Leonora (Leo) is an Italian Asian American teen-ager with a rotten attitude and a genius I.Q. Thrown out of twelve schools and fluent in as many languages, she's sent to live with her grandmother in the Philippines, where she spends all her time in a computer environment called Apeiron - a parasitic virtual reality program which drove its mad creator to dive headlong into a gorge. Only in Apeiron can Leo shed the awkward body of an adolescent girl and emerge in the persona of Fergus, the warrior; only in Apeiron can she hobnob with Socrates and John Lennon. But one day the only boy she's ever liked disappears, and Leo, in a quest to rescue him, finds herself lured into the program's computer generated hell. A post-modern tilt at Alice in Wonderland, a computer-age Huckleberry Finn, leo@fergusrules.com is above all the story of a young woman's search for the lost world of her ancestors in a society in which technology has replaced community.
Arne Tangherlini received his A.B. in History and Literature from Harvard and his M.A. from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. He was a teacher for many years both in the Philippines and the United States and the co-author of Smart Kids: How Academic Talents are Nurtured and Developed in America.
"Leo @ fergusrulesrules.com is a fantastical coming of age story about a brainy, racially mixed teenage girl…who spends much of her spare time in her bedroom, jacked into a cyber wonderland called Apeiron. This computer-generated 3-D world is a timeless landscape, home to a historical line-up of digitally re-created dignitaries, such as Confucius, Julius Caesar and Napoleon… She also encounters relatives and ancestors, including her great aunt, who as a young woman survives being shot by American soldiers in the Philippine American War. Other dangers include pterodactyls with giant Barbie-doll bodies that dump guano and screech, 'Nike, Guess, Benetton, Levi's! Tommy, Tommy, Tommy-boy!" and a child-steamrollering Zamboni that is operated by gnomelike people and has a control room guarded by a three-headed dog. Needless to say, Leo is a trip…a 21st century homage to the works of Argentine poet and author Jorge Luis Borges
