Rating: 
Summary: Mr. Dibbell could use a life....
Review: "My Tiny Life" about sums it up. Julian Dibble is, literally, what the British term "a wanker." He brings navel gazing to an exhaulted pinnacle. He starts his book well, discussing the strange interactions between real life (RL) and virtual life as experienced on MUDs and MOOs (VL). He almost captures your imagination, then loses it all in a prolix tale of his adventures in masturbation, both real and virtual. In part, the book reads like his paeon of love to the (current) woman he has trouble making a committment to. In part, it's a waltz through the lives of people who are not yet ready to engage in real life and instead are tooling around virtual reality trying to get a grip on, primarily, their sexuality. While this book will surely appeal to those who recognize themselves in it, it's actually rather repellant to those who have been there, done that, then grew up.
Rating: 
Summary: A distorted 'history' of a powerful online experience
Review: As with his original article on LambdaMOO, included here as the first chapter, Dibbell displays a remarkable lack of concern about his own biases and prejudices. Journalistic integrity is out the window. Instead, "My Tiny Life" is really just the self-indulgent ramblings of a newbie MUDder, who was never really part of the community because we all knew he was a journalist and was going to write about whatever he saw. We MUDders are a self-protective group. Dibbell's portrayal is as through a glass darkly; he saw only the fringes of what happened on LambdaMOO these many years ago, and he saw only what we allowed him to see. Thus his tale is a skewed view of events as they occurred, with stolen analysis, and he drops the narrative before some of the most interesting action took place. (This is because he himself left the MOO at that time. Why should he try to find out what happened, if he cared so little that he just left, for no other reason than that he was bored?) If you're really interested in online life, stop reading dead trees and log on.
Rating: 
Summary: Cyber sociology
Review: Aside from his own personal, short-term journeys in and out of LambdaMOO and fairly mundane conflict and resolution with his significant other, which provide part of the hook to the reader, Dibbell writes in an engaging way about the sociology of the MOO community. Of particular interest are the immediate and long term reactions of the community to acts, virtual though they may be, that affect the fabric of the MOO society. The book's inability to fully demonstrate the complexity of the MOO society, demonstrated by MOOers' castigation of the work, is irrelevant to the points made by the author about the relationships of the wizard power class to the other, parallel MOO societies, and to the constituent class. The strong reactions of members of the MOO society to events and characters that are perceived as harmful elements, and the attempts to call for, impose and/or resist virtual law and order in an unruly and perhaps ungovernable society provide the real conflict. Dibbell's observations of the tensions of anarchy and order in the MOO unfold in counterpoint to the author's RL events and relationships, which are described in MOOspeak, but which must inevitably follow societal rules and expectations of long standing.I found it to be a page-turner well after the narration of the motivating event was finished.
Rating: 
Summary: The words change, but the song remains the same
Review: Disclaimer: I was never a player in LambdaMOO, but I was a player and a wizard in some other games at approximately the time in virtual history described by this book. Although I didn't know any of the pseudonymous MOOers in _My Tiny Life_, I nevertheless felt right at home in Julian's LambdaMOO, because the people and the situations were so familiar.Ah, yes, I remember it well. This is certainly not a perfect book, and probably not as good a discussion of the issues of cyberlaw as Bruce Serling's wonderful _The Hacker Crackdown_, but it was a lively read and I thought it captured the lived experience of being a member of a virtual community. But I am recommending this book to all those folks from my own MUSH days with whom I am still in touch. Dibbell really captured the flavor, at least for me. Oh, and hey, Julian - real women NEVER @desc their shoes. You can always tell.
Rating:
Summary: Okay, it's biased, but who cares?
Review: I found this book compulsively readable. I was a regular on LambdaMOO at around the same time that Dibbell was, and I found his descriptions of the experience of MOO-ing (what it's like to be there and participate in various ways) quite accurate. As for his version of MOO history, I wouldn't take it too seriously, but then, he makes it pretty clear that the motivations behind and significance of the events that he recounts are disputed. What impresses me about this book is the way it captures the feeling of being in the MOO, and the analysis of the issues that got raised in various conflicts.
Rating:
Summary: 3 months doesn't make a MOOer
Review: I hated the end. It just shoved in our face how he could spend 3 months on the MOO and then pretend he could know what a MOOer was like. And how dare he say most MOOers moved on? He was never a MOOer, so easy for him to say. Most MOOers I know from five years ago still live there. _He_ moved on because he was never there to begin with, only logging on and doing as much as his girlfriend allowed. I guess that's why he had to say over and over that the book was hers. I did really enjoy the way he described the real world as if it were a MOO, though. That was pretty creative.
Rating:
Summary: A good, personal account of life on a MOO
Review: I have had a character on LambdaMOO for several years. I know the characters he writes about. His depiction of life there is accurate, and it's well done. Those LambdaMOOers who have trashed his book simply have an axe to grind.
Rating:
Summary: "Laurel" speaks
Review: I was the character that Dibbell called "Laurel" in his book. I was "there" though the entire story he describes, reading what he read in real time, although I never "spoke" with him (on-line or off). His book is remarkably accurate, although he does not have all the facts straight of the people behind the LambdaMOO characters. He deserves a lot of credit -- he got it closer than anyone else possibly could have.
Rating:
Summary: This again?
Review: It's bad enough that a virtual rape that passed by our screens years ago can still cause trees to be killed for profit, but now Dibbell adds to the fun by telling all readers how to committ "crimes" on-line. As one who has to clean up after his mess, I'm not amused. You do have a tiny life: now get a real life.
Rating: 
Summary: A Frank, Important Work
Review: Mr. Dibell arrouses our curiosities in the realm of virtual ethics with his gripping, nitty-gritty narrative of cyber life and passion. Dibell's cyber experiences at "Moo" call for a re-evaluation of human morals in the coming age. This work will certainly stand as a timeless classic, captivating the thoughts of gereations to come, especially as our world becomes evermore wired.
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