My Tiny Life: Crime And Passion In A Virtual World

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 4 JAN 1999

It is a world that inhabitants dub "tiny," but its role in their lives is large. In the online community of LambdaMoo, Netizens occupy virtual living rooms and hot tubs, form close friendships and make mortal enemies, trade witticisms and discuss their lives for as many as 70 hours per week. Dibbell's account of this group is similarly large and ambitious. He eschews cliche and, in rich and active prose, frames a world that raises new questions by blurring the line not only between cyberspace and real space but between speech and action, intimacy and distance. What, for example, is the proper punishment for a virtual rapist, who wields only words as his weapon and sits hundreds of miles from his victim? Yet, for all its sociology, Dibbell's book never wanders too far from the personal. In its most compelling passages, the author contemplates fumbling toward virtual ecstasy and its impact on his real-space relationship. In a tone oscillating between invested and detached, Dibbell has written a sprawling, dazzling book, accessible to the least initiated and full of insights for the most wizened. If a complaint can be leveled, it's that he limits our view of the actual goings-on in Lambda, sacrificing the chaotic charm the book might have had without this filtering. Still, Dibbell's insight, intelligence and emotional depth make his interpretation one to behold and savor.