Epic by Conor Kostick

Main Character: Erik
Location: Earth colony planet New Earth
Time period: Undetermined future
Genre: YA Fiction, Science Fiction, Dystopian Society

Wow! I liked this book, and I'm looking forward to the sequel, Saga, which is scheduled to be published May 2008.

Erik lives in a culture where a massive multi-player online game has become the basis of law and economy. Everyone spends so much time in the game that they neglect daily chores in the real world. And since your wealth in the virtual world affects your status in the real world, everyone scrounges for coppers in the virtual world but rarely try anything that might get their characters killed because then they would lose everything and have to start again. Erik, however, begins to think differently. When he needs to create a new character, he makes a female swashbuckler who has few fighting skills but is very pretty. And when he walks down the streets of the virtual world, he begins to notice that NPCs (non-player characters) and begins to interact with them. He learns that when he takes the time to explore the game in ways he never did before, opportunities arise which promise to make him very rich and powerful.

This book had a bit of similarity to Margaret Haddix's Hidden Children series--both of them deal with an unjust or corrupt government and the hidden resistance movement that arises in response.