Forrest Cameranesi Geek of all Trades

The Otherworld Series

  1. In the Otherworld series, an immersive virtual reality world is constructed, and with mind-uploading becomes an artificial afterlife, which survives the collapse of civilization in the real world.
    1. In The Birth of Another World, an immersive virtuality world is constructed, then improved over time thanks to the feedback of its beta testers, and eventually becomes an artificial afterlife.
      1. In Part 1, ordinary people Tom and Xiuying separately beta test an immersive virtual reality being built at the behest of ancient immortals looking to build an artificial afterlife.
      2. In Part 2, the virtual reality platform called Virtuality and its flagship world called the Sphidiverse becomes fully operational, while Tom and Xiu continue to explore it.
      3. In Part 3, mind-uploaded Xiuying adjusts to her new "afterlife", the virtual world goes public, and the true motives behind the construction of the virtual world are revealed.
    2. In Life in Another World, after a century of virtual afterlife, many questions begin to arise about the full implications of mind-uploading, as Met continues to torture herself into the pits of virtual hell.
      1. In Part 1, questions abound about artificial intelligence personhood and the ethics of creating, duplicating, and modifying uploaded human minds.
      2. In Part 2, Tom and Xiu end up working together to redeem the mad so-called "Queen of Hell" for whom the virtual world was constructed.
      3. In Part 3, further ethical questions arise about the interface between uploaded and artificial minds in the virtual world, and robotic bodies in the physical world.
    3. In Death and the Other World, another century later, catastrophic real-world events threaten to destroy the virtual world with it, but the man behind it all manages to barely save a small portion of it.
      1. In Part 1, Tom is a part of a network of curious users who stalk a living doppleganger of the Queen of Hell in real life, only to discover it's definitely not the same person.
      2. In Part 2, catestrophic events in real life publicly reveal the mysterious background of the company responsible for building Virtuality, and threaten to destroy it along with the rest of humanity.
      3. In Part 3, as Virtuality collapses along with the rest of civilization, Xio rushes to rescue Met from it, preserving a tiny fragment of "hell" with her and anyone else he can manage to fit in it.