Trading Reality

Michael Ridpath

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099416751 ISBN 13: 9780099416753

Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd, 1997

Mark Fairfax is a young, successful trader in the City. His older brother richard is a genius, who has built one of the world's leading virtual reality companies. When richard is found dead in a Scottish fishing village, mark steps into his shoes. He discovers that Richard has developed a system that can bring virtual reality into every home and office. Such a system could be worth billions of dollars to large Japenese or American companies capable of exploiting it; and there are those that fear it would change civilisation as we know it - for the worse. Mark has to learn quickly as he is thrust into a world which he barely understands, where he can trust no one. As he struggles to save to save his brother's fledgling company from bankruptcy and unwelcome predators, he realizes that his own life is in danger. Mark needs all his trader's nerve and quick thinking to survive.

From the Author:

Writing a second novel
What should I write for my second novel, after the success of my first, Free To Trade?

My first idea was simply to write Free To Trade again, changing the plot and characters slightly. But my German editor gave me some wise advice: write about something else that you are interested in. And so I decided to write about virtual reality.

I worked for three years for a venture capital company called Apax Partners. We invested in a small virtual reality company - Virtuality. It was one of the world leaders in the field, and dominated the market for VR entertainment systems. It had a bright future, but very little cash. Apax gave it some, and two years later the company floated on the stock exchange, giving Apax a profit of ten times its initial investment.

The whole process had been very exciting, and fraught with risk. The company seemed to be constantly lurching from boom to bust month by month. Personalities were important, and the stakes were high. From this, Trading Reality was born.

A sad postscript is that in early 1997 Virtuality did in fact go bust, The VR market took too long to take off, some management mistakes were made, and, inevitably, there wasn't enough cash.

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