md26+@andrew.cmu.edu (Matthew Tobias Diamond) (01/20/89)
I read in a recent issue of Analog about a sci-fi novel written on Hypercard.
The novel was called David's Sling, and you could follow different characters
through the story, go over events sequentially, poke around with supplementary
diagrams, and so on. The novel is also out in paperback form (apparently).
Does anyone have any first hand experience with it? Is it any good? How much
was it? And so on.
Matt@maps.cs.cmu.edufkpj@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU (01/21/89)
In article <YXpbcFy00XoE02ZV0h@andrew.cmu.edu> md26+@andrew.cmu.edu (Matthew Tobias Diamond) writes: >I read in a recent issue of Analog about a sci-fi novel written on Hypercard. > .. David's Sling .. > >Does anyone have any first hand experience with it? Is it any good? How much >was it? And so on. > The paper version has been available for some time. I read it awhile ago. I rather liked it, though the suggestion that the world at the end of the novel is better than at the beginning I can't agree with. The author just has not considered the dark side of his technology sufficently. As to the HyperCard version. I was rather disappointed on 2 counts. 1) For me the novel just does not work as well in that medium. The ability to browes somehow diminished the impact for me. True it was the second time through the novel, and it is a new format but some how I was much more aware of the mechanical details that go into creating a novel and that rather overwhelmed and trivialised the story 2) A hypertext format potential demands a lot more from the author. Since the reader has greater interaction and can ask questions and expect answers about the world the author created in a way not possible in paper (where the reader just imagines details if need be) unless the author has put in a lot more information about his world than normally is in a novel the reader quickly discovers the boundaries of the world of the novel. Example. In a rather colorful way the novel refers to PERT charts as a tool for carrying out the projects in the novel. So naturally a PERT chart is included in the HC version. But it is awful. it is just a picture of a small segment of the PERT chart. When I went to look at this I had expected to find a hypertext version of the PERT chart that I could browse with all sorts of detail irrelevent to the novel. Sort of as one would expect if you could actually step in to the world of David's Sling. Now I know this would take a lot of work on the author's part for he would have to make up a lot of detail that the novel never uses none the less, having just a dead trivial picture was so much less than I expected that I felt really cheated. Another example is something the author calls decision duels. This to could have been nicely set up in HC but was not. (no, no details now, you'll just have to read the book.) Alas... Maybe with time people will learn how to work with the more demanding art form. As it was I felt that I has spent $25 (I think that was the price) for something that was not 6 times better than the paperback. So, If you like that kind of thing, read the novel, it was okay and actually had a lot of interesting ideas and social commentary. Would I get the HC version again knowing what I do? (sigh... that is hard. It was truely instructive in its shortcomings. if it had been only $8 I would get it again. I guess at $25 I would not get it again. But if you are curious about this art form it is instructive. (instructions for ordering were inside the book cover which I don't have available just now.) However if the author had put in the additional work to make the world richer in the HC version the $25 would have been well worth it. ) Todd Olson olson@helios.tn.cornell.edu (prefered to above address)