YOU

In his new novel, successful writer and creator of popular video games combines his gifts as a writer with his skill and knowledge of the video game world to bring us a novel of mystery, videogames, and the people who make and use them.

When Russell joins Black Arts games, brainchild of two visionary designers who were once his closest friends, he reunites with an eccentric crew of nerds hacking the frontiers of both technology and entertainment. In part, he's finally given up chasing the conventional path that has always seemed just out of reach. But mostly, he needs to know what happened to Simon, the strangest and most gifted friend he ever lost, who died under mysterious circumstances soon after Black Arts' breakout hit.

Then Black Arts' revolutionary next-gen game is threatened by a mysterious software glitch, and Russell finds himself in a race to save his job, Black Arts' legacy, and the people he has grown to care about. The bug is the first clue in a mystery leading back twenty years, through real and virtual worlds, corporate boardrooms and high school computer camp, to a secret that changed a friendship and the history of gaming. The deeper Russell digs, the more dangerous the glitch appears - and soon, Russell comes to realize there's much more is at stake than just one software company's bottom line. The novel is permeated with characters trying to lose themselves or become someone else in these alternate realities created by the video games. But, ultimately, you cannot ever shake YOU.

Austin Grossman's debut novel Soon I Will Invincible announced the arrival of a singular, genre-defying talent "sure to please fans of Lethem and Chabon" (Playboy). With YOU, Grossman offers his most daring and most personal novel yet-a thrilling, hilarious, authentic portrait of the world of professional game makers; and the story of how learning to play can save your life.

Austin Grossman is a game designer, game writer, and novelist. After graduating from Harvard in 1992, he failed to get a job in publishing and found a job at a small computer game company, Looking Glass Studios, which was already become a legendary center of talent and innovation in the gaming world. Grossman went on to write and design for games such as Ultima Underworld 2, System Shock, Jurassic Park: Trespasser, Deus Ex, Disney's Epic Mickey, and most recently, Dishonored. Along the way, Grossman also earned a Master's in Performance Studies at NYU, and is currently ABD at the University of California, Berkeley, in English Literature.