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Geek Mafia by Rick Dakan

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Geek Mafia Rick Dakan
Language: English
Page: 294
Format: pdf
ISBN: 1604860065, 9781604860061
Publisher:

Review

"The story is gripping as anything, and the characters are likable and funny and charming. I adore caper stories, and this stands with the best of them, a geeky version of The Sting." --Cory Doctorow, co-editor of BoingBoing, best-selling sci-fi author

From the Publisher

An Interview with Author RICK DAKAN

Interviewer: How did you start writing?

Rick Dakan: Sort of by accident. In college I never thought of myself as a writer. The first inkling I had that I might have some facility for it came in an upper level American History class. We’d all turned in our first papers and the professor came in the next week and just laid into us for being such crappy writers. He devoted the whole lecture to explaining some basics of good writing. Then he handed back our papers and I’d gotten an "A" minus and he stopped to say it was on of the few well written papers he’d gotten. Sometimes all it takes is something like that to give you that boost of confidence and get you going.

My first published book, Dark Kingdom of Jade, was co-written with Mark Friedman. It was for a role-playing game called Wraith: The Oblivion. It was a brand new role-playing game at the time, and Mark knew the editor in charge a little through an online writing group. We just cold pitched her the idea for the book and she liked it. Then, much to our surprise, we had to write the damn thing. I was really rough back then, but Mark was a good editor as well as a writer and that’s how things started. I was in grad school at the time, supposedly working on my Master’s Thesis, so I signed up for a writing class that was supposed to help you improve your thesis. Instead I used a lot of the workshop time with pieces from Dark Kingdom of Jade.

After that I did a whole string or role-playing game books for games like Conspiracy X, Deadlands, Kult, and Dungeons and Dragons, and on and on. Which is good, because grad school really wasn’t working out. Walking out of Ohio State and never looking back was one of the happier days of my life. Afterwards, I did the freelance game writer thing for about five or six years. The pay was low, but the deadlines were tight. It taught me to write fast or die. It was a great crucible to hone my skills and, more importantly, my work ethic. I may have been living on $13k a year, but at least I was earning it all by writing.

2. How much of Geek Mafia is drawn from your own personal experiences?

All of it and none of it. I’ve never been part of a criminal conspiracy and I’ve never committed any of the crimes portrayed in this book (as far as you know). Certainly all the characters are purely fictional. But pieces of them are inspired by both my own life and other true-life stories.

At the same time, many of the settings and some of the events closely mirror my own experiences living in Silicon Valley and working in the videogame industry. I was an inexperienced game designer who moved out to San Jose with nothing but a great idea and a friend willing to invest money in it. And my partners did indeed fire me in a way a lot like what’s shown in the book, very much to my utter surprise when it happened. And I really did harbor a burning desire for revenge there for a while. So I wrote this book instead.

But, while Geek Mafia’s genesis was in my own experiences the characters and story soon took on a life of their own. Even as the story spun off into a tale much more interesting and exciting than anything that’s ever happened to me, all the little details remain true to what Silicon Valley was like while I lived there. People who live there will recognize all the locations and the general vibe of both the place and the computer game industry.

3. In Geek Mafia, Chloe and her criminal crew live an "off the grid" or "underground" lifestyle. Is that based on any particular research you’ve done or life experiences you’ve had?

More than anything, this is a bit of wishful thinking on my part. I find the idea of living underground and dropping out of mainstream society very seductive. I think the central theme of Geek Mafia is really that you’re responsible for creating your own life and your own fate. Chloe and her crew are the most extreme embodiment of that idea. They do what they want and live in total freedom – and that freedom comes with a lot of danger and excitement and, ultimately, deceit. And Paul finds that way of living compelling, but also very frightening. I’m not quite brave enough to do it myself, and so I write about it and maybe I’ll find my way there through my books.

I was inspired by the great documentary, The Weather Underground, which came out in 2003. I didn’t know anything about the Weathermen or their activities and I was just startled at what they managed to get away with for the decade or so they were underground. I don’t necessarily agree with all their actions and tactics, but I do admire their commitment to their cause and beliefs. After I saw that, I started reading more about them and looking for information about other groups or individuals who’ve survived and even prospered outside of normal societal constraints. That led me in particular to Hakim Bey and his essays on Temporal Autonomous Zones and Pirate Utopias, both of which I found definitely inspirational. I suppose that I hope Geek Mafia itself can be seen as contributing to this line of literary exploration and maybe, if I’m real lucky, it’ll allow me to live out the dream in some way myself.
--This text refers to an alternate

edition.