{"product_id":"9781932482171","title":"Chat Line","description":"\u003ci\u003e\"The future is already rooted in the present . . . it has happened . . . \"\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSpoken by Merlin in \u003ci\u003eExcalibur\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis work of fiction is structured in \"episodes.\" Meetings take place in cyberspace, a medium, undreamed of until only a few years ago. The Internet is now so accessible that it constitutes a worldwide cultural phenomenon in its own right. Can the Internet be a surrogate for happiness? These episodes offer opportunities for reflection.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChaste yet depraved. Passionate and ice-cold. Instructive yet foreboding. A now elusive, now indolent group of individuals moves and observes us from the cover of the names under which they present themselves to the rest of the world: \u003cb\u003eVenus\u003c\/b\u003e, a twenty-one year old cyber-siren from Michigan, whose naked thighs become the story itself under the dazzling shafts of light emitted by her monitor; \u003cb\u003eWheelchair\u003c\/b\u003e, a would-be hacker from Hungary, wheelchair-bound after a road accident, constructs, through a channel for the disabled, an unexpected new life for himself and for someone else; \u003cb\u003eCaptain\u003c\/b\u003e, a young Greek, obsessed equally by the imminence of history and military uniforms is the victim of a spiral of violence he creates to escape his dreary routine; and \u003cb\u003eWolf\u003c\/b\u003e, an inscrutable minstrel of the chat lines is on the point of understanding a truth suspended halfway between virtual and real events.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe interplay of dialogue with the syntax of a language penned and punctuated by the imperious rush of the computer keyboard enables a new culture of the written word. The computer reveals itself to be a modern-day accomplice to men and women using the Internet to claim the sublime pleasure of seduction and to take a wild gamble on impossible truths and fate-confounding fictions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor author image, bio, and sample read visit bosonbooks.com.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"C\u0026M Online Media, Inc.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47141259313392,"sku":"9781932482171","price":3.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781932482171_p0.jpg?v=1763639032","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781932482171","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}