I’m in the middle of Cory Doctorow’s Anda’s Game (p. 223) and am a little conflicted in my reaction. It is the story of a young girl (Anda) playing a computer video game online at some future time not far from our own, so there is the added element of story (game) within the girl’s story. I’m not sure it’s losing me because of the toughness in getting into an adventure game that someone else is playing–remember, there aren’t even the visuals here to watch–or my own inexperience with games and roleplaying.
"Shit!" Lucy said in her headphones as her avatar began to keel over. Anda yanked her sword free–finally–and charged at the guard, screaming a ululating war cry. He managed to get his avatar swung around and his sword up before she reached him, but it didn’t matter: she got in a lucky swing that took off one leg, then danced back before he could counterstrike. Now she closed carefully, nicking at his sword hand until he dropped his weapon, then moving in for a fast kill." (p. 230)
There is the character revealed by the character the girl (Anda) chooses to portray, but there is little filling in of the character in her reality (so far) aside from her high interest in the game and her interaction with her online friends. But there is a hint of conflict ahead; Anda is making real money by playing this game, something that was not part of her roleplaying previously, and something that appears to be rare among players but acceptable within this elite group she is trying to earn admittance to.
Her da could bluster all he liked about paying the bills, but she had pocket money for the first time in her life; not book tokens and fruit tokens and milk tokens that could be exchanged for "healthy" snacks and literature. She had real money, cash money that she could spend outside of the 500-meter sugar-free zone that surrounded her school. (p. 233)
It is intriguing in its concept, and I’m anxious to see how Doctorow leads us through the stories.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology