Description: They are Microserfs--six code-crunching computer whizzes who spend upward of sixteen hours a day "coding" and eating "flat" foods (food which, like Kraft singles, can be passed underneath closed doors) as they fearfully scan company e-mail to learn whether the great Bill is going to "flame" one of them. But now there's a chance to become innovators instead of cogs in the gargantuan Microsoft machine. The intrepid Microserfs are striking out on their own--living together in a shared digital flophouse as they desperately try to cultivate well-rounded lives and find love amid the dislocated, subhuman whir and buzz of their computer-driven world.
Brief description: Douglas Coupland is a Canadian visual artist, writer, and designer. His first novel was the 1991 international bestseller Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. He has published fourteen novels, two collections of short stories, eight nonfiction books, and a number of dramatic and comedic works for stage, film, and TV. In 2014, Coupland had his first major solo exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery, after which the show toured to Toronto, and then internationally. His book, Kitten Clone, was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. Coupland is a contributor to the New York Times, e-flux journal, Artsy, and Vice online and is a columnist with the Financial Times of London. Since 2015 he has been artist-in-residence at the Google Cultural Institute in Paris.