The Broken World

Description

An extremely original, off-beat novel about life and love and happiness, not just in the real world, but in the on-line one too. Writing an on-line walk-through to a computer game of some complexity can take up a lot of time. As our narrator grapples with his player's guide, real life starts to intrude in troublesome ways. The day job, the live-in girlfriend and his best friend are all causing him headaches; but nothing can distract him from the task at hand. All of his attention is demanded by The Broken World - an engrossing adventure that sees him struggling with zombies, agents, puzzles and mysteries. As each of his worlds collides and begins to affect the other, only one thing is clear. Our hero must solve the problems of life, love and happiness - not just in The Broken World, but in the real one too. The Broken World is a dazzling new novel that fuses games with fiction in an entirely original way.

Tim Etchells is a writer and an artist whose work reaches across boundaries- from fiction through cutting edge theatre to video and visual art. He is best known as the writer and artistic director behind Sheffield's internationally renowned theatre ensemble Forced Entertainment. He has also published short stories in The Idler, Another Magazine and the Sceptre collection Brit Pulp! Etchells lives between Sheffield and New York.

Phenomenal. Quite scary in its originality, ingenuity and significance. Bound to become a cult book, and in serious danger of being a world-wide best-seller. -- Victoria Glendinning Steers a dizzying path between science fiction and the existential thriller, with writing that is kinetic, street-smart and supremely fertile ... Quite unique. Contemporary fiction should watch out: it's about to be ambushed. -- Rupert Thomson The Broken World is, in short, a page-turner, combining originality with readability ... One of our most stimulating writers. -- Mike Moorcock Etchells beguiles the reader in a number of sophisticated ways ... a humane and heartfelt book, with a proper emotional core wrapped up in a giddying fantasia. * Scotland on Sunday * One of the first books that truly examines how computer games and fiction can be intertwined ... a genuinely new development in literary fiction -- Matt Thorne * Literary Review *