title: Unplugged: My Journey into the Dark World of Video Game Addiction
author:  Ryan G. Van Cleave 
description: Van Cleave is out to settle old scores, set the record straight, and share highlights from an 80-hour-a-week addiction to the massively multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft. With confidence verging at times on arrogance ("If you figure out how to make a girl or two howl -- I mean, like biblical noise -- word gets around"), Van Cleave shares the highlights of his early life. Despite an already-formed addiction, he was a "gifted classical guitar major" in college, and wrote a fantasy novel that could have, he has no doubt, been huge. Top-notch agents were calling, but a computer meltdown left everyone empty handed. "Like the... novel that Ernest Hemingway left in a suitcase that was stolen from his wife in Paris in 1922, my epic fantasy would never know an audience." Van Cleave returns often to two main themes: his adoption as a child (which still causes him great pain) and the failure of the world to embrace unique individuals like him. He finds fault with everyone, including himself, but stops short of real insight, and his interviews with other addicts likely won't satisfy readers seeking actual support. <BR>Copyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  # More Advance Praise  
  for _Ready Player One_
  
  
  
  
  
  **“[An] adrenaline shot of uncut geekdom** … sweet, self-deprecating Wade,
  whose universe is an odd mix of the real past and the virtual present, is
  **the perfect lovable/unlikely hero.”**
  
  
  **_—Publishers Weekly_**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **“The pure, unfettered brainscream of a child of the ’80s** , like a dream my
  thirteen-year-old self would have had after bingeing on Pop Rocks and Coke.…
  **I couldn’t put it down.”**
  
  
  **—Charles Ardai, Edgar Award–winning author**  
   **and producer of**
  
  
  **_Haven_**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **“Pure geek heaven**. Ernest Cline’s hero competes in a virtual world with
  life-and-death stakes—which is only fitting, because he’s fighting to make his
  dreams into reality. Cline blends a dystopic future with meticulously detailed
  nostalgia to create **a story that will resonate in the heart of every true
  nerd.”**
  
  
  **—Christopher Farnsworth, author of**
  
  
  **_Blood Oath_**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **“A fantastic adventure set in a 