What Others Think About My Life

It's always fascinating to hear what others think about our lives, isn't it? Some may endorse your approach, while others might think you could use your time more wisely. Some support your interests and activities, while others could care less. Yet, when someone cares enough to offer his observations and opinions, it seems a bit flattering. I'm just Fizzy; I do what I do because it seems right and fitting. I'm not looking for justification. Nor is DR (trust me; I know him personally). He writes what he writes because it seems right and fitting. Still, when somebody pays attention and is intrigued enough to offer an opinion, it makes it all worthwhile. So, below I have posted a recent review of The virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans (Hey! That's me!) written by author Donald O'Donovan.


"The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans is a strange and wonderful book. Fizzy Oceans, the heroine, thinks outside the box. But she doesn’t stop there. Fizzy lives outside the box.

Fizzy lives, as the title indicates, in a virtual world, where many of the limitations of our so-called real life are absent. In Virtual Life, as opposed to Physical Life, there’s no gravity, no disease, no aging, and you can travel through space and time, sans passport, with just a click — whoosh! — of a button. You can be who you want to be, go where you want to go, and yet The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans is not a science fiction novel for the simple reason that the technology that Fizzy and her virtual friends enjoy exists on the Internet now.

Fizzy Oceans herself is our narrator. Her style is breezy and conversational — Author David A. Ross has a great ear for dialogue — and the result is a light and frolicsome narrative freighted with serious content that is easily ingested, thanks to Fizzy’s unfailing good humor, playfulness and wisdom.

Those of us who grew up with video games drove go-karts, leaped tall buildings and battled Koopa Troopas in the person of Mario. But why let somebody else get your kicks for you? In Fizzy’s virtual world you get to custom sculpt your own personal avatar (called an emulation), a digital alter ego that has the characteristics you choose.

What about sex, you may wonder (I know I did)? Not a problem. At a virtual venue appropriately called the Sex Dungeon a delightfully uninhibited Fizzy gets it on with the hunky emulation of a Polish baker whose Physical Life body is in Krakow, while her Physical Life body, a bookish 37-year-old medical clerk named Amy Birkenstock, is tucked away in a stuffy office in Seattle.

The literature of escape abounds with tales of lost civilizations populated by beings who were able to communicate telepathically, teleport their bodies, and move freely about on the astral plane. Fizzy Oceans, as a representative of the new virtual culture, does it all, with ease and aplomb. In a world without boundaries she gets up close and personal with some of history’s finest (and some of the sickest) minds, including Mark Twain, Mahatma Gandhi and Saddam Hussein, as she takes the pulse of our tottering civilization and strives for a peek at what the future may hold. According to Fizzy, there is hope: “Perhaps we can kill ourselves with negligence and stupidity, and maybe we can render our beloved and fragile planet inhospitable, but we can’t extinguish the current of love, no matter how hard we try.”

So, that about says it all! Thanks, Donald. Now, off to VL I go. Come on, Amy, log me in!