{"product_id":"2940154525531","title":"Typical Day","description":"\u003cp\u003eEvery morning from 6 until 7 am, Joyce Williams plays a video game called LifeMaster. This game is embodied in a small, square, ruby colored crystalline cube.\u003cbr\u003eUsing the game, Joyce plays through all the events of his coming day. At the end of the playing hour, his day gets locked in.\u003cbr\u003eJoyce then goes out and lives exactly what happens to him in the game he’s just played.\u003cbr\u003eHe’s an average player. He lives a normal, average life. No big highs, no big lows. Strictly straight down the middle. Good enough for Joyce.\u003cbr\u003eThen one day lightning hits a gas main, destroying Joyce’s apartment and his LifeMaster cube.\u003cbr\u003eNo problem. LifeMaster customer service issues him a new cube.\u003cbr\u003eWhen he tries to play it, his LifeMaster console labels it VOID and spits it out.\u003cbr\u003eThe rigid and unsympathetic LifeMaster bureaucracy refuses to replace his cube a second time.\u003cbr\u003eJoyce is forced to live his life in the dreaded and risky default mode. He doesn’t play the game himself. Instead, the LifeMaster system uses complex mathematical probability theories to generate his daily activities. Since he’s not personally playing his game, he doesn’t know beforehand what the day will bring, what’s going to happen to him. It’s a terrifying prospect for somebody who’s never lived that way.\u003cbr\u003eJoyce pessimistically expects his life will stay the way it was or get slightly worse.\u003cbr\u003eTo his delight and amazement, it goes the other way. His life gets better. Way, way better.\u003cbr\u003eHe gets promoted big time at work.\u003cbr\u003eHe starts hanging out with pro basketball sports hero Scooter Kale who nicknames him Jay. When they play basketball one-on-one, Jay always wins.\u003cbr\u003eTo Jay’s amazement, he gets taller, thinner, stronger. He even gets better looking.\u003cbr\u003eAt work, he moves up again, this time to his company’s super secret Special Ops Division. There he’s partnered with Herculisa, a costumed, crime-fighting superheroine.\u003cbr\u003eJay becomes the brave and fearless crime fighter JayHawk. He gets his own superhero costume. He goes on amazing, dangerous, and exciting missions battling dire forces of evil. He always triumphs.\u003cbr\u003eJay has it all. Wealth, excitement, success, and a gorgeous girlfriend.\u003cbr\u003eHe can’t believe how much his life has improved since he started playing life in the default mode.\u003cbr\u003eThen, without warning, his perfect world comes crashing down.\u003cbr\u003eHe loses his superhero status, his wealth, his spiffy new penthouse, his girlfriend. He ends up sad, lonely, destitute, friendless.\u003cbr\u003eJoyce eventually figures out why his life got better. And then with stunning swiftness fell apart.\u003cbr\u003eHe wasn’t playing in the default mode. His life was hacked. Some stranger was using his supposedly lost cube, playing his game, living his life for him. When the hacker got bored and stopped playing, Joyce’s life fell apart.\u003cbr\u003eTo get his life back, Joyce must find the mysterious hacker and persuade him to undo the misery he’s caused.\u003cbr\u003eThat turns out to be easier, and yet much, much harder than Joyce ever imagined.\u003cbr\u003eTypical Day introduces a cleverly original new story concept from Gary K. Wolf, the creator of Roger Rabbit. The world he portrays here is as strange and wondrous a place as Toontown. A world where the normal rules don’t apply. Where nothing is what it seems.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gary K. Wolf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47111713554672,"sku":"2940154525531","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940154525531_p0.jpg?v=1764074268","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940154525531","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}