Steve Kallaugher

Virtualife: a Novel Steve Kallaugher

Mike Sweeney is the inadvertent creator and reluctant CEO of VirtuaLife, a company that makes multimedia gravestones. As the son of hippies, Sweeney understands that the universe is unfolding exactly as it should, but that doesn't stop him from sending out a prayer for his lonely life to change. His answer appears in the unlikely person of Patricia Coffin, a very determined, very wealthy ex-debutante who has become the first female member of the Icemen, a white-supremacist militia. Expecting to die young and violently, Patricia hires Sweeney to create her virtualife in advance, catapulting him into a world of tweaked-out skinheads, rebellious employees, felonious cowboys and lunatic lawyers. Maybe worst of all, he keeps ending up in Denver, a city which seems to have a personal grudge against him. And that's just the start of what the universe has in store for Sweeney. After all, he asked for it.