Ally #1, Bruce Sterling, has a great brief bit of fiction in the latest New Scientist, I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Google:

Us teenage poets depress easily. You know what they tell me whenever I rant like this? "Get a hobby." Play imaginary fantasy computer games! That is allowed me! Wow, thanks! When she nursed me as a baby, my Mom dropped me right on my head to play Wonder-World of Witchcraft. I sure know where that story goes. If "religion is the opiate of the people", then immersive multiplayer 3D virtual worlds are hard-core Afghani heroin. My Mom will never make it back into the labor force: Mom's way too busy building herself up to 146th-level SuperMasonic Tolkien-Fantasy Ultra-Elf Queen. Like that helps! Look, I can show you Mom's gaming environment, right on the screen here. My Mom's a Welfare Elf Queen.

Includes the first Smiths-reference I've ever seen in fiction. Probably first person to ever allude to The Smiths and Rush in the same piece. Definitely gets the mind thinking about the real-world-social implications of online-social networking, massively multiplayer games, etc.

Posted by: Stephen A. Fuqua on September 28, 2006 11:43 AM