electronic book review

digital futures of literature, theory, criticism, and the arts

interactive fiction

Critical Code Studies Conference – Week Three Discussion
Critical Code Studies Conference – Week Three Introduction
Janet Murray’s response

Janet Murray unriddles the verbal and procedural mix of Interactive Fiction.

Notes Toward a Proleptic History of Electronic Reading

Matthew Kirschenbaum rethinks the final section of First Person in light of "five basic strategies for furthering the history of reading."

Prismatic Play: Games as Windows on the Real World

John Tynes argues that it took the novel two hundred years to gain cultural capital; film, forty years; rock and roll, fifteen. Given this increasing velocity and the fact that it's been three decades since Colossal Cave Adventure, interactive storytelling should have gained a much higher level of respect than it has. Tynes argues that games should eschew escapist fantasy for more timely "engagist" settings that would allow the player to reflect on contemporary life and politics.