Not A Floating Cloud
I have yet to see a gaming novel execute with a genuine NPC-Relationship. The closest I've seen to an NPC Relationship would be "Nurturing Humanity". Sadly I have yet to see a gaming novel execute an NPC relationship correctly. I hope here we get to see some progress though I'm not expecting much. That aside. This novel executes the "Bug" trope pretty well. I'm not sure about other novels. Retrograde Gaming is not really a bug but more about reputation [I have not read other gaming novels so I might be wrong. Maybe it's already been well done in another novel??]