ANIMA: a novel about Second Life

ANIMA: a novel about Second Life is a science fiction book by virtual author Dalian Hansen, published in 2007. The plot explores the influence that an existence in a simulated digital world has on the physical flesh reality and their inter-dependant perceptions. It is the first fictionalized work to use the 3D virtual world of Second Life as a major environment of the story. ANIMA is book one of a trilogy that will include ANIMUS (Of Animus and Men) and PERSONA (Persona Publica).
Origins
After the rise and popularity of the virtual world of Second Life, the metaverse setting was reinforced in the awareness of popular culture. Whereas other written works imagined such a 3D computer environment, Dalian Hansen used this specific location to depict a more tangible connection between the real world and the simulated world.
Plot Summary
Ben Talbot is a programmer with the CDC in Atlanta, who is fired as part of a cover-up for a sexual affair and embezzelment scheme in his office. While contemplating his unfortunate luck and destroyed career, he discovers a BusinessWeek cover story in May of 2006. The magazine features a virtual environment where people, in a simulated 3D computer form, can make millions of real dollars. He explores this claim and enters the virtual world called Second Life.
In this realm, Ben sees an opportunity to become rich while extracting revenge on his former boss. Using his vast programming skills, he hacks into Second Life and clones numerous top selling virtual products. As the avatar Ben Tao, he plans to sell his pirated versions and reap the rewards. During his hack, Ben uncovers an exploit that also allows him to change the creation dates of the virtual products. This gives him the ability to claim that the popular and top selling commercial items in Second Life were illegal copies of his original work. Ben understands that the financial benefits of intellectual property lawsuits would be enormous and changes his strategy.
However, as soon as Ben sets his plan in motion he realizes something is very wrong. His Second Life account instantly gained a balance of hundreds of thousands of dollars. As he looked over his inventory transaction reports, he discovers that his counterfeit products have been selling for years and not minutes. After exploring all possibilities, Ben comes to the conclusion that he did not merely alter the creation dates of his pirated products, but actually sent them back into time within Second Life.
While deciding how to cash out and launder his new fortune, soaring into the millions, Ben's avatar begins receiving text messages from an unknown source within Second Life. He thinks it is someone who has somehow hacked his account, but the person merely asks for his help. When Ben ignores this request, he begins hearing a voice in his head. The Voice tells him that a man in Iraq will die unless Ben gets him a message. Ben thinks he has become schizophrenic.
Unable to deal with the Voice any longer, he asks it what to do. The Voice explains that Ben has the ability to send Second Life virtual objects into the past. Ben needs to design a prim that sends an IM to another avatar in the game. This avatar is controlled by a soldier who was killed several years earlier in 2004. The message must warn of the date and time of the patrol where the soldier is ambushed.
Reluctantly, and believing he has totally lost his mind, Ben follows what the Voice has told him to do. Once done he instantly sees that the avatar is listed as his partner within Second Life and falls deeper into confusion. On the verge of committing suicide, with a gun to his head, he hears the Voice again. With the trigger pulled back to end the madness, the Voice explains....
The Voice is from the future. She is a female metahuman, combined biological human and cyber-mechanical entity. The soldier in Iraq is the flesh avatar of her husband. In the future, metahumans can control simple biohumans of the past just as Ben can control his digital avatar in Second Life. So when a flesh avatar dies, its Anima host in the future automatically disconnects. But something happened, a server glitch of sorts, and an Anima's mind became trapped in the flesh avatar soldier, called Alex. If the human Alex died, so would its Anima. The Voice, known as OoNa, could not send a message to the past in time to save the flesh avatar Alex and retrieve the mind of her husband, OoTo.
Ben could barely grasp what he was told, as the Voice continued explaining life in the future, when realities between virtual, cyber and the real physical world have merged. These elements, combined with the physics of time travel, had created the mess of alternate realities. As such, every time the past was changed it would create a new cloned reality. OoNa explained that Benjamin Talbot was a flesh avatar that she hijacked in order to send her message back in time through Second Life, and avoid this alternate reality paradox.
Instead of changing the creation date for the items he had stolen, Ben actually created a wormhole within Second Life to the year 2003. Before OoNa can finish explaining, Ben snaps. The reader is left to wonder if he did in fact commit suicide, or just collapsed into a mental black hole. The story ends with many unanswered questions, and the introduction of a formidable cosmic entity known as The Darkness that leaches into Second Life as the key to unlock control over all organic and digital realities.
Characters
* Benjamin "Jim" Talbot, fired programmer and story's protagonist
* Frank Harbin, Benjamin's unethical boss at the CDC
* Vicky, Office slut who is influential in Benjamin being fired
* Man In Coma, a flesh avatar who was cancelled by an Anima in the future
* Ben Tao, the avatar name of Benjamin in Second Life
* Victor Newchurch, an avatar and mentor to Ben Tao in Second Life
* Helen, the love interest of Alex, a soldier serving in Iraq
* Alex, a military officer who is also the flesh Avatar of future parasitic Anima
* Hamlet Au, an avatar and in-world Second Life reporter
* OoNa, a female pseudo-human living in the future PrimeRelality, who is the Anima of Helen
* OoTo, a male pseudo-human living in the future PrimeRelality, who is the Anima of Alex
* The Voice, part of the unnamed female avatar in Second Life, controlled by OoNa
* The Darkness, a vast and terrible entity that briefly appears at the end of the story, foreshadowing its larger role in the sequel books.
Reception
The novel was welcomed with much acclaim and anticipation by the Second Life community. However, it did not cross-over to the mainstream population as intended, in part because of a backlash against the inflated Second Life hype, soon followed by a state of decline of the virtual world and its residents.

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