Player One
Douglas Coupland
 The book is divided into five chapters. Each chapter is divided into five parts, each describing events from the perspective of one of the five main characters: Karen, Rick, Luke, Rachel, and Player One. The first chapter "Hour One: Cue the Flaming Zeppelin" has Karen arriving at the Toronto airport on a flight from Winnipeg to meet a man she met online. She sits on a stool at the airport hotel bar in which Rick is the bartender, Rachel is at a computer terminal, and Luke is sitting at a table drinking scotch. Rachel is there with the expectation to meet a man who can father her child and approaches Luke. Karen's date goes badly as she finds the man too assertive physically and too distant intellectually. A self-help guru, Leslie Freemont, enters with his assistant Tara to welcome Rick into his empowerment program; Leslie gives a speech to the group, takes Rick's money, and leaves. Meanwhile, oil prices rapidly increase and explosions start to occur outside. With the power unreliable, Karen, Rick, Luke, and Rachel run to Rick's vehicle to listen to the radio. Karen's date, Warren, is killed by a sniper as he runs to the group who quickly return to the bar lounge where they barricade themselves in. In "Hour Three: God's little Dumpsters" Karen's daughter tells them, over the phone, of rioting and general chaos that is occurring. Rick and Luke crawl through the ventilation shafts to the roof to overpower the sniper but fail and retreat to the lounge. As chemical fall-out starts to land on the airport the sniper seeks shelter in the lounge and is taken prisoner by the other characters. In "Hour Four: Hello, My Name Is: Monster" Rick and Rachel have sex, the sniper explains his motivations, and a teenager suffering from chemical burns seeks their help. In the final chapter "Hour Five: The View From Inside Daffy Duck's Hole" Karen and Luke tend to the teenager’s wounds. Rachel discovers that the sniper is actually Leslie Freemont's son, and upon stating this, the sniper panics, manages to get his gun back and shoots Rachel. The final part of the final chapter is told from the combined point-of-view of Rachel and Player One, who exist in what is labeled as Eternity, and provide an epilogue revealing the fates of the characters. ; Karen : A divorced mother of one daughter, and a receptionist at a psychiatrist office, who travels from Winnipeg to Toronto to meet Warren whom she met in an online forum. ; Rick : A divorced father of one son, and a recovering alcoholic, who works as a bartender at the Toronto Airport Camelot Hotel. He has been saving money to enroll in an empowerment program operated by Leslie Freemont. ; Luke : A pastor of a church in Nipissing, Ontario who lost his faith in religion, stole $20,000 from the church and fled to Toronto. ; Rachel : A young woman who operates a business that breeds lab mice and lives with psychological conditions on the Autism spectrum. Among her psychological conditions is prosopagnosia, as well as an inability to understand humour, metaphors, irony, or social cues. She wants to become pregnant to prove to her parents that she can lead what they consider a normal life. ; Player One : A disembodied voice who watches the events and comments on the character's past, present, and future actions and circumstances. ; Warren : The man who Karen is scheduled to meet at the hotel bar. ; Leslie Freemont : A self-help guru who operates the Power Dynamics Seminar System. He arrives with his assistant Tara to accept Rick into the program. ; Bertis : A religious fanatic, the son of Leslie Freemont, and the sniper on the bar's roof. ; Max : A teenager who tries to covertly take photos of Karen during their flight. He stumbles upon the group as he flees the chemical fall-out.