Tim Guest is no stranger to virtual worlds. As a child he lived in communes in India and Oregon, whose members 'dyed their clothes orange and hunted heaven'. Now he sets out to travel the seemingly limitless Utopia of the internet, a realm whose denizens seek a freedom denied by the humdrum realities of the spaces they normally inhabit. Redemption and salvation, it seems, are no longer purely religious issues. Even retail therapy, that classic modern panacea for various kinds of unease and dysfunction, has been pushed aside in favour of acquisitive sprees in cyberspace.
Most of the parallel universes Guest visits in Second Lives: A Journey Through Virtual Worlds (Random House, £12.99) are located in the US, a nation whose very existence is predicated on the idea of an earthly paradise. EverQuest, for example, possesses millions of square feet of virtual real estate, a per capita GNP larger than China's, and hosts over 430,000 residents. SecondLife has its own virtual currency, spent on anything from virtual Ferraris and beach houses to the
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outfits for a virtual wedding between 'Mash Mandala' and 'Baccara Rhodes', two of its most dedicated inhabitants. Project Entropia, meanwhile, offers the Universe Cash Card, an accessory for those who purchase hunting and mining rights on the island owned by 'Zachurm Deathifier Emegen', an Australian PhD student in real life.
Superficially, there's an undoubted charm about all this fantasy empire-building, with its camp theatricality and unabashed infantilism. Second Lives nevertheless uncovers a darker side to the cyber-cosmos, where the reality of ugliness, mental retardation and physical handicap is spirited away via the dubious comforts of false identity, and where the US army lures recruits with simulated conflict at virtual Iraqi checkpoints. Many of us might find such global make-believe just a little sad, in both official and colloquial senses of the word. However Guest, in this sprightly, lucid and challenging survey, is hopeful for its future as a refuge from heartache and loneliness. 
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FIRST POSTED JUNE 14, 2007
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