We Are Watching Eliza Bright

by A.E. Osworth Narrated by Nicholas Tecosky, Claire Christie

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Sometimes it takes a work of fiction to dissect the ills of society. A.E. Osworth's tech world and writing background make this one of the most important cyber-thrillers of the 21st century.

Named a Best Book of 2021 by*NPR*¿*Harper's Bazaar ¿*CrimeReads ¿ Electric Literature ¿ Autostraddle*¿ The Globe and Mail

In this thrilling story of survival and anger, a woman has her whole life turned upside down after speaking out against workplace hostility-and inadvertently becomes the leader of a cultural movement.

Eliza Bright is living the dream as an elite video game coder at Fancy Dog Games, the first woman to ascend that high in the ranks-and some people want to make sure she's the last. To her friends, Eliza Bright is a brilliant, self-taught coder bravely calling out the misogyny that pervades her workplace and industry. To the men who see her very presence as a threat, Eliza Bright is a woman who needs to be destroyed to protect the game they love.*

When Eliza's report of workplace harassment is quickly dismissed, she's forced to take her frustrations to a journalist who blasts her story across the internet. She's fired and doxxed, and becomes a rallying figure for women everywhere. But she's also enraged the beast comprised of online male gamers-their unreliable chorus narrates our story. Soon, Eliza is in the cross-hairs of the gaming community, threatened and stalked as they monitor her every move online and across New York City.*

As the violent power of the angry male collective descends upon everyone in Eliza's life, it becomes increasingly difficult to know who to trust, even when she's eventually taken in and protected by an under-the-radar Collective known as the Sixsterhood. The violence moves from cyberspace to the real world, thanks to a vicious male super-fan known only as The Inspectre, determined to exact his revenge on behalf of men everywhere. We watch alongside the Sixsterhood and subreddit keyboard warriors as this dramatic cat-and-mouse game plays out to its violent and inevitable conclusion in this thrilling story of resilience and survival.*

*

Editorial Reviews

JUNE 2021 - AudioFile

This unusual thriller featuring Eliza Bright, a female coder at a role-playing video game company, is narrated by Nicholas Tecosky and Claire Christie. When Eliza reports sexism at Fancy Dog Games and is fired, she decides to fight back in public, provoking a backlash against her on- and offline. But who’s the ringleader, and what’s the endgame? The plot unfolds like a video game with multiple decision trees, so it’s hard for the listener to distinguish between the hypothetical and the real despite the excellent efforts of Tecosky and Christie. As well, much of the dialogue is exchanged in a Slack-like messaging app, adding to the confusion. For these reasons, listening to, rather than reading, this complex story is a less than satisfying experience. L.W.S. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

02/01/2021

Self-taught game designer Eliza Bright, the heroine of Osworth’s provocative debut, has just been promoted at New York’s Fancy Dog Games to develop code that allows sexual activity for the virtual reality upgrade to an online superhero role-playing game. When Eliza’s code is tagged “80085” (read: boobs), Eliza brings a complaint to the company president, and then, when she doesn’t get satisfaction, shares her treatment with the media, resulting in her dismissal. Her personnel file ends up online, leading to identity theft and having her game avatar gang raped. Eliza flees from real-world taunts and finds refuge with the Sixsterhood, an artistic co-op, and from there seeks out the identity of her principal attacker. Point-of-view shifts between the “weaponized nerd population” that blames Eliza for disrupting their favorite game and the Sixsterhood, whose members are firmly on Eliza’s side, build tension. The nerds imagine much of what happens offline, putting a spin on the unreliable narrator trope. Osworth offers a sharp take on the deeply disturbing misogyny that lurks online as well as a hopeful look at combatting it. Agent: Christopher Hermelin, Fischer-Harbage Agency. (Apr.)

From the Publisher

"We Are Watching Eliza Bright is a novel that takes on our techy zeitgeist at its silicon core. It's is a novel vital for our time. Fun and smart, but always deeply insightful."—Tiphanie Yanique, author of Land of Love and Drowning

"Unputdownable."—Harper's Bazaar

"A.E. Osworth takes readers on heck of a ride... By the time you’re done reading, you will question everything you think you know."—NPR

“The book I most fervently devoured this year.”—Emily VanDerWerff, Vox

“This book is unflinching in its observations about fan culture and difficult to put down, thanks to some high-action moments of conflict and violence—both real and pixelated—that really stick with you. It’s all packaged in Osworth’s exceedingly enjoyable prose and their smart, funny, diverse, flawed cast of characters.”—Kate Gorton, Autostraddle

JUNE 2021 - AudioFile

This unusual thriller featuring Eliza Bright, a female coder at a role-playing video game company, is narrated by Nicholas Tecosky and Claire Christie. When Eliza reports sexism at Fancy Dog Games and is fired, she decides to fight back in public, provoking a backlash against her on- and offline. But who’s the ringleader, and what’s the endgame? The plot unfolds like a video game with multiple decision trees, so it’s hard for the listener to distinguish between the hypothetical and the real despite the excellent efforts of Tecosky and Christie. As well, much of the dialogue is exchanged in a Slack-like messaging app, adding to the confusion. For these reasons, listening to, rather than reading, this complex story is a less than satisfying experience. L.W.S. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172940781
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	04/13/2021
Edition description:	Unabridged

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