Unplugged: My Journey Into the Dark World of Video Game Addiction

Van Cleave is out to settle old scores, set the record straight, and share highlights from an 80-hour-a-week addiction to the massively multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft. With confidence verging at times on arrogance ("If you figure out how to make a girl or two howl -- I mean, like biblical noise -- word gets around"), Van Cleave shares the highlights of his early life. Despite an already-formed addiction, he was a "gifted classical guitar major" in college, and wrote a fantasy novel that could have, he has no doubt, been huge. Top-notch agents were calling, but a computer meltdown left everyone empty handed. "Like the... novel that Ernest Hemingway left in a suitcase that was stolen from his wife in Paris in 1922, my epic fantasy would never know an audience." Van Cleave returns often to two main themes: his adoption as a child (which still causes him great pain) and the failure of the world to embrace unique individuals like him. He finds fault with everyone, including himself, but stops short of real insight, and his interviews with other addicts likely won't satisfy readers seeking actual support. (June)