JPod
Douglas Coupland
 JPod is an avant-garde novel of six young adults, whose last names all begin with the letter 'J' and who are assigned to the same cubicle pod by someone in human resources through a computer glitch, working at Neotronic Arts, a fictional Burnaby-based video game company. Ethan Jarlewski is the novel's main character and narrator, who spends more time involved with his work than with his dysfunctional family. His stay-at-home mother runs a successful marijuana grow-op which allows his father to abandon his career and work as a futile movie extra. Ethan's realtor brother Greg involves himself with Asian crime lord Kam Fong who serves as the plot's crux of character connection. The JPod staff are required to insert a turtle character based on Jeff Probst into the skateboard game that they are developing as 'BoardX'. The marketing manager, Steven Lefkowitz, mandates the turtle's addition to the game because he is trying to please his son during a custody battle. JPod is then drastically challenged and changed when Steve goes missing and the new executive replacement declares that the game will be changed yet again. Upper management decides to change Jeff the turtle for an adventurous prince who rides a magic carpet. The game is then renamed "SpriteQuest". The JPodders, upset that they would not be able to finish their game, decide to sabotage SpriteQuest by inserting a deranged Ronald McDonald. They do this by creating a secret level where Ronald works malevolence, thus creating, in their opinion, a culturally-suitable game for the target market. Ethan begins to date the newest addition to JPod, Kaitlin, and their relationship grows as she discovers that most of the members of the team, including herself, are mildly autistic. Kaitlin develops a hugging machine after researching how autistic people enjoy the sensation of pressure from non-living things on their skin. Douglas Coupland, as a character, is inserted into the novel when Ethan visits China to bring a heroin-addicted Steve back to Canada. This Google-version of Douglas Coupland consistently bumps into Ethan and manages to weave himself into the narrator's life. JPod finds itself in a digital world where technology is everything and the human mind is incapable of focusing on just one task.