{"product_id":"of-floating-isles-on-growing-pains-and-video-games-9781834050065","title":"Of Floating Isles: On Growing Pains and Video Games","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAn immersive journey into the author's lifelong attachment to video games, revealing how they shape us, shatter us, and give us the courage to start again\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eOf Floating Isles\u003c\/em\u003e is a captivating collection of personal essays that unpack the mystifying and often intimate roles that video games play in our lives. Interweaving memoir with cultural critique, Kawika Guillermo explores the subtle yet transformative influences of video games in shaping them as a queer and mixed-race grandson of two preachers; as a traveller, immigrant, and games scholar; and as a father, caregiver, and mourner. Through a mixture of fanciful musing, rigorous inquiry, and unflinching self-reflection, \u003cem\u003eOf Floating Isles\u003c\/em\u003e reframes the gamer's retreat from others not as social isolation, but as a quest for a different community, one where they feel seen, heard, and understood. This deep-seated longing to belong, Guillermo suggests, forms the imaginative worlds of video games and the floating isles they conjure.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eBy exploring their own lifelong attachment to video games, Guillermo shows how games can spark rage, confusion, and the desire to escape, but these emotions are not necessarily bad--they are the growing pains that many young people must work through. So too can games provide reflective realms to dwell, to imagine, and to build spaces for queer, trans, racialized, and neurodiverse groups. Envisioning games as forms of poetic interaction, \u003cem\u003eOf Floating Isles\u003c\/em\u003e boldly conveys their truth-telling powers: their ability to offer guidance in times of loss and hardship, and their power to reveal the oppressive mechanisms of our \"real\" world.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eKawika Guillermo \u003c\/strong\u003e(they\/he) is an award-winning author whose books include \u003cem\u003eStamped: an anti-travel novel\u003c\/em\u003e (Westphalia Press), \u003cem\u003eNimrods: a fake-punk self-hurt anti-memoir\u003c\/em\u003e (Duke University Press), and \u003cem\u003eOpen World Empire: Race, Erotics, and the Global Rise of Video Games\u003c\/em\u003e (NYU Press). They co-edited the anthology \u003cem\u003eMade in Asia\/America: Why Video Games Were Never (Really) About Us\u003c\/em\u003e (Duke University Press) and designed the game \u003cem\u003eStamped: an anti-travel game\u003c\/em\u003e (Analgesic Productions). They have lived in Portland, Las Vegas, Seattle, Gimhae, Nanjing, Hong Kong, and Vancouver. They currently teach game studies at the University of British Columbia.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Arsenal Pulp Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51580264186130,"sku":"9781834050065","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_52c6257a-b33e-4e27-8c44-bfefc1d5c1bd.jpg?v=1756213525","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/of-floating-isles-on-growing-pains-and-video-games-9781834050065","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}