Although PCW attempts to mix information about the fun resources on the Internet with useful ones, there are a few recreational and highly addictive uses for the Internet which we have yet to cover. On a notional map of the world of the Internet, they would be marked “here be dragons”, and if you don’t wish to rack up a collossal phone bill and lose hours of sleep, you would be well-advised not to stray into them.

Now the curious can get a taste of what they are missing from the comfort of their armchair and without turning on their computers. J C Herz’ extraordinary virtual travel book gives a vivid guided tour of the wild side of the Internet, taking in, among other things, gender confusion and online sex, UFOlogists and conspiracy theorists online, flame wars, the virtual worlds known as MOOs and Internet Relay Chat - the CB radio of the Internet.

The book was not written from a position of lofty journalistic dispassion - it is a lively first person narrative, drawn from experience, with numerous illustrative chunks of text captured from online sessions, showing a keen understanding of and sympathy for the online counter-culture. Its author also brings an unusual perspective to the story - she is one of the first women to stray into this predominantly male domain and stay to describe it. It is written in the best “new journalism” tradition of Tom Wolfe and Hunter S Thompson - as you read it, you will learn something of how it feels to stay online all night, fuelled only by stale cola and ramen noodles.

Although hackers and crackers make their appearance in the book its focus is on the online slackers, who have created a series of bizarre but fascinating sub-cultures. If you want to understand them, you could spend a few months online, wandering around LambdaMOO, propping up the #IRCbar, and following alt.religion.kibology and alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die, but why bother? J C Herz has done this for you, and from the experience has distilled a thoroughly entertaining read.