The Cybergypsies

THE CYBERGYPSIES: A TRUE TALE OF LUST, WAR, AND BETRAYAL ON THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER Indra Sinha (Viking, $28.95) In the mid-'80s, Sinha, a London ad exec, became seriously addicted to the earliest and most fanatical Internet outposts -- multiuser games and bulletin boards frequented by hackers, virus makers, software pirates, Dungeons & Dragons role players, and other ''cybergypsies.'' How this nice married father of two with a new house in Sussex almost lost it all to his modem becomes an enchanting tale, full of jarring, hallucinatory, humorous blurrings between worldly and wired events. So many books have tried to capture the heady horizons and disappointing mirages of cyberspace; Sinha's beautifully written virtual travelogue actually does -- at least, one strange corner of it. A-