When I first became aware of Jeff Somers, he was living in a hovel in Jersey City (as was I, though we only communicated with one another online) and editing the wonderful fanzine The Inner Swine (What was he a fan of? Why Jeff Somers of course! The zine's slogan was "Everyone's An Asshole, Especially Us.") We've both since moved on—now Jeff lives in tony Hoboken and writes the neat Avery Cates series of SF novels and, garsh, I live in tony Berkeley CA edit SF novels. Must have been something in the Jersey City water. You know, lead. See, we know stuff about slums. And things online.

Jeff was pleased to blurb the forthcoming Slum Online, writing, "Online slummer Etsuro's quest to find and defeat 'Ganker Jack' is exhilarating, but his parallel search for love and purpose (and a blue cat) in Real Life is just as affecting. Intriguing, thought-provoking, and unexpectedly action-packed!" He's right.

You'll be hearing more from Jeff in the future since SONY just bought the movie rights to Jeff's novel series. Clearly, given the parallel tracks of our lives, soon my own biography will be made into an anime. Right? Right?

Anyway—Slum Online, coming soon. Jeff Somers likes it. Everyone likes Jeff Somers. So everyone will like Slum Online. That's math!