{"product_id":"9781668060049","title":"When We Were Real","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom multiple award-winning author Daryl Gregory comes a madcap adventure following two friends on a cross-country bus tour through the mind-boggling glitches in their simulated world as they grapple with love, family, secrets, and the very nature of reality in a simulation.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eJP and Dulin have been the best of friends for decades. When JP finds out his cancer has aggressively returned, Dulin decides it's the perfect time for one last adventure: a week-long bus tour of North America's \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eImpossibles,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003ethe physics-defying glitches and geographic miracles that started cropping up seven years earlier - right after the Announcement that revealed our world to be merely a digital simulacrum. The outing, courtesy of Canterbury Trails Tours, promises the trip of a (not completely real) lifetime in a (not completely deluxe) coach.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTheir fellow passengers are 21st-century pilgrims, each of them on the tour for their own reasons. There's a nun hunting for an absent God, a pregnant influencer determined to make her child too famous to be deleted, a crew of horny octogenarians living each day like it's their last, and a professor on the run from leather-clad sociopaths who take \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Matrix\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e as scripture. Each stop on this trip is stranger than the last - a Tunnel outside of time, a zero gravity Geyser, the compound of motivational-speaking avatar - with everyone barreling toward the tour's iconic final stop Ghost City, where unbeknownst to our travelers the answer to who is running the simulation may await.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhen We Were Real\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is \"an addictive thriller packed with winning characters and big, brilliant ideas\" (Lev Grossman, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e bestselling author of \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Bright Sword\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003eand The Magicians trilogy) and an exploration of what really matters, even in an artificial world.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gregory, Daryl","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":47580063105278,"sku":"9781668060056","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":47585243365630,"sku":"9781668060049","price":29.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0556\/1532\/4335\/files\/When_We_Were_Real_PB.png?v=1764821777","url":"https:\/\/wanderingraccoonbooks.com\/products\/9781668060049","provider":"Wandering Raccoon Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}