GoSpeed Racer On Her Published Novels

By Bixyl Shuftan

Many longtime residents know GoSpeed Racer (GoSpeed Rasere) as a DJ for many of Bay City's events and the owner of the KONA Internat radio station, as well as for being "Cleverly Named" after a character in cartoons. But she's also a published writer. She has written three novels inspired by Second Life, under her real life name R. Jacques. The third was just recently published on Amazon. I recently went to interview her about them.

We met up at her place near KONA Stream Studios. "Welcome," she greeted, "It's three levels, an underground, the surface, and my private studio up in the sky." I noticed a statue on the grounds which looked like the one on her cover in the third book, and made a note to bring it up later. We walked inside and sat down.

"So to begin with," I asked, "what gave you the idea for the stories?" "Several things," GoSpeed answered, "I've always been a science fiction fan. In Second Life I've been exposed to so many other people's imagination. Especially potent was their roleplay experiences. Many roleplay groups have forums packed full of storylines generated in SL." When I asked which ones were her favorites, she responded, "Oh, I never participated. I don't have the time or motivation to get so deeply involved. Bedsides, being 'GoSpeed' is enough for me to begin with (smile). Like many of us, my SL avatar is a character of our own making which only partially represents our true selves."

I then asked when did she start writing her first book. As it turned out, she had earlier projects before her published works, "I did start a short story back in 2009, but I never finished. Fast-forward to 2015 and my favorite podcaster/author did a two-part podcast about writing novels. It was then I decided to take the plunge and begin writing. I wrote a 20,000 word short space opera novel. It's pretty rough, I must admit. But I plan to revise and release it one day.

Her attention turned to her first published novel, Raser's War, "My first released novel I began in 2016. It was an origin story of sorts about GoSpeed and how she and her fellow NPCs in a futuristic virtual world gained their independence, but in the process, lose their innocence. Some 500 years in the future, mankind is at peace. That also implies life can be a bit boring of course, so many people seek entertainment and fulfillment in virtual space. GoSpeed is a virtaul resident of one world, Simvie Loko. Her kind, the NPCs, serve human users. As you may know, Utopias are never perfect. And humans plan a rebellion against authority, a world-ruling artificial intelligence named Gaiana. Gaiana hates dissent, so he sends forces into Simvie Loko to root out the rebels. The rebels fight back, and GoSpeed is recruited to fight with the rebels."

On the cover of her second book, We Built This City, Bay City is prominently featured on the cover. "It is a continuation of GoSpeed's journey," she called it, "The new world she lives in has less meaning. Her life on the island is not what she wants, so she goes to Bay City to find a new life. The story is much darker as GoSpeed loses her way and gets involved in activities she'd never dream of doing in her past life: PTSD, Loss of a relationship, losing her place in society.

"We Built This City is the most Second Life relatable of the three stories. I included (with their permission) many residents of Bay City, (such as) Marianne McCann, Uccello Poultry, Pygar Bu, Thomas Hooker." I asked what the residents thought of their cameos. Racer answered, "Oh, they loved them! Oh, there is one caveat I used when writing about SL avatars. The basic premise behind 21st Century avatars in a 25th century simulation was that they were modeled after social media found in Internet archives. You may recall news stories about how it is possible to recreat personalities based on social media postings? Say you have hundreds or thousands of pictures, blog posts, etc... You could come up with a personality. Using that as a premise, the characters I wrote tended to deviate to a degree compared to how they act now." Some had comparable roles, such as Marianne's counterpart being the city's mayor and that of blogger Uccello being a TV journalist.

This time, the main antagonist is a criminal organization. "There is a neighboring city that was sourced from a late 1940s noire themed game (like L.A. Noire) run by the mafia," GoSpeed explained, "Angel City, a pseudo Los Angeles, actually." There's also more than just the mafia separating the two communities, "As you can imagine, there would be a clash of cultures and values between a mid 20th century people and a mid 21st century group." Among the characters are a couple whom had been cryogenicaly frozen in the 21st Century whose minds are uploaded into the virtual world to inhabit avatars.

Recently published this month was her third book, The Bounding Main. "The third novel wraps up a few storylines and opens up the world of Simvie Loko to new lands," GoSpeed explained, "The first novel was about a loss of innocence. The second was the fall from grace. The thrid ias about forgiveness and starting anew. To get into the meat of the story, a new civilization is detected in a region of Simvie Loko that was off-limits. GoSpeed joins a joint expedition between Angel City and the ordinary citizens. They venture south to contact these new countries, and of course, things wind up being more complicated than they imagined."

I brought to her attention the statue on the cover, which was like the one in her yard. "Yes, a Roman centurion," she told me, then smiled, "which is relevant to the storyline. There are 'Romans' in the story." But these weren't exactly what we usually think of, "NPCs (aka Citizens) are from the 25th century. 49ers, residents of Angel City, are 20th century relics. The new countries they discover are from different parts of history, and alternate history to be precise. Remember the Star Trek episode with the planet that had 20th century Romans? Kinda like that."

I then asked if she was planning another book in the series. "This particualr series is finished," GoSpeed answered, "but there are other contemporary stories in Simvie Loko I can write about. I plan to write an anthology of short stories about various characters and locales in the world, like, the founding of Bay City, the first days of Angel City's arrival and the chaos that followed. You can only put so much in a novel. I want to give a few characters their due. It's also a form of world building too."

"After my anthology I plan to write about some of the characters leaving the virtual world and inhabiting android bodies. Two of them, Abba and Ravishal were sent to Mars to finish the job Abba started decades before. Her origin is alluded to in the first novel." So some of the virtual characters do end up in the real world, "Space is very harsh to human bodies. So, why not send androids with human personalities? ... To quote Elton John, Mars is cold as hell. Plus the radiation is pretty harsh too."

GoSpeed hoped that her novels would inspire others in Second Life to start writing, "There is a VAST amount of creativity here and so many stories that can be told. If I can self publish, then anyone so inclined can." She mentioned Book Island, saying aspiring writers could head there and share excerpts, "You can read them aloud or have the hostess, Selina Greene read them in voice chat. I shared scenes here and there as I wrote them. It is nice and informative to hear your writing read."

GoSpeed's novels can be purchased through Amazon on her page there (link) and Smashwords (link). On Saturday March 30, there will be a discussion about The Bounding Main at Book Island at Noon SL time.

Bixyl Shuftan

Published Author Writes Novel of Crime and Mystery In a Virtual World

By Bixyl Shuftan

There was a book published in April this year, "Femme Fatale Online," written by Eugene Rodgers, that would be of interest to some in Second Life. The story takes place partly in a virtual world much like Second Life. A man named Rick goes by the name Issac in the world, and befriends a beautiful lady avatar named Joan. Joan arranges for Rick to get a job in real life with Molcom, a large corporation that's made breakthroughs that could potentially lead to practical nuclear fusion power. She lures Rick, who is married in real life, into a virtual romance. Then she blackmails him by threatening to mail recordings of the tryst, ordering him to commit industrial espionage. As time goes on, she threatens to harm he and his family as well. He realizes he has to find out who she is, and comes up with a list of suspects he has to narrow down before he's discovered.

Rodgers contacted me, and corresponding with him I found he had been going by the name Adolphe Menjou inworld years earlier.  He also had a couple alts, "my book's hero, Rick Collins," and "Joan d'Arc, the book's villain." But unfortunately, a problem came up, "when I returned to SL last year after a hiatus, Adolphe had become a white cloud and I couldn't revive him." So he got another account, Isaacasimov1 Resident, whom still has "off-the-shelf" looks, "I ... did nothing with it since all my inworld time was with Rick or Joan."

We met up at "Rick's Ranch," the place he called his inworld home. He apologized for some slow responses early on, "I'm a bit rusty on the controls, plus I'm a crappy typist." I brought up by the rezz date on his first account that he had been in Second Life for over ten years. "Technically, yes," he answered, "But I left dfor several years and came back last year. ... The place has sue changed. All my friends are gone." I asked why he left for a while. He responded, "Started writing the book! My first attempt at fiction, so it took a long, hard time." I asked him where he got the idea for the plot. He told me, "I started to write the book as nonfiction. I wanted to show what life was like in a huge corporation. But I decided fiction would have a greater impact. I was in Second Life and thought of the idea for the book. So besides corporate life, I could also show readers what a virtual world is like. Most people have no idea what corporate life is like or what a virtual world is."

Following up his comment about corporate life, I brought up, "I recall you saying, 'One character proposes what he calls the 3B’s of business success — backstabbing, butt kissing, and bull throwing.' Was he being a pessimist, or being accurate in your opinion?" Rodgers/Issac answered, "Accurate! The original nonfiction idea would have been mostly about the 3B's, 'The 3B Approach to Business Success,' my idea of a tongue in cheek title.But in the book I would have used a less delicate word than 'bullthrowing'." I asked if there were any references to "Dilbert," a daily comic strip by Scott Adams about an office cubicle worker dealing with a dimwitted boss and less than sympathetic coworkers. "No references," he answered, "but it's very much like Dilbert. I tried sending a message to Scott Adams, but couldn't get through. He once worked for a corporation."

I brought up Second Life once more, "How did you find your experience here?" "Loved it!" he told me enthusiastically, "Especially meeting people from all over the world. And the anonymity allows people to open up. I really got to know some friends well. One person I never got to know at all. And she was mean, but interesting. She became the villain, Joan, in my book." I asked if the characters from the business were based on anyone or completely made up. "Fictional," he responded, "but everything that happens in the book is a disguised version of what actually happened to colleagues or myself. The corporation, Molcom, is a composite of several huge corporations."

I asked if the fictional virtual world was almost like Second Life. He answered, "Yes, but technologically much more advanced. For example, I had to invent a way to make AVS perfect reproductions so the blackmail would work. So Rick's AV would look exactly likehim and the videos of his romancing Joan would seem real. ... the basic AV there is like AVs here. You can make them look like whatever you want. In my fictional world, you have to spend a lot of money to make a perfect AV.  I think I saw once where someone took photos you sent in and made a realistic AV from them." Of nonhuman avatars, Rodgers/Isaac told me he didn't come up how those came about or their use in his story.

Of the plot in the story in which Joan blackmails Rick and he has to try and figure out who she is to stop her, I asked how does he come up with a list of suspects. Rodgers/Isaac answered, "Various ways, careful observation and deduction. He realizes she must live in the Pittsburgh area and works for Molcom. He actively seeks some clues, interviewing a person in the virtual world, PP, who's a friend of Joan, eavesdropping on her meeting with friends on a beach." How Rick finds out, he wouldn't say, "You don't know until the last few pages that he succeeds. I tried to write a page turner. I also inject suspense by having a real-life sexy woman try to seduce him. You don't know until near the end whether she succeeds (either). Sex sells!"

Rodgers/Isaac felt virtual reality would soon skyrocket in use among the general public, " I'm going by news stories I've read. The investment community seems to expect virtual reality to take off soon. As you know, you can already buy limited versions. When that happens, goodbye SL! Unless Linden Labs gets into virtual reality." When I brought up Sansar and it's low numbers, he responded, " ... I don't think Linden Lab is very business savvy. Second Life isn't what it was years ago when I ws active. Some people think Facebook stole its thunder. Maybe it's the proliferation of social media.  I don't know. I know when I came back all my friends were gone and my old haunts were deserted or almost so." He wondered if the enthusiasm was gone, though seemed to feel more optimistic when I mentioned the Relay for Life, "If my book sells well, maybe more people will become interested in Second Life. ... If you're keeping busy, then I guess SL still has some excitement left."

Rodgers has published some books before, "'Beyond the Barrier: The Story of Byrd's First Expedition to Antarctica,' which is still in print after 27 years, and 'Flying High: The Story of Boeing and the Jetliner Industry.'" He told me the books sold well, "especially the Byrd book. ... On the basis of the Byrd book, I became a technical advisor to a woman who did a book that came out in January called 'The Stowaway' about a member of the Byrd expedition. I understand it's doing well." Transitioning from nonfiction to fiction, "I find fiction to be much different from nonfiction, a big surprise to me."

Besides having published three books, Rodgers is a retired public relations writer for several large corporations and managed public relations for the Westinghouse R&D Center. He was named Virginia author of the year in 1991 by the Virginia College Store’s Association for the first printing of "Beyond the Barrier." He is married with a grown son and daughter.

For more information on "Femme Fatale Online," check out it's Facebook page at : facebook.com/rodgersmystery .

Bixyl Shuftan