Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is an acclaimed novel that just released its paperback edition, and since it first came out, it's been recommended to me maybe several dozen times as the best novel about online worlds since, yes, Snowcrash. I'm resisting it until my own novel comes out, but the latest endorsement comes from the Second Life artist known as Douglas Story, and Story says it's the story for us:

"My Second Life friend Lydia Bracken (who in RL is a librarian at a community college) contacted me about two weeks ago and said, "Drop whatever you're doing and start reading this book!" I obediently followed her instructions, and am I glad I did." Here's why: