The cat's out of the bag - or, more appositely, the brain's out of the jar. Profile Books just announced that the interactive novel I'm writing for them is Frankenstein. Yep, Mary Shelley's classic novel vandalized into what-next form by yours truly.
Some of you already guessed this news a while back, though I'm willing to bet the finished book won't be anything like you expect. Our official announcement gives some kind of an idea what's in store:
"Maybe you remember gamebooks or choose-your-own novels, but if so put those right out of your mind. Frankenstein is way more than that. It's an art installation made up of story fragments, where the reader can explore the text, creating a unique and personal experience of this rightly world-famous work and developing a direct relationship with the main characters. That's why we're describing it as interactive literature. It's a truly new kind of novel for the digital age."
What Jamie and I are aiming for is a gamebook that even non-gamers can enjoy, in the same way that plenty of non-SF fans are happy to read Mary Shelley's original book in spite of it being most definitely a science fiction novel - and probably the first such, although if you know of an earlier one, shout it out. Traditionally, mainstream readers have been very dismissive of things like comics and gamebooks. That's a very lazy prejudice (as most prejudices are) so that's one of the attitudes we're hoping to change a little bit with this book.
The engine that's powering this project is by Cambridge-based app developers Inkle Studios, smartest mammals in the new digital book ecosystem by a long way. Thanks to their tech, I can just write the book with all story logic in curly brackets as part of the text. I feed it into their engine and out it comes as a working app. Hey presto, I'm not just the designer and writer of this thing, I'm the coder too. We're hoping to do more with them and Profile Books in the future. A whole lot more. You'll read it here first.
Excellent! I'm definitely looking forward to this. The new approach you talk about, for the book to be appealing to readers who never were into gamebooks, got me curious.
ReplyDeletethere already was a gamebook titled The Curse of Frankenstein which came out in the late 80s, and for what i recall it was subpar...
ReplyDeleteSounds like a great idea! Just one queston. Is there going to be a print version for all the old gamebook lovers?
ReplyDeleteAnon 1 - I hadn't heard of it, but the review here by Mrs Giggles
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mrsgiggles.com/gamebooks/brennan_curse.html
suggests that it's not at all like our version.
Anon 2 - that is a good question, and one that Leo Hartas asked me just yesterday. I'd like to see a print version too, and there's nothing so complex about the structure as to rule that out. But the decision is up to the publishers (Profile Books) so bombard them with enough emails and maybe they'll do it.
Efrem, it's an interesting change for us too. Everybody has been saying, "Can you play as the monster?" (yes, but...) and "Can you change the ending?" (well, sort of...) so it's likely to confound expectations - in a good way, we hope.
Great news, Dave.
ReplyDeleteThis is really good news Dave! I am crossing my fingers as I would really really love a print version.
ReplyDeleteJeremy, Hamza... thanks, I'm looking forward to hearing what you make of it! And if you get Profile's contact details from their website (http://www.profilebooks.com) you can start the petition for a print edition right now :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm very much looking forward to this. What is it that Inkle does that's so clever? I'd hope it's something so arcane that it couldn't be reproduced in print!
ReplyDeleteExcellent news! Looking forward this new experience.
ReplyDeleteI love the original story. As a scientist is a great inspiration.... not to make monsters, ofcourse! Is a good reminder of what make us human and how easy we can loose ourselves in the pursue of our goals: action and consecuence.
Will, it's mostly at the developer end - Jamie and I can just write our book in the Inkle engine, compile it and there's our app. Admittedly, they'll tart it up nicely with graphics and stuff, but if I were to read the manual I could do that too. Except, of course, I never read the manual... :-)
ReplyDeleteThat's how I see it, Ikaros. Victor's ambition means that he loses sight of the consequences until it's too late. It's why I find the common modern interpretation so safe and boring - ie that the monster is misunderstood and Victor is the really inhuman, jealous, spiteful one. That misses the whole point, namely that we are all Victor Frankenstein, creating our own monsters. The story's backdrop against the French Revolution and the Terror (in our version) serves to underline that.
Well, colour me intrigued with a dash of pepper and Mrs. Miggins' wotsercakes... Frankenstein, eh? Do we get to the play the part of Electricity Board investigators on the hunt for the missing gigawatts?
ReplyDeleteA petition eh? I too would love a print version. By the looks of Profile Books' website they do have many print books available, so I would assume a print copy is possible? For those wanting to petition the contact info is on this page:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.profilebooks.com/contact/
I know I for one will be sending a message asking for a print copy! I encourage others to do the same, so we can have a hard copy of this book for everyone.
A print version is better than an app because those who don't have an iPhone or the technology to use the app can still enjoy the book. Furthermore the software for an app may go obsolete, whereas a print copy will never go obsolete. And, of couse, a print version is a nice piece of nostalgia for all the old gamebook gamers, as well as the new ones too.
We'll see print books getting more expensive as digital books chip away at the market, but hardbacks and high-end paperbacks aren't going to go away, that's for sure. Publishers may in some cases be reluctant to pay for the typesetting (more expensive for a print book than an ebook, at least, if not than an app) but that's balanced by print-on-demand, which lowers the publisher's risk. So hopefully publishers will offer readers the choice.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Tim. There are a whole bunch of extra costs associated with print, however, from cover art to distribution. And remember that retail bookstores are looking like an endangered species. So print will survive, yes; but print books will get more expensive, and more books will be digital-only, that being the modern equivalent of the cheap paperback.
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit confusing that you talk about a book when it isn't really a book. A book is printed paper, what you are referring to is a computer file of sorts, that for marketing purposes is sometimes called an ebook, but not a book. So you got me all excited, for nothing.
ReplyDeleteAs a writer I'd expect you to use the correct wording for things, which would incidentally have saved me the trouble of reading the entire post.
On Twitter I am a lot more succinct :-)
ReplyDeleteAmazon are the same. They put DVDs under movies but DVDs are a type of computer file. Movies are strips of film that run through a projector. It's all marketing.
ReplyDelete