A Metaverse-Wide Book Tour: Experiences and Lessons Learned
Premise
The initial conceit of the Mirror Box Book Tour, lasting from 10 January 2021 to 27 March 2021, came from something I’ve coined ‘End-of-Year Resolutions’ in which I panic at the approaching New Year, take stock of what I’ve accomplished during the current year, and rush towards a goal that I’d put together at the last minute. The 2020 resolution consisted of doing final edits on Mirror Box, a novel I’d completed 12 years ago, and publish it to an aggregator since traditional publishing wanted nothing to do with it. Wedded to this plan was the promotional event that would come following (self-)publication and that was to be the ‘Mirror Box Book Tour’, a 27-stop promotional event.
For those unaware of my background, I did have standing to propose such an event since I’ve long been documenting the rise of Social VR within this very blog, I spent a year writing a quarterly digital magazine called ‘Social Life VR Styles’ and began teaching a course at BAU in Istanbul on Virtual Worlds. This background had led me to wander the corridors of numerous virtual spaces, and this was the perfect opportunity to revisit them, discover some new locations, and promote a novel which would otherwise be delegated to the abyss of self-published fiction.
Organization
As I made my plans for a book tour known to the XR community, the general feedback was of enthusiasm and — this is why I love XR people — a bombardment of suggestions on how spaces could be designed to augment (or synthesize with) the literary nature of the event, whether it’s making the themes and characters spring to life as the sound of my voice would demand or having the book as an object enter into the space to haunt the author who created it. I felt some apprehension in actually executing any of these plans as they would require two things I lacked, namely, forethought and staff. That said, I did use environment and in-platform features for some of the readings (as you’ll see below). As for those with suggestions, I answered with a variation of the Joseph Moustache quote about quantity having a quality of its own. Furthermore, because the focus was quantity, the event spaces often seemed far less than ideal for a reading, but a significant part of the tour was a creative exercise and the joy in doing many of the events was the resulting awkwardness of being a peculiar person in peculiar place doing a peculiar thing.
(BIG REVEAL ALERT!) That said, I will return to book readings in the summer, this time taking those earlier suggestions by creating more elaborate spaces aligned with the theme of the event and, perhaps, requiring tickets; additionally, they will be readings from my novella Pangaea Zoological Park.
To get started, I composed a list of virtual worlds known to me, either as a regular user or curious onlooker, and added to that some virtual worlds I encountered on the way. I made announcements about the tour through websites hosted by Carrd.co and established a playlist on my VR Special YouTube channel which would be dedicated to records of each stop on the Mirror Box Book Tour. Since virtual worlds are often vast landscapes, I scouted the virtual worlds before holding events there for locations which would be suitable for a book reading or somehow fit the themes of the book, keeping in mind the practicality of hosting people in such a space. What follows are details on the organization and outcomes for these events and I’ll take them in order. If you choose to skip to the end, a helpful summary will follow.
This is a Social VR platform centered on viewing a screen and I chose it as a launch site because the limited capacity would seemingly make the event manageable. Since it was early in the tour and I was aware that I’d be uncomfortably reading passages of text while a headset rested on my temple several times, I decided to pre-record the event and share my screen with the audience. Furthermore, I edited the video to include scenes from the VR platform Rec Room that represented scenes being described through the narrative, so it would cut back and forth from the image of me reading to (for example) a mountain landscape. The attendees included people personally invited from the XR community as well as casual attendees from the Bigscreen community. One of them trolled the event by using the pen tool to draw on everyone, but I welcomed the disruptive energy. We started the event in a large auditorium, but afterward moved to a drive-in where we were able to continue the conversation.
Takeaways: Bigscreen is an excellent platform for screen-based events for small to (generously speaking) mid-sized groups. At the time, I found no clear environment for larger presentation / performance spaces, but there are some effective rooms for productivity. Despite the tutorial, the menu labelling is not intuitive and the whole menu needs to be rethought as I had difficulty getting people to hear the video, and I was not alone in this problem. That said, I would gladly return to premiere video-based content or just do a group watch. Bigscreen is a platform that has consistently improved over the years.
If you don’t what Roblox is, then ask your (neighbors’) kids or a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. It is one of the most expansive virtual worlds in existence and it caters to a younger audience, but I wouldn’t stigmatize it as being “just for kids” since I’ve often found value in my experiences. For this event, I scouted a lot until finding ROBLOX LIBRARY 2021, which had a speaker area on the top floor with a fully playable piano available beside it. I saw the piano as an opportunity and I enlisted the help of Zeynep Çınar to provide piano accompaniment during the reading, which by the way, would be done entirely by typing out the text from my novel since Roblox allows for neither native speech functions nor copy+paste, so I would be under a lot of pressure to type quickly while my pianist was hard at work. The text would be sent to everyone currently in the library, which would likely baffle all visitors not in the presentation space.
Takeaways: Maybe ROBLOX is just for kids. JK. JK. JK. But seriously, my pianist and I went to the stage to find someone else was sitting at the piano and we asked him to get off for about 10 minutes, but he refused to acknowledge us. Then, we gave up and moved to another server, where my pianist could claim her piano, but the original guy followed us and spent a full half hour nudging my avatar around the room while I was giving the reading. As a result, the sped-up version of the event I put on YouTube was solid gold, but the experience of attending a reading would have been somewhat frustrating. Realistically, ROBLOX isn’t designed for readings (no audio, no copy+paste) unless the end audience is YouTube.
This is a lesser-known platform that’s available only for PCVR and is seemingly only inhabited during the daily events whose times are posted outside the tavern. It consists of private rooms with screen share ability and Atari 2600 style arcade games while the tavern hosts a pair of board games to the sides of a roaring fire. I personally tested an earlier version of Teleporter, and I’m pleased to see they’ve developed something both cozy and functional since my experience with them.
Takeaways: There’s a lack of customization in Teleporter and the world you inhabit is limited, but it’s currently simple enough to find one another and either the tavern or big screen rooms are suitable for small group meetings. I wouldn’t choose it again for a reading or any large event, but I’d be tempted to use Teleporter for an internal story reading of a writer’s group or as a cool down place to meet my e-sports team, etc.
Of all the locations listed on this tour, Rec Room is the one I have the most experience with. In mid-2020, Rec-Con was held in their newly built convention center and I gave a talk with my regular collaborator Michael Barngrover on the state of XR Labs in developing economies. The experience of giving the talk showed me the potential for the space, so it required very little effort to uncover the potential for a reading. Still having my own private copy of the Rec-Con presentation stage, I was able to make a further copy for the sake of the Mirror Box Book Tour and customize it for the event. I placed furniture on stage and constructed a talk-show like cityscape in the background. There were stacks of books placed beside the podium, pictures were hung on the wall, a variety of birds were scattered throughout the hall, and a bouncy house was put off to the side simply because I had one available. There was a control panel above where I could change the room lighting and ambient sounds as well. The reading was public, so a number of casual visitors joined and stayed until its completion. This contrasted with Rec-Con in which I could barely hear my own voice over the sound of smashing of root beer bottles, probably a mistake to give complementary six-packs in hindsight. Mr. Barngrover interviewed me after the reading concluded and I was entirely satisfied with the experience.
Takeaways: Rec Room is a highly customizable space, somewhat easy to learn and offers a wide array of inventions to serve your needs. It also has event codes which will direct people to private events and can be added to an event listing if you choose to keep it public. On top of that, it’s among the most accessible platforms, to be found on all major VR headsets, iOS and gaming consoles. For these reasons, I would highly recommend reading events in Rec Room and it’s one I will return to for a reading event this summer.
This platform is the adorable oddball of the list because it’s a 2D social platform with environments that can range from serene to manic. Like Roblox before it, only text chat is available, so the goal for a public reading — since watching someone type is slow work — would be to generate concurrent forms of entertainment during the event and a funny, high-speed YouTube video for later. I’d originally planned to carry out the reading in a high school since each room had a different themes and objects to discover and we could have a simultaneous reading and room exploration but, when nobody showed, I moved to a hub of activity known as Starbucks. There were many avatars zipping across the screen as I read and a few minutes into the reading, music videos from YouTube started popping up in the room and, until that moment, I hadn’t known that was possible. When the reading was completed, I approached avatars like Goku and Obese Sonic and asked them if they’d buy my book. Some were receptive while others told me my book wasn’t Christ-like.
Takeaways: Like Roblox, a reading couldn’t include audio, so the event has to feature interaction with the space and consideration of how it will look on video. Since creation is simple in Manyland, I could also imagine a better experience in creating a space that fits the theme of the story.
This was my initial stop on blockchain-based soil and the spot I chose was a stadium since it’s the most amenable to a large seeming audience. Not having spent much time on any of the crypto-affiliated worlds, I’ve never been fully aware of the gameplay features since I generally assume that they are primarily an investment mechanism, which means there’s a lack of a thriving community. Regardless, Decentraland offers the most as an experience since many of the environments have some thought put into them and there are a handful of interactive experiences such as a dragon ride or the terror forest I visited ahead of the reading. In the end, I was able stand on the football pitch and give a reading to the stands.
Takeaways: Since I personally don’t create there, I’m locked out of customizing an experience and the result ends up being pretty basic. As expected, I didn’t have any passersby join the reading since people are pretty scant outside the main hub. That said, as of writing, there will be an NFT art event featuring Pussy Riot scheduled for Decentraland, which I will attend and perhaps learn more about the potential for that space.
Another blockchain based world, but with minor differences. Cryptovoxel is run on ‘voxels’, which are block-shaped, giving the whole world a pixelated aesthetic. Nearly every unique object you click on links to something else, mostly digital art and NFT vendors. Given this transactional nature, there’s also a lack of community. This is compounded by an inability to speak unless you happen to locate one of the microphone boxes scattered throughout the world. I found one of these at an enclosed theater and used it do my reading.
Takeaways: There’s no download of Cryptovoxel and it does have some presentation spaces. Strangely enough, the scarcity of microphones makes it easier to give a reading because it’s more difficult to troll the speaker. The environment is also dynamic and the nature of a reading seems incongruous — but in a good way. I could see returning for a reading if enough people signed on to join.
I consider this platform to be somewhat ethereal and holy and every time I go there, I feel unworthy. Before it’s wider release, I was in the closed Beta group for Sansar and, at the time, it had agonizing load times and I saw a limited amount of potential. In the intervening years, it has blossomed into the virtual world with the best (consistent) aesthetic and highest amount of overall realism. As an experience, I consider it a success story and I hope they get an audience that rises to their level. They regularly hold events with tantalizing and complex visual effects. So, rather than choose an environment more appropriate for a rave. I found a place that housed a Thai Social Club since it was small, simple, and had a stage with a YouTube video about making Thai handicrafts playing in the background as my Adonis of an avatar read from my novel about demons and amputeeism.
Takeaways: Sansar is the location for people who want to give a reading that’s most similar to one in real life. Everyone there is…not so much human as a statue come to life, but (if the Proteus Effect is any guide) this could lead to a composed and sophisticated literary event.
This has been my go-to platform for unwinding during the past year. I challenge anyone to give me something more relaxing them curating my own personal art gallery within a virtual world. The joy of preparation for the reading event far exceeded the execution since it involved scrolling through pages of artworks to find anything related to reading (sometimes love letters, sometimes Alice Liddell, and other times The Bible), which I then hung on the walls of my grass-floored, open-air auditorium. The reading itself was mostly attended by bots that appear whenever a gallery is opened to the public and again there was no audio available, so I was left to type the text out and replay it at high speed for the video.
Takeaways: Obviously, a reading was not the intended purpose of Occupy White Walls, but I often revisit and organize the gallery as a creative exercise, which may in time inspire the content to be read at a future reading done elsewhere.
This is the great-granddaddy of all virtual worlds insofar as it’s the oldest, now over 25 years! I’ve visited on average once a year over the past five years and whenever I encounter a local, I make it a point to ask them how long they’ve been in the platform and, as a university teacher, it’s often before my students were born. Active Worlds is a testament to the power of community and when your social network is established there, you might find yourself embedded in the platform until you or it has passed on. For this particular reading, I scouted a place called Van Gogh, which is inspired by the impressionist’s paintings. Van Gogh had just the right mood visually and auditorily as well as a café which serves a makeshift speaking area if you manage to balance yourself on the back of a chair.
Takeaways: I would be tempted to connect with the community of Active Worlds and give a reading if only because I’m in awe of them. Like other before, I could only communicate through writing messages, which is not entertaining to sit through. This was another motivation for choosing Van Gogh, having the chance to navigate a living art piece.
At the time of writing, The Wave has just ceased operations within VR, making this a poignant event as I’ve often pointed VR skeptics to The Wave as a worthwhile social experience. The Wave was as much an audio experience as visual experience, and they retained house DJs with regularly scheduled sets. Their absence has left a void which will probably be taken up by Sansar. Since a reading loses value if you cannot hear the author speak, I chose a somewhat isolated corner of ‘The Expanse’ where I manipulated square surfaces that played different notes when one of a stream of illuminated balls struck them. The arrangement of physical objects would change both the tempo and notes and, like Occupy White Walls, it was relaxing. I gave the reading, but it felt compulsory because The Wave had always seemed to express thing beyond words.
Takeaways: Whelp…the VR version is gone and, unless you’re The Weekend, you’re never going to read or perform there, so…
This virtual world is admirable for its accessibility both in terms of platform accessibility and the ease of use for both visitor and creator. Above that, there’s a flexibility of us since you can speak — thank God — and also appear on camera or share your screen. Having spoken at more expected venues like stadiums and libraries, I scouted for places a bit darker and more intimate for the Hubs reading and landed in a narrow, underground bar, where a could project my screen on the wall and play a live video of myself doing the reading while patrons shaved wormwood into their green liqueurs.
Takeaways: For an event like a reading, Hubs has too many advantages to pass up, which means. I will create a Hubs space in Spoke, which will certainly be part of the readings to begin in the summer.
Going to the quintessential event space for the Metaverse, I met my Altspace tour date with some excitement. I knew that I could count on both friends from within Altspace and several casual visitors to attend the event. I could also post images of the book cover in the room, so it felt closer to a real promotional event, even though this probably didn’t show outwardly. As I’d anticipated, people did come to the event by chance and even graciously remained through the Q&A and promised to buy copies of the book — which is the goal, right?
Takeaways: Altspace consistently has worthwhile events and a community that goes to them for something to do that’s both social and educational/entertaining, and lets them pretend they’re not locked indoors. Unlike any other platform, a promotional tour of the Metaverse would be incomplete without it. It’s a little work to become familiar with event setup, but it can be done quickly on subsequent attempts and Altspace has an active Discord channel to help out.
Coming down from the main event, I wanted to do something low key that wouldn’t require reading while a headset rested on my temple. Unless you have a membership, Topia is a public, hand-drawn, 2D space in which people walk towards each other until other guests appear on camera. Among random people, it’s always an experience to glimpse into the lives of strangers. I gave the reading at a sketched campsite and simply allowed curious onlookers to approach and get a brief look at me, but nobody stayed for long, probably out of embarrassment.
Takeaways: Topia, and a few other apps like it, were not designed for this sort of event. If you’re to focus on someone reading, even Zoom would be better. That said, I do like socializing in 2D spatial environments and would return for that purpose.
This top-down social virtual world is a legend in its own right with a user base numbering in the tens of million during its lifespan. During the few times I’ve visited in recent years, I’ve found myself going through job training or becoming a political appointee, which leads me to belief a large segment of the Habbo experience is becoming a cog within pseudo-social structures of dubious motives. Every time I sign in, it’s my goal to find a new job before I sign out again. For the reading, I just headed to a café and hoped that the patrons might take an interest, or at least not harass me. No such luck; when my reading was finished, someone informed me that the book would only be useful as toilet paper and when I told them that an e-book version was also available, they judged it completely useless.
Takeaways: Only communicating through text, this had the same value as other high-speed readings, it’s visually bizarre and you might catch someone heckling you. Seemingly, it takes real world money to acquire the setting for a proper event and customization isn’t an option. Also, the censoring function unexpectedly blocked some of the content since every time I wrote ‘deflower’, which, yes, is written in Mirror Box, it said ‘Bobba’ and unfortunately the word was central to the text.
This is another crypto-affiliated virtual world that treats land as a commodity and they’ll occasionally have offerings for the purpose of generating wealth locally. The world is entirely serviceable and property owners could potentially build a neighborly community within the space but as with all virtual worlds dealing in false scarcity, the goal is to generate a belief in its value so they might profit from that belief. Therefore, the creative glue that spawns culture and community is a little weak. During this reading, I climbed to the top of a lighthouse, where I read from a section of Mirror Box also happening within a lighthouse.
Takeaways: Though the experience of reading there felt basic (again, not what it was designed for), Somnium Space is a perfectly nice place with a dynamic day-night cycle, which give it a natural feel. That said, there’s no real reason to be there unless you own property, just like any ordinary neighborhood.
In the early years of Social VR, Anyland was considered the developer’s platform as I’ve caught the staff of other apps, namely High Fidelity and Rec Room, also building within Anyland. This platform started ahead of its time, which was impressive given the very small team behind it. As the in-game creative tools of other platforms have gained strength, the role of Anyland in the future remains unknown, but they have a wonderful community left behind to build all manner of mad inventions. I decided to do my Anyland reading from a space I’d built years ago called The Black Lodge based on David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. In going there, I discovered someone else had built a better Black Lodge with interactables, so I decided to do the reading there instead. This experience was all about setting because The Black Lodge was so impactful when I first encountered it through the TV series.
Takeaways: Anyland has a warm place in some peoples’ hearts. Given the time and energy to construct a world suited to the reading, and a few mad inventions to use at the event, I would revisit Anyland and propose the local community join.
Welcome to the most expansive and feature-rich virtual world ever built. With the requisite knowhow, you could build anything you need for a wide array of events, from a U2 concert to a reading of Mirror Box. Without that knowledge, you can wander around until you find something that works well enough. I have some background with Second Life, which I leveraged to find a ramshackle stage in a place I used to frequent called Hazardous. Aesthetically, I prefer rundown structures to pomp, so this strewn together outdoor theater felt better than anything I might have made. For the recording, Second Life has quality camera positioning, so it made recording much better as well.
Takeaways: I would do the same thing for future events, only contacting local community to bring them into the events, perhaps turning an individual reading into an open mic. Apart from that…it’s Second Life. Anything’s possible.
Whenever I’ve mentioned this one to people, it usually gets a laugh. Club Penguin has a long history and used to have tens of millions of users. But it’s a child driven platform that has both prearranged text (for early readers) or typed text, but certainly no speaking. There is a café though, where I typed out a child friendly reading to a crowd of penguins, who largely ignored me.
Takeaways: Club Penguin, not for readings. I got another high-speed video out of the event, but I doubt it convinced anyone to buy a copy. I recall asking one kid to get his parents to buy Mirror Box, but I’m unsure of the result.
This platform is near and dear to many members of my XR circles, so I was looking forward to this particular reading and am grateful for the chance to use their Pompeii Theater for the event; it gave exactly the mood I’d hoped for. During the reading, I rested my VR headset atop my head, but one of the attendees asked why I wasn’t reading my book from a text file within the platform to which I replied honestly, I’d forgotten that I could. The guests were friends of the XR communities, but a few people exploring the platform found their way to the reading and I believe this resulted in book sales. It leads me to believe Engage will be a contender in not only the education space but the event space as well.
Takeaways: It’s a powerful event platform and I would gladly return to Engage for another reading, this time committing myself to using more of the strong presentation tools available to me. There’s also volumetric recording of the event as a standard feature, so it also opens up possibilities for an event.
As one of the two most populated VRChat platforms, there were many possibilities for the event. It would be possible to enter a high traffic area and get some attention, but this would assuredly be at the expense of the reading itself — just search YouTube for something like ‘VRChat Angry Kid’ to see what I mean. One could fully customize a space, but it some knowledge of Unity and, more importantly, time to set that up. Instead, I settled on an existing room called ‘Good Night Moon’ based on the children’s book of the same name and relied on lighter traffic to people my event. In the end, I had a pleasant conversation with a few visitors about the novel ahead of the actual reading, but I was alone while vocalizing the written passages.
Takeaways: This could have done better with more planning. Private events are notoriously hard to contain within VRChat, but I will attempt it in the future iteration of the tour. Done well, VRChat is an experience unlike any other, and it’s worth trying to harness that energy for a reading.
I only learned about this virtual space from a friend in Altspace and when using it, I had to admit that I wasn’t sure of its potential. The environment is blocky like Minecraft and it seems to be geared towards natural, real-time communication + emoji particle effects. I simply climbed on top of a hill, gave a reading to the grass cubes below, and logged out again.
Takeaway: Clearly, not intended as a communication space and not an event space, but I was still happy to see it for myself.
After a month-long pause to do paid work, I jumped back into the tour beginning with Oculus Venues. This platform is designed as a presentation space for 180/360 content to be viewed in up to six different theaters. What I found was that people were much more interested in lingering in the foyer and chatting with each other as many people were experiencing VR for the first time. They’re always easy to spot because they’re the ones looking around and saying, ‘Wow! This is so weird!’ And yes, I asked them to confirm this. I chose a quiet corner to do the reading and upon finishing, I met with several newcomers to VR who didn’t really acknowledge that I’d been reading.
Takeaways: Oculus Venues is evolving into a nice, little social space. Not a presentation space — the video content is taking up the entertainment role — but someone wanting to have a chat could quickly and painlessly find one there.
Admittedly, I had little contact with Sinespace until preparing for the reading, but the aesthetics and controls (desktop) made it feel very much like Second Life absent the many overwhelming features. On the list of worlds, I found Miro Shot HQ, which was a name familiar to me through their presence at SXSW about a week prior. When I entered, I found a cyberpunk cityscape with, as luck had it, an auditorium at the end with two recliners beneath a row of floodlights, which made an ideal presentation space. I gave the reading for the silhouetted dancers clustered throughout the auditorium.
Takeaways: Sinespace had all the elements of a perfectly fine event space, but I would need to learn more about customization, its VR functionality, and tap into the local community before I make any judgements about it. If they make all of the improvement their website promises, they could be a competitor for Sansar, but in the VR domain, it’s hard being PC-based in a standalone world.
Tivoli Cloud VR is built on the skeletal remains of High Fidelity with two of its biggest proponents at the helm, Caitlyn Meeks and Xaos Princess. This was one of the few occasions when I did get community support for the event as both came to the reading along with Dr Fran and other early adopters of the platform, which made it a deeply satisfying experience. As a point of reference, Tivoli Cloud maintains the realism of its predecessor, but makes nods in the direction of creative and unhinged experiences like VRChat. It also allows for photogrammetric environments — which makes it a winner for many in the XR community — and the ability to hold hundreds of concurrent users. I held the reading in Squirrel Nut Café in the guise of Lumpy Space Princess, and my hosts had arrived before me. Caitlyn brought an A.I. Toaster which contained the entire knowledge base of Wikipedia and we spent some time quizzing it on apophenia and Frank Zappa lyrics. In fact, when I asked it if I should eat the yellow snow, it told me to try because it could taste like ‘Snow Peas’ and when Caitlyn asked why the snow was yellow, it told us that it might be ‘cheese or butter’. We eventually got around to the reading and my gracious hosts made an equally gracious audience.
Takeaways: I’ll return to Tivoli Cloud VR for a future reading as it bears the elements of a good platform in its early stages, including a small but dedicated community, a powerful infrastructure, and a wealth of creative energy.
The vagaries of scheduling had me end the tour in the MMORPG Orbus VR, which is a fantasy experience that has players choose a class, join guilds, work to level up, and quest through dungeons. After entering, I scouted the tavern for an adequate reading space, but all of the foot traffic remained outside, so I searched there for an audience to my reading. Michael Barngrover joined up with me outside and we quickly found a party that would be more interested in conquering a dungeon than submitting themselves to whatever I had up my sleeve. Given my level two status, completing a dungeon was a futile endeavor, but I advantaged myself of lulls in the action by mentioning my book, but nobody claimed to be interested, even out of politeness. Once the quest was abandoned, I encountered someone with more experience who taught me how to catch rats with net guns, so I could level up more quickly.
Takeaways: Orbus VR is a fun adventuring experience, a great venue for making friends, but not intended for public readings, clearly.
Summary
Having visited and held events in all of these virtual worlds, which were varied in name and nature, I’ve laid the groundwork for future events of its kind and feel more qualified to make recommendations, and perhaps lend a hand in planning if others wish to do the same. Likewise, I have run courses and trainings for organizations facing specific problems and think that virtual worlds could be the solution. You may contact me through LinkedIn
In concrete terms, this summer I’ll begin a second book tour for a book written more recently, which is called Pangaea Zoological Park. The tour of an indeterminate length is expected to include monthly readings in unique environments in virtual worlds such as Rec Room, VRChat, Neos VR, Anyland, Engage, and Tivoli Cloud VR, so the production value may be higher and if the result warrants it, I may even make events ticketed. We’ll see.
Mirror Box, which I’ve categorized as a late-stage paranormal bildungsroman, is still for sale at all major retailers. Just check the store page. If you wish to do some advance reading of Pangaea Zoological Park, you can find it on Amazon now.
Finally, the YouTube channel for VR Special has a playlist which includes each of the readings. Admittedly, they vary in quality, but you’re welcome to look through them to get a sense of what happened during the events mentioned here. You’re also invited to check the Highlight Reels from the show VR Special by me and Michael Barngrover.
