Meta Game is a 2009 novel by Sam Landstrom. A story of a man who lives in a post-Singularity world that is ruled by a computer called the OverSoul, and a point-based economy where people earn points by playing games, spend the points to buy things, and - for the lucky few who earn enough points during their lifetime - earn their way to immortality.
Tropes:
- Bittersweet Ending: The main character dies... sort of. His Love Interest, however, does not.
- Immortal Life Is Cheap: Averted. Immortality in this case is actually just brain transplantation, which means that even for the Immortal, brain-death is death.
- Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: Lily was designed for this, and it is the final quest of the Meta Game, with Lily as the quarry.
- Interrogation by Vandalism: How D_Light learns of the Night Harvest from Hal.
- LEGO Genetics: Given the fact that the genomes of most species have been documented, all you need to do to create a customized creature is grab a template from a living organism and tack on all the behavior and appearance genes you like!
- The Singularity
- The Plague: Backstory. The TerriLove virus killed off a significant fraction of the human population by targeting the genes that genetic engineers had used to make people smart and beautiful, providing the impetus for the creation of the OverSoul.
- Robot Buddy: The familiars; pretty much everyone has one. They interface with brain chips.
- We Will Spend Credits in the Future: points are the currency they use
- We Will Use WikiWords in the Future
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Products, which are specially genetically engineered to be just below the DNA-similarity mark between humans and chimpanzees. Apparently, killing one is, and I quote, "like destroying a very expensive piece of furniture".