The digital revolution has brought its prophets and mystics - the breathless theorizing of Wired or William Gibson’s disembodied cyberspace - but what it has so far lacked is a sober, wry, realist account. It is as though the Late Gothic Age were to be remembered solely through Acquinas’ theology or the visions of Dante, without a Chaucer or a Rabelais to chronicle carnal irreverent, everyday life.

Douglas Coupland has taken us a step closer with his new book Micoserfs - perhaps the first great work of cyberrealism.