'
Trigger Happy is by Steven Poole, a book critic for the Guardian and author of a penetrating examination of political euphemisms and neologisms called
Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How That Message Becomes Reality.
Poole also had a long-running
column in the British games magazine Edge, which was always probing and serious but never jargony or academic. The same holds true for his 2000 book
Trigger Happy: The Inner Life of Video Games. In the course of examining titles like
Metal Gear Solid,
Tomb Raider and
Ape Escape, Poole has lots of insights on topics like representation and interaction that still feel fresh today.'
'
My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World by Julian Dibbel is a 1998 book that records the author's experiences in the early text-only online community
LambdaMOO. The centerpiece of the book is a chapter that recounts a
cyberrape, and how the LambdaMOO users attempted to punish the perpetrator.'
Both are free, but <sigh> in pdf here:
http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/01/two-free-books.html