World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

Epic novel takes on epic gear.

Even authors are feeling the World of Warcraft effect. As a medium for entertainment, gaming is staking its claim, but even more so is the WoW phenomenon. When articles in Newsweek, BusinessWeek, the Motley Fool and now the Wall Street Journal have the words World of Warcraft, it is truly an epidemic. I'm really creating a mountain out of a molehill since the interview I'm about to cite literally has one line about WoW, but it is an important line. The son of great spy thriller writer John le Carré (pen name for David Cornwell), Nicholas Cornwell writes under the name Nick Harkaway and is publishing his first novel "The Gone-Away World" that weighs in at 500 pages. How does Mr. Harkaway determine if his book is worth reading:

"My book has to be more fun than anything else I could be doing on a Tuesday afternoon. If it's not more fun than playing [World of] Warcraft for me, it won't be for anyone else, either."

If I were in the entertainment business (and no my webcam doesn't count) I would use Mr. Harkaway's barometer for just about any new venture. Of course Nick does drop in some mimes into his latest work, but we'll just hope they get offed in spectacular fashion. Check out the rest of the interview at Wall Street Journal and then weigh in on the validity of using WoW as a new entertainment barometer in our forums.