Fredericton Library Launches New Book with Open Forum on the Future of the Internet

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Fredericton, NB: 10-17-05) Fredericton author Biff Mitchell’s latest novel, The War Bug (ISBN 1-55404-248-8), launches at the Fredericton Library on October 19 with an open forum on the future of humankind and the Internet.

The War Bug – previously a best-selling ebook and now available in trade paperback across North America – is set 200 years in the future when a war between giant corporate city states that dominate the online world threatens to crash the Internet. In the midst of the chaos, one man must save his kidnapped virtual wife and daughter before they are destroyed. His only ally is the computer virus that started the war in the first place.

“I didn’t want to do the typical read-from-the-book and talk-about-what-inspired-me kind of book launch,” said Mitchell. “The Library’s event coordinator, Leslie Cockburn, offered to let me use the computer lab for the launch, and that gave me an idea for something beyond just talking about the book.”

Mitchell plans to use the computer lab to conduct a tour of virtual worlds that exist today on the Internet. Following the tour, he’ll discuss the virtual world in The War Bug as an example of one possibility for the evolution of the Internet. After a short discussion of some of the possibilities he’ll be exploring in the sequel to The War Bug, Mitchell will open the floor for discussion.

"In my novel, there are two types of people," said Mitchell, "Those who live and work in the physical world, and those who live and work in cyberspace. Over the next few centuries, I think we'll see a mass migration of people to virtual homes and work places on the Internet. Initially, people will live like royalty in the online world, complete with virtual palaces and huge virtual domains, but as the Internet becomes increasingly dominated by commercial interests, everything will scale down to what each person can afford, just like in the real world."

“Everyone’s viewpoint will be welcome in the forum,” said Mitchell. “We’re talking about something that will exist several centuries into the future, so anything is possible in the arenas of religion, politics, economics, the workplace, the home … every facet of life.”

The book launch will be held from 6 to 7 PM on Wednesday, October 19 on the second floor of the Fredericton Public Library on Carleton Street. The theme of the launch will be The Internet of the Future: Will We Be Assimilated?

During the evening, Mitchell will be giving away two War Bug t-shirts, book marks, and an autographed copy of the script for the original version of The War Bug.

Biff Mitchell is the author of the world’s first laundromance, Heavy Load (Fictionwise.com). His satire on the IT industry Team Player will be published by Double Dragon in 2006. Two of his novellas Smoke Break and The Baton are available in ebook format from Echelon Press. His satire on the IT industry, Team Player, will be published by Double Dragon in 2006. His ebook eMarketing Tools for Writers made the Fictionwise business books bestseller list. For more about the works of Biff Mitchell visit: www.biffmitchell.com

Susan DePlacido's 24/7

Hey folks!

I know. I haven't blogged in ages. It's been busy busy. I've started running a fiction writing workshop at UNB, my computer crashed and set me back about two thousand years, I have a book launch coming up in a couple of weeks, (more on that later), I went to Chicago for a week (and didn't get mugged on my late-night run down Michigan Ave), and just plain lots of other stuff).

I'll be blogging on these things in the weeks ahead, but first, here's my review of Susan DePlacdio's 24/7 ... a great read!

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24/7 by Susan DiPlacido Zumaya Publications 2005, ISBN: 978-1-55410-217-4, 441pages Author Web Site: www.susandiplacido.com

Susan DiPlacido is not a writer for weak-stomached literary wimps. Her first novel, 24/7, is an unrelenting sex fest chic lit masterpiece set in the world's most addictive city.

Marina Martino is a 30-year old single with enough emotional baggage to sink an oil tanker. She's never had a lasting relationship, her father habitually adds 20 pounds to a physical image already inflated in her mind, she drinks too much, she swears too much, she's a crutch to all around her: her life seems screwed.

But she's relatively happy and contented. She's compassionate, attractive and smart, and her job allows her the time off she needs to pursue her single passion: gambling. Marina has a second life in Las Vegas where she indulges in the barely legal art of card counting. Not only is she good at it, but she's good at not getting caught because she knows how to keep her cool in a life balanced by predictability and resignation.

Until she meets Miguel Rodriquez. He's everything she always knew she would never have in a man: deadly handsome, enigmatic, great in the sack and, wonder of wonders, apparently in love with her. Miguel sweeps her out of the static routine of her life and drags her clawing and biting into a world where she is beautiful, desirable, and also great in the sack. "He wants me," she thinks. "He. Wants. Me. Even after he's already had me."

Just as she starts to accept a new vision of herself, Miguel's past catches up to them. He has dangerous friends and dark secrets. Marina's faith in her ability to hang on to her dream beau is in for an epic cleansing in the industrial-size washer that will test the book's opening lines:

The odds are against me, but I can change that. Because I may not be lucky, but I'm damn good.

Spoken in true chic lit lingo.

24/7 has another character just as real as Marina and Miguel: Las Vegas. The city explodes across the emotional canvas of Marina's life with dazzling lights, dealers and movers, stars and bartenders, the essence of the American dream:

Vegas. Dice and dinner, craps and comics, hot slots and hookers. Free shots, loose slots and easy sluts. Las ***** Vegas. Conceived from a dream, built on blood and with the same thing keeping it running year after year.

Greed.

It is the Dream. The New American Dream. Money for nothing.

But as Marina understands, the odds are in favor of the casinos, not the gamblers. The casinos, she claims, are unbeatable.

Which is exactly why some people have to try.

It's that slight glimmer of hope that keeps them coming back, and it's that slight glimmer of hope that keeps Marina hanging on to Miguel in the biggest win-or-lose gamble of her life.

Susan DiPlacido writes with an ease that carries the reader painlessly into a complex exploration of a woman going against the odds and learning to accept that she's much more than she ever suspected. The descriptions of Las Vegas are compelling, almost as dazzling as the lights themselves, making 24/7 a great read for anyone who likes their literature served up with the lust and language of an illusory world populated by real people. On a scale of 1 to 3, I give this one 24/7.