We continue Bookends with an entirely different genre – hypertext fiction. You may have never heard of the term, but the concept is not new.
Hypertext fiction is a form of choose-your-own-adventure that is based entirely online. You, as the reader, decide what the character does next and click a link that takes you in that direction.
The first hypertext is generally accepted as Michael Joyce’s Afternoon, a story, which was published in the early ‘90s.
In Episode 2, Justine speaks with Toronto author Stephen Marche who recently published a hypertext in Walrus magazine. Lucy Hardin’s Missing Period is about a woman who wakes up to find out she is pregnant. What happens in her life next depends on whether you decide she gets up right away, sleeps in, goes shopping or one of many other options.
Stephen talks about why he decided to write a digital book, how the genre affects his relationship with his readers and whether he believes in fate or “choosing your own adventure.”
Bookends starts here!
The Bookends List:
Here’s a list of other hypertexts to read through, written by authors recommended by Brooke Ford, associate fiction editor of Broken Pencil magazine:
1. Blueberries, Susan Gibb
The narrator, a woman, tells her story and you hear different parts of her background and childhood experience depending on which links you choose. From the first page, you don’t get far if you choose “dreamt” or “sex” and eventually you can start cycling back to an earlier part of the story.
2. Figurski at Findhorn on Acid, Richard Holeton
Frank “Many-Pens” Figurski, paroled after serving six years for killing Professor Quentin Kingsley, is on a mission. Having discovered what is apparently a seventeenth-century mechanical pig washed up on the beach at Findhorn Park, Frank embarks on a quest to determine the pig’s authenticity. But it won’t be easy, because Frank isn’t the only one obsessed with antique porcine contraptions, and he’s on acid. This hypertext is described by the publisher as a mix of “numerology, science fiction, Brit prog rock, eighteenth-century robotics, Boy Scouts and classic TV… that recalls Monty Python in its absurdity and erudition.” If you want to know what in the world that means, you’ll just have to find out for yourself.
3. Lollipop Noose, Todd Seabrook
This digital work is far from your everyday book. It’s based on the game hangman and is a looping three-minute video in which letters appear and disappear. The best way to describe it is as a short video game that you can’t control.
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Thank you to:
Stephen Marche
Brooke Ford
Nicholas Hoare Books
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Check out Brooke Ford’s new book The Summer Idyll.
Told through a series of letters, The Summer Idyll traces the lives of Mabel, Rita Mae, and Ellis as they erupt into a series of impossible situations and conflated and reckless desires. In the last summer they’ll ever spend together, these women struggle to find a self and a reality they can be settled in.
