Real Life: A Review

Did you know our own Melissa "War Witch" Bianco had written a novel?

Before one of the Devs dropped it into conversation the night before Herocon last year, neither did I...

War Witch creates the zones we play in and writes the ambient dialogue you hear while traveling around them. Just on the strength of that body of work, I knew I wanted to see what she produced for a book**.

Asking around about the volume, I was told that they would have some the following day at Herocon's "Wentworth's" table. When I got there early the next day, the person manning the table wasn't sure what they were being sold for (and there is no MSRP on the jacket). They finally had to go get War Witch herself and ask how much it was. Consequently, I actually got to have mine signed by the author herself.

So after hearing about it out of the blue and a bit of searching, I had a copy of War Witch's self-published novel: Real Life.


Real Life follows the experiences of one Jessie Sutherland, beginning with her unceremoniously and unwillingly finding herself stuck in the Australian rain forest. Ms Sutherland has little familiarity with anything but city living and feels both sullen and apprehensive about her predicament. Her attempts to adapt are not made any easier by simultaneously dealing with conflicts among her (more acclimated) companions in the wild. She's deprived of all the assumed conveniences and artificial comforts, both physical and emotional, that she has dwelt within all her life.

Ms Bianco's writing well conveys the minor irritations that will continually impinge on your attention out "in the rough"; unexpected, petty indignities like shoes that won't dry out and grit between one's teeth. Yet the prose doesn't get bogged down in a catalogue of description. It's illustrative without slowing everything down. At one point, she fully depicts an encounter with an Australian Big-Eared Horseshoe Bat by sketching the animal with a few adjectives and then communicating the rest through everyone else's reactions to it. Pausing to look up a picture of the creature, I felt that I "recognized" the thing when I saw it, even though I'd never heard of one before. A quick scene got to move rapidly without sacrificing support for why it played out as it did.

Each character is also given a sufficiently distinctive "voice" in their dialogue to point them out as individuals. They have their own ways of speaking and verbal ticks. Again, this is from the person who writes our in-zone NPC dialogue and it shows.

Ms Bianco also peppers the story with a seasoning of quirks and oddities that make the narrative feel more "real". I found myself wondering if she was selecting things from her own experience and placing them in the story for authenticity, or if she was deliberately fabricating them from whole-cloth. For example, do you think she actually has a clock radio at home that will only pick up Spanish language stations? Has she actually been to Aria? (If she has though, how could she not have ordered the venison??) Whether she cherry-picked them from personal experience or created them in-step, their presence makes her characters and their world more memorable and believable.

All of the effort comes together to put you inside Jessie's skin for a sensually intimate (which is not to necessarily say "pleasant") examination of the main character's world and herself; at higher magnification than Jessie ever might have sought.


If I was going to level a literary criticism at the book, I'd say that it takes a little too long for the "stakes" of the plot to be established. 'X' is happening, but if it turns out one way or another, how is it going to affect the main character's life in the long term? Honestly though, I've seen multiply-published authors that have done the same thing and it ultimately doesn't harm the book. In the end, every last little thing that's happened turns out to have mattered a great deal. In a clever parallel, the seemingly understated front cover actually shows you what's to come if you look closely enough. But the reader doesn't see it any more than the characters do, even though it's right in front of you.


I should note for myself that I don't normally read contemporary fiction. I read science fiction, urban horror, and historic non-fiction; but contemporary fiction isn't something I look for. I enjoyed this book. In fact I was quite surprised with how well done it was. At the end of the novel I found myself wanting to read more of it.

In short: the lady can write.

If Ms Bianco ever chose to pen another book, I would buy that one as well.


Real Life was published by Booksurge, which is a printing house associated with Amazon.com. You can obtain the book from either place. There is also a Kindle(TM) edition of the novel if you have one of Amazon's spiffy portable displays. It's further possible that if you go to Herocon next weekend, they may have a few at Wentworth's again this year. And if you ask very, very nicely, you might get the author to sign your copy as well .


Real Life
ISBN: 1-4392-0422-5
ISBN-13: 978-1439204221


(**The reverse is also true. After having seen the descriptions, puzzles, dialogue, and understanding of people in the text, the author is definitely the kind of person you want working on your Game as well.)

Awesome post, thank you.

I think it's humorously ironic that someone who wrote a story called "Real Life" would then go on to work on an MMORPG.

I was expecting a review of this game.

In that respect, I was disappointed.

Otherwise, nice review! I may see if my local library has this.

Wow!

I think that is the first review I've ever had of my book.

Mostly, I just force it on family and friends and they're sort of obligated to smile and nod and say that they like it. So, I'm not going to lie, with major fear and trepidation, I was directed to your thread by Castle and I dragged my feet all the way to the forums. I was very very relieved (breathe, Melissa!) that you enjoyed it!

For the record, the book is "chick lit", which is more geared as easy-reading for the lady folks and never tries to take itself too seriously. I'm a quippy type girl with plenty of failures, mishaps, embarassing situations, and irritated comebacks to draw upon so this book blended plenty of ME in it along with some research and time spent on the internets.

(And since I'm desperately short, of course, the heroine is - as I like to call it - "maxed out height-wise on the costume creator".)

No, I haven't visited Australia, but it's on my bucket list!

Thanks again for taking the time to read it. I'd hoped I might break 20 readers! I think I did!

WW

where can one purchase said book?

Edit: FPARN

current list of FPARN

Babs:3
Castle:1
Posi:1
Sunstorm:1
WW:1
Ghost Falcon:1
Niviene:2
Mod8/The Ocho:2

I'm getting and impressive kill list...err you know what I mean.

Real Life: A Review
Free subscription, but as usual, this leads to it being full of morons. There's far too much grinding, and even more, loot and how long you spend working are only moderately related. Only about 1% of the players ever even get close to the top loot. PvP sucks, death penalties are way too harsh, there's way too much downtime, and the devs haven't talked to the playerbase in so long that a substantial portion of the players think they didn't even exist in the first place. Crafting also takes forever.

On the upside, the servers are very stable.

Ooh, I need to write a book so I can finally document that surfing shark attack I was involved in.

Real Life sucks. The phenomenon, NOT the book.

I prefer Digital Life over Real Life. There's more rewards and they come much easier!

So glad you posted this!

*added to Amazon wish list*

Yes, it's a necro-post. But I think it's a topical one given War Witch's celebrated new position. People less familiar with our new Design Lead might like a chance to see and enjoy what she's written.

Not just any other Design Lead, also an AUTHOR!