For the Win [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Cory Doctorow (Author), George Newbern (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 11, 2010

At any hour of the day or night, millions of people around the globe are engrossed in multiplayer online games, questing and battling to win virtual gold, jewels, and precious artifacts. Meanwhile, millions of “gold farmers” toil in electronic sweatshops harvesting virtual treasure that their employers sell to First World gamers for real money.
           
Mala is a brilliant fifteen-year-old from rural India whose leadership skills in virtual combat have earned her the nickname “General Robotwalla.” In China, Matthew defies his former bosses to build his own gold-farming crew. Leonard lives in Southern California and spends his nights fighting virtual battles alongside his buddies in Asia. 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.
           
Fighting pitched battles in the virtual worlds of every MMORPG worth playing, Nor’s network of gamers is so successful that it incurs ruthless opposition. 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.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 10 Up Wei-dong, known to his Orange County family as Leonard, is addicted to guild game play with his Chinese colleagues. Mala and Yasmin, brilliant strategists, are gaming from an Internet cafe in the poor streets of Dharavi. Matthew and Lu are trying to establish their own freelance gold-farming operation in the rough city of Shenzhen. Guided from Singapore by the secretive Big Sister Nor, these young people are slowly coming together and forming a union to demand basic working conditions and protection from organized crime rackets. In order to prove their strength, these Webblies take over the three games owned by the Coca-Cola Company. Battling for real-world rights in a virtual environment, they must overcome corrupt cops, determined sys ops, and social indifference to beat the game. Doctorow is continually at the leading edge of electronic issues, rallying supporters to the causes of intellectual freedom, privacy, and social justice. Readers will appreciate the game descriptions, but will have a harder time relating the gold-farming issues back to their own play. Lengthy asides detail the workings of the game economies, but they aren't as skillfully incorporated as in Little Brother (Tor, 2008). The characters are well formed, but at times it is difficult to keep their interactions in order. Leonard's internal rant with his father is preachy and somewhat tenuous as a justification for the benefits of social gaming. On the other hand, Yasmin's emotional turmoil and attempt to reconcile her upbringing with her current circumstances is honest and rewarding. Full of action and information, this is a solid, if occasionally soapbox-worthy, narrative. Chris Shoemaker, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Doctorow is indispensable. It’s hard to imagine any other author taking on youth and technology with such passion, intelligence, and understanding. Although perhaps less urgent than Little Brother (2008), this effort is superior in every other aspect: scope, plot, character, and style. Set in the near future and in locations across the globe (though primarily China and India), the story involves a sweeping cast of characters making a living—if you want to call brutal conditions and pitiful wages a “living”—in such virtual-game worlds as Svartalfheim Warriors and Zombie Mecha. Many of them, like 15-year-old Mala (known by her troops as “General Robotwalla”), endure physical threats from their bosses to farm virtual gold, which is then sold to rich First World gamers. Then these brilliant teens are brought together by the mysterious Big Sister Nor, who has a plan to unionize and bring these virtual worlds—and real-world sweatshops, too—to a screeching halt. Once again Doctorow has taken denigrated youth behavior (this time, gaming) and recast it into something heroic. He can’t resist the occasional lecture—sometimes breaking away from the plot to do so—but thankfully his lessons are riveting. With it’s eye-opening humanity and revolutionary zeal, this ambitious epic is well worth the considerable challenge. Grades 10-12. --Daniel Kraus --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Audio CD
• Publisher: Listening Library (Audio); Unabridged edition (May 11, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307710696
• ISBN-13: 978-0307710697
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 2 x 5.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,479,611 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Canadian-born Cory Doctorow has held policy positions with Creative Commons and the Electronic Frontier Foundation and been a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Southern California. He is a co-editor of the popular weblog BoingBoing (boingboing.net), which receives over three million visitors a month. His science fiction has won numerous awards, and his YA novel LITTLE BROTHER spent seven weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Thoroughly Enjoyable Tale That Nonetheless Feels a Bit Michael Bay-Ish, May 13, 2010

By 

M. Harris - See all my reviews
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This review is from: For the Win (Hardcover)

First, thanks are due to the author for his continued decision to release his works free on the Internet. Traditional media would believe it counterintuitive: why would consumers pay for something free? Counterintuitive or not, it works: it reduces the barrier to entry for a consumer. I first got my taste for Doctorow's writing with a free download, but it's one I enjoyed enough that his books -- in traditional form -- reside on my bookshelves and have survived several culls of my collection. Something to consider, publishers.

I may give younger readers too little credit, but this book is lengthy. That's something enjoyable to an adult, as it gives the complex stories time to develop and weave together. But as the book is supposedly oriented towards young adults, I wonder whether the novel's length will prove a barrier to completion.

The book reminds me of other polemic fiction I've read whose main theme is the portrayal of the triumph of a particular political ideal. This plays to one of Doctorow's strengths -- his zealotry. Doctorow believes in his ideals and thus crafts his characters so they do.

Additionally, Doctorow has a particular knack, very enjoyable for the reader, of putting together ideas in a way that have the ring of common sense, yet in a way in which they hadn't quite yet been put together -- a certain "sticky", memorable way that sits easily in the brainpan. Certainly, reputation economics has been around since time immemorial ... but only Doctorow termed it "whuffie" in his first novel, and since then, that's what many people know it as. That knack is in full display in this novel.

Still, for this reviewer, the "triumph" of this particular political ideal ended up also causing problems with suspension of disbelief. Despite my desire to be optimistic about the world, this book displays a grand-scale triumph over big business interests -- and an act of enlightened behavior on big business' part -- that I just don't see happening in reality. Of course, that opinion may easily be attributable to cynical elements within my own worldview, and, given that this is a young adult book, hopefully such elements will not have had as much time to take root in younger readers.

An additional "flaw" I found is one on a larger scale: Doctorow's novels have recently begun trending more towards polemics, and away from individual character growth and development. When I read Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Eastern Standard Tribe, or Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, it is clear I'm witnessing events happening to a single character, a life experience that involves growth and development, set in a Doctorow "geek world" I'd love to inhabit with Doctorow-style geek characters I'd love to have in my life. The geek relationships in those books are reminiscent of one of my most favorite books, Microserfs, by Douglas Coupland ... and that's one of the best compliments I can give an author.

Nowadays, though, the brush he's wielding with Makers, Little Brother, and now this novel -- it is one that strikes me as far more broad and less subtle. To borrow film directors as an analogy, Doctorow seems to be writing in the style of Michael Bay lately, instead of character studies such as one might see with Scorsese or Kubrick.

I'd like to see him work more towards those character studies he first worked with. I hope to see him work more with the framework of characters interacting in near-future worlds, a framework used in his earlier works, rather than the grand tales of polemic futurepolitik he has recently begun writing.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For The Win is a Definite Win, May 21, 2010

By 

S. Baskin - See all my reviews
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This review is from: For the Win (Hardcover)

You can't sum up For The Win, by comparing it to other books. Instead when you think of it you have to take pieces from many different entertainment icons. For example when I try to describe For The Win, I would compare it to a combination of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, Halo, and the movie The Sting. Only after having considered all of these pieces can you get an inkling of what For The Win is like.

And yet it is more than all of that. For The Win also included important and accurate descriptions of financial definitions and schemes, such as buying futures, economies of scale, and even a ponzi scheme. But these inter-chapters detailing financial issues are critical to understanding the book, and so I was amazed at how well Doctorow is able to convey these issues to the reader.

But as I mentioned For The Win is more than that. It is an enthralling action packed novel that has detailed memorable characters, detailed plot twists, and an engaging story. Because of this I would recommend this book to anyone, teen or adult, as it is an exceptional novel that both teaches and entertains, a rare feat in any book. And so everyone should go out and get it today.

[...]

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Please tone down on the proselytizing!, January 24, 2011

By 

Ai Ling Chow (Denver, CO) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: For the Win (Hardcover)

Maybe it's just me, but Cory's books are beginning to read like libertarian fanfiction. As with Makers, this book was didactic and segued into "let's study economics" a little too often for my liking. As always, the bad guys are demonized and the good guys get all the sympathetic ink.

"Heavy-handed" is the word one would use for Cory's books. I applaud the clarity of the writing--there is no way to mistake what Cory's trying to say--but if there's one thing that turns me off, it's preaching. Little Brother was the strongest of all Cory's books, and on the strength of that (and Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom) I have given all his books a chance, but honestly, the pedantism throughout Makers was a letdown, and For the Win did not score a Win with me for the same reason. Cory needs to cut down on the lecturing, stat.

I think I'm done with Cory's books for life unless he pulls out something significantly different in the future. Don't get me wrong, I sympathize with the gold farmers and I deplore the exploitation that occurs, but I read For the Win hoping he would describe a solution (as he did in Little Brother). I was at least all right with the way Makers ended. With For The Win, I had the distinct feeling the ending was a cop-out. I am not impressed.