Librarians play a huge part in this story, which of course I LOVED: “Son, your story of Cindella and the pirate treasure is exciting. “You try.” Bjorn had his big warrior wave.

A nearby seller of herbs smiled and waved back. That’s odd.” Erik’s character made the actions that arose from the wave+smile command. The NPCs were not stationary their heads were turning towards the two players. The power of beauty: “While they made their way through the flapping canvas and rope of the market stalls, Bjorn noticed something unusual. His friends were in for a shock it would be impossible to explain his choices to them, as there was no rational argument in favor of throwing away every practical advantage in favor of beauty.” pg 15 As a result, Epic’s population of players consisted entirely of dull, gray-looking humanoids. What happens next is an exciting adventure through virtual worlds with magic, monsters, swords, and sorcery… who will triumph? Erik and his friends or the all-powerful Central Allocations team or the game, itself?Įrik’s creation of Cindella (his avatar): “Serious gamers, and the whole world consisted of serious gamers, never wasted a point on beauty that could be spent on more practical attributes, or combat skills, craft skills, weapons, magic items and spells. After dying, yet again, and crushing his family’s hopes for his advancement in Epic, Erik creates a ridiculously attractive female character and puts all of his points into beauty, a skill that no one else ever considers because it is a useless stat from a fighter’s standpoint.

Almost everyone in Erik’s society kills kobalds and other low level monsters every day, to gather pennies to improve their online characters and, therefore, their society. Erik, a young boy in a futuristic society, tires of scrabbling for his day-to-day existence in real life and in a virtual world, where all wealth and legal issues are decided by combat in a game called Epic. Perfect for fans of Ready Player One or anyone who has ever enjoyed playing an MMORPG.

Epic by Conor Kostick