"In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the Oasis. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines -- puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them. But when Wade stumbles upon the first...

Days after winning control of OASIS, the immersive virtual reality environment in which most of humanity chooses to live, Wade Watts discovers a world-changing technological advancement and draws the attention of a merciless new rival. --

Henry Dorsett Case was the sharpest data-thief in the Matrix, until an ex-employer crippled his nervous system. Now a new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run against an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence. With a mirror-eyed girl street-samurai riding shotgun, he's ready for the silicon-quick, bleakly prophetic adventure that upped the ante on an entire genre of fiction. Henry Dorsett Case was the sharpest data-thief in the...

Tom, a fourteen-year-old genius at virtual reality games, is recruited by the United States Military to begin training at the Pentagon Spire as a Combatant in World War III, controlling the mechanized drones that do the actual fighting off-planet.

Richard Forthrast, having dodged the draft in 1972 and become wealthy from smuggling marijuana across the Canadian border, develops a multi-million dollar, massively multiplayer online role-playing game after returning to the United States, and, after hackers create a virus that holds the electronic files of players ransom, he finds himself in a battle for survival as he travels around the world as a participant in a deadly war beyond the boundaries...

Adie Klarpol, an artist working on a vast virtual reality project in Puget Sound, and Taimur Martin, a political prisoner in Beirut, retreat into the world of the imagination, each in their own white room.

"Bianca has never been good at following the plan. She's more of an act-now, deal-with-the-consequences-later kind of person. But consequences can't be put off forever, as Bianca learns when she and her best friend, Lonnie, are in a terrible car crash. Waking up in the hospital, almost paralyzed by her injuries, Bianca is faced with questions she's not equipped to answer. She chooses instead to try a new virtual-reality version of Minecraft that responds...

"A mid-level employee of a New York-based public relations firm finds his consciousness uploaded into the company's internal Slack channel"-- Gerald, a mid-level employee of a New York-based public relations firm, has been uploaded into the company's internal Slack channels. At least his consciousness has. His colleagues assume it is just an elaborate ploy to exploit their lax work-from-home policy. Disembodied and alarmed by the looming abyss of...

While serving as a superhuman government weapon during World War III, teenage gamer Tom Raine's loyalties are tested by corruption and nefarious enemies.

"Yared Heywat lives an isolated life in Addis Prime -- a hardscrabble city with rundown tech, lots of rules, and not much to do. His worrywart Uncle Moti and bionic lioness Besa are his only family... and his only friends. Often in trouble for his thrill-seeking antics and smart mouth, those same qualities make Yared a star player of the underground augmented reality game, The Hunt for Kaleb's Obelisk. But when a change in the game rules prompts...