New user ID

"The Making of Second Life" begins with the first MUD, then skates over to the economic, personal, sexual and intellectual activities on Second Life. We meet Wilde Cunningham, a group avatar of disabled people that has blossomed through the Web; learn of a virtual Darfur camp, set up to raise awareness, that is routinely trashed; and examine user-generated software that allows avatars to simulate sex. Au also explores how people can "buy" land and build upon it; people whose avatars have a different gender or race; in-world marriages; Second Life outposts for universities such as Harvard; and singer Regina Spektor, whose label built a lounge for residents to sample her latest album.

The seriousness of Au's project, however, is somewhat undercut by his unwillingness to argue Second Life's influence, only measuring what could happen. In "Second Lives: A Journey Through Virtual Worlds," Guest makes a better, albeit alarming, argument for real-world consequences: a baby left home alone with parents off in a cafe playing EverQuest, virtual "sweat shops" for online overlords to trade virtual currency for real currency, and "gamer widows," spouses -- often female -- left in the lurch.

Guest is honest about what launched him on his virtual journey: mounting bills, depression, the pressure of real-world interactions: "In World of Warcraft, you didn't even have a home to care for, much less a landlord who held your belongings hostage against four months' missed rent." But when it comes to writing the book, his reasons are more lofty. Guest finds in the virtual worlds a "spirit . . . of the idealized and troubled communes" of his youth. After quoting Shakespeare and Sir Thomas More (Au throws out such names as Jorge Luis Borges and John Locke), Guest shifts to an overview similar to Au's, examining Linden Lab, profiteering hackers, the in-world punks and mafias, wars, sex, art and international growth (only a quarter of Second Lifers are in the U.S.).

But if there is anything more boring than minute detail about miscreants capitalizing on bugs in the system or terrorists whose "bombs," at worst, shut down servers, I don't know what it is. Even Second Life resident Anshe Chung, who parlayed her virtual land holdings into a million-dollar real-world fortune, at best elicits a yawn. Why? Because both authors, like real-world real-estate brokers, are simply selling too hard. In these books, we find a glossy brochure of a colorful world of self-made tycoons, instant romances, political upheavals, underground speak-easies, international intrigues, white-collar crooks and mafia dons. However, Guest's aside that EverQuest allows the user to order a real-life pizza without logging out points to a far more pedestrian reality.