Amazon.com Microserfs is about a group of young Microsoft employees who seem to spend all their waking hours working， holed away in their offices staring at computer screens. Matthew Perry， of television's Friends， does a remarkable job of bringing this abridged audiobook version humorously and heartbreakingly to life. In the beginning， he appropriately uses the sarcastic voice for which he is so well known， but as the story reveals the darker side of protagonist Dan's frantic world， Perry drops the attitude and uses a much more understanding tone. Dan， not yet 30， but already facing burnout， realizes he has no life and begins keeping a journal in an attempt to sort through his personal and professional plight. Halfway through the story (read as journal entries)， Dan and a group of like-minded cohorts quit their jobs， pack their bags， and set out to start up their own company in Silicon Valley. This audiobook is an often hilarious foray into the risks and the rewards of the high-tech world. (Running time: three hours， two cassettes) --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition. From Publishers Weekly With his nose to the zeitgeist， the author of Generation X again examines the angst of the white-collar， under-30 set in this entertaining tale of computer techies who escape the serfdom of Bill Gates's Microsoft to found their own multimedia company. The story is told through the online journal of Danielu@microsoft.com， an affable， insomniac， 26-year-old aspiring code writer. Together with his girlfriend Karla， a mousy shiatsu expert with a penchant for Star Trekky aphorisms， and a tight clique of maladjusted， nose-to-the-grindstone housemates， he relocates to a Lego-adorned office in Palo Alto， Calif.， to develop a product called Object Oriented Programming (Oop!)， a form of virtual Lego. Much of the story concerns the the Oop! staff's efforts to raise capital and "have a life" amid 18-hour work days. Dan's journal， like much prose on the Internet， abounds in typos， encrypted text， emoticons-:) for happy and :( for sad-and random snippets of information， a format that suits Copland's disjointed， soundbite-heavy fiction. Yet the randomness and nonlinearity of cyberspace hobble narrative. Amid endless digital chitchat and pop-philosophy， this novel's more serious ruminations about the physical and social alienation of life on the Information Superhighway never achieve any real complexity. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information， Inc. See all Editorial Reviews