DEEPER - Faber

Deeper is an eyewitness account of a tumultuous period in the early history of the on-line world, when the Internet moved decisively from a geeky hobby to a part of mainstream popular culture. In the beginning of this pioneering adventure into cyberspace , our hero is a clueless newbie. Two years later, he ends up an old hand. Although the author, John Seabrook, hardly ever actually goes anywhere, just sits in front of his computer, his story is crammed with travel and incident. We meet Bill Gates and other major people in the industry via e-mail, catch the utopian feeling, join a virtual community, and adapt to the World Wide Web. The voice of the book is at times comic, at others rueful, wanting to believe in the good things about the Net but skeptical of the hype, trying to account for the engrossing nature of this new frontier. Beautifully written, Deeper is the first literary travel book about the Net.