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Literary Role Playing Game: game like challenges essential part of story

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What do you think?
Examples in essay

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Research & Development
Link body & mind

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Potential of VR
LitRPG
Ethical issues

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Jason Segel: script writer
Kirsten Miller: YAL author

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Mentimeter + handout

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Have you read it?
What did you think?

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OTHERWORLD by Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller | Official Book Trailer

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Jason Segel and Kirstin Miller on Otherworld: what happens when gaming goes too far

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Taran Matharu catches up with the writers of new book Otherworld, to see what drew them to this cautionary tale about virtual reality.

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How I Met Your Mother star Jason Segel reads out a passage from his new book Otherworld, co-written with Kirsten Miller.

About 'Otherworld'

There are no screens. There are no controls. You don't just see and hear it - you taste, smell, and touch it, too. In this new reality, there are no laws to break or rules to obey. You can live your best life. Indulge every desire.

It's a game so addictive you'll never want it to end. Until you realize that you're the one being played.

Welcome to Otherworld, where reality is dead. Step into the future. Leave your body behind.
The frightening future that Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller have imagined is not far away. Otherworld asks the question we'll all soon be asking: if technology can deliver everything we want, how much are we willing to pay?
Related: Read our review of Otherworld!

Exclusive 'Otherworld' audiobook clip read by Jason Segel

About the authors

Jason Segel is an actor, a writer, and an author. Segel wrote and starred in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and co-wrote Disney's The Muppets, which won an Academy Award for Best Original Song. Segel's film credits include The End of the Tour; I Love You, Man; Jeff Who Lives at Home; Knocked Up; and The Five-Year Engagement. On television, Segel starred on How I Met Your Mother as well as Freaks and Geeks. He is the coauthor of the New York Times bestselling Nightmares! series - Nightmares!; Nightmares! The Sleepwalker Tonic; Nightmares! The Lost Lullaby; and Everything You Need to Know About NIGHTMARES! and How to Defeat Them. Otherworld is his first novel for young adults. Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonSegel.

Kirsten Miller lives and writes in New York City. She is the author of the acclaimed Kiki Strike books, the New York Times bestseller The Eternal Ones, and How to Lead a Life of Crime. Otherworld is the fifth novel Kirsten has written with Jason Segel. You can visit her at kirstenmillerbooks.com or follow @bankstirregular on Twitter.

'Otherworld' is available today wherever books are sold!

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Listen to Jason Segel read an exclusive clip from his book 'Otherworld' | Hypable

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How I Met Your Mother star Jason Segel reads out a passage from his new book Otherworld, co-written with Kirsten Miller. There are no screens. There are no controls. You don't just see and hear it - you taste, smell, and touch it, too.

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READY PLAYER ONE - Official Trailer 1 [HD]

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Jason Segel ("Forgetting Sarah Marshall", How I Met Your Mother") is an actor, producer, and co-author, along with Kirsten Miller, of books for young readers. Their latest is Otherworld: the story of two teens and their adventures in a virtual world where danger lurks around every corner. Segel and I discussed it and more in this short interview.

Unbound Worlds: Simon is a tall kid whose family has a complex relationship with his Jewish heritage. One of his parents is an attorney, too. How much of you is in this character?

Jason Segel: I think that when you're writing, you're all the characters to some extent. This is a real 50/50 collaboration with Kirsten, so a lot of this comes from her, as well, but when we were talking about Simon and what we wanted him to be like, we definitely didn't want a conventional hero: We wanted someone who felt a little more like us.

UW: There's also an incident of surprise nudity in there, as well.

JS: ... which has also been a part of my career from the beginning!

UW: The tech of Otherworld isn't too far off. You experimented with Oculus Rift. That was an inspiration for the book.

JS: I think if you squint your eye, everything in the book could be happening now. Some of it is in the foreseeable future. If you put it in the context of how we use television in current society, you can see all of the benefits and also the perils of virtual reality. It can be used to give people information and experiences that wouldn't normally have, but it could also be used to sedate an entire population.

UW: Simon rejects his own neighborhood as not being a "real" place. He has the Holden Caulfield thing with thinking everyone and everything is phony, but he spends all of his time in the Otherworld. That can be a good and bad thing, I guess.

JS: One of the things we wanted to explore in the book is the current crisis we're going through of "What is real?" From the phenomenon of "fake news" to Instagram - you know the Instagram life is not an accurate portrayal of someone's life - I think it is becoming harder and harder to answer the question these days of what is real, what I should care about, and where I should invest my energy, self-esteem, and worth. In the book, virtual reality is real, but it is also a metaphor for the ways we escape from living authentic lives.

UW: As a writer and actor, you deal with alternate realities. What kinds of challenges do you think this shifting landscape will present to you, professionally and personally?

JS: I can only speak personally, but I think you can see it in the cultural landscape. There is a shift towards people who acknowledge the responsibility of being a provider of entertainment to start addressing fundamental, real-life issues. Entertainment has become very polarized. There's the billion dollar profit-making superhero movies, and then there are these more intimate stories that are addressing human issues. I think, for me, after doing a decade and a half of highly commercial stuff, I became interested in turning my eye towards things that I felt were relevant.

UW: As a multimedia artist, do you think that there are things you can bring to one project from your experiences with another?

JS: It's very interesting, because the collaboration with Kirsten really speaks to it. I have no idea how to write prose. It's not something you really have to do in a script. You give a blueprint description of what's happening and you may try to make it flowery for the reader to have an enjoyable reading experience, but it's very dialogue-driven. With these books, this is what I bring to the table: a story, and an ear for dialogue, which is my experience. Kirsten is like a portrait painter.

UW: This is one of several books that you two have written together. What is the process like? How do you start and go from there?

JS: So far, it has been like this. The Nightmares series started from a script I wrote when I was 21 years-old. I decided to adapt it into a book, and then I met Kirsten, who I decided would be a perfect partner. She helped me turn that around into the new medium. Now we have an idea and we really flesh it out. We come up with an outline, figure out who our characters are, and Kirsten usually takes a pass on the first draft. Then we start passing it back and forth filling in gaps and adding flourishes and all of that kind of stuff.

UW: You got started acting pretty young. If you had an opportunity to step into Otherworld and maybe try some other professions, what would you try?

JS: I have to give you an answer that's not a cop-out. I really decided in my late teens that I was going to try to do what I loved. Honestly, I do what I want. I think that it was David Foster Wallace who said that as an artist you have this hope and faith that what you're interested in, other people will be, too. That's how I've approached making stuff. I make stuff that's really interesting to me, and hope that other people will be interested, too.

UW: You have a David Foster Wallace project.

JS: Yes, a movie called " The End of the Tour ".

UW: Were you a fan before that? I can't imagine tackling such an erudite author unless that was the case.

JS: I was a fan of his short-form stuff, like A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. I had not tried to tackle Infinite Jest: It had just seemed like such a labor. Delving into that for the movie - it takes place around the press tour for Infinite Jest - changed my life. It changed the way that I approach art. It changed the way I think about writing, and why I do any of it.

UW: Otherworld is the first in a series, right?

JS: It is. It is designed to be a trilogy. I'm of the age when "The Matrix" came along and changed everything. I remember it just blew my creative mind open when I saw that. We're taking some cues from "The Matrix" and really playing with the idea of what is real in the upcoming books.

UW: It's Halloween, so I feel obligated to ask this. I know you've heard it a million times, but is there any chance that you'll revisit your Dracula musical? It was one of my favorite scenes in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall".

JS: You know, I get asked that so much. It seems like there's enough interest in it that maybe I should at some point try to do the full-length musical. I wrote that before "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and used it in the movie. At one point in my bizarre mind, I was planning on doing that as a standalone musical, so maybe I'll reconsider it!
Jason Segel photo By Dora Britt - The Discovery premiere during day 2 of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival at Eccles Center Theatre on January 20, 2017 in Park City, Utah, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

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Jason Segel on Otherworld and Whether He'll Finish His Dracula Musical - Unbound Worlds

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Jason Segel ("Forgetting Sarah Marshall", How I Met Your Mother") is an actor, producer, and co-author, along with Kirsten Miller, of books for young readers. Their latest is Otherworld: the story of two teens and their adventures in a virtual world where danger lurks around every corner.

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Oculus Rift | Step into Rift – now only $399

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I judged the book by its cover ...