtual ethics with his gripping, nitty-gritty narrative of cyber life and passion. Dibell's cyber experiences at "Moo" call for a re-evaluation of human morals in the coming age. This work will certainly stand as a timeless classic, captivating the thoughts of gereations to come, especially as our world becomes evermore wired.

Aside from his own personal, short-term journeys in and out of LambdaMOO and fairly mundane conflict and resolution with his significant other, which provide part of the hook to the reader, Dibbell writes in an engaging way about the sociology of the MOO community. Of particular interest are the immediate and long term reactions of the community to acts, virtual though they may be, that affect the fabric of the MOO society. The book's inability to fully demonstrate the complexity of the MOO society, demonstrated by MOOers' castigation of the work, is irrelevant to the points made by the author about the relationships of the wizard power class to the other, parallel MOO societies, and to the constituent class. The strong reactions of members of the MOO society to events and characters that are perceived as harmful elements, and the attempts to call for, impose and/or resist virtual law and order in an unruly and perhaps ungovernable society provide the real conflict. Dibbell's observations of the tensions of anarchy and order in the MOO unfold in counterpoint to the author's RL events and relationships, which are described in MOOspeak, but which must inevitably follow societal rules and expectations of long standing.

I found it to be a page-turner well after the narration of the motivating event was finished.

A rather interesting autobiography of a MOO player's life and experiences within LambdaMoo. Tends to drag in a few places, but interesting nonetheless when you consider the dilemmas still facing MMO players today: is it just a game? Is your avatar just a piece of geometry/text on a screen? Or is it more? When your avatar is assaulted, do you feel as though you yourself have been assaulted?