<B><A NAME="#Aarseth_1997">Aarseth, Espen J.</A></B> <I>Cybertext:
Perspectives on Ergodic Literature</I>. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins UP, 1997.
<BR><RATING VALUE="5.0"></RATING>Aarseth articulates a comprehensive
theory of interactive literature that applies across technological and generic boundaries.
"A cybertext is a machine for the production of a variety of expression" (3). According
to Aarseth, "ergodic" literature is that in which "nontrivial effort is required to allow the
reader to traverse the text" (1). The book includes chapters on hypertext literature,
interactive fiction, and MUDs. Aarseth's interactive fiction chapter includes a call for
better IF scholarship and criticism: "The adventure game is an artistic genre of its own, a
unique aesthetic field of possibilities, which must be judged on its own terms"
(107).<P>Highlights from the introductory chapter:<UL><LI>"The concept of cybertext
focuses on the mechanical organization of the text, by positing the intricacies of the
medium as an integral part of the literary exchange. However, it also centers attention on
the consumer, or user, of the text, as a more integrated figure than even reader-response
theorists would claim" (1).<LI>"Since literary theorists are trained to uncover literary
ambivalence in texts with linear expression, they evidently mistook texts with variable
expression for texts with ambiguous meaning. When confronted with a forking text such
as a hypertext, they claimed that all texts are produced as a linear sequence during
reading. . . . [But] when you read from a cybertext, you are constantly reminded of
inaccessible strategies and paths not taken, voices not heard. Each decision will make
some parts of the text more, and others less, accessible, and you may never know the
exact results of your choices; that is, exactly what you missed. This is very different
from the ambiguities of a linear text" (3).<LI>To Aarseth, the reader of a linear text is
"[l]ike a spectator at a soccer game," who "may speculate, conjecture, extrapolate, even
shout abuse" but cannot influence the text. "The reader's pleasure is the pleasure of the
voyeur. Safe, but impotent. The cybertext reader, on the other hand, is not safe, and
therefore, it can be argued, she is not a reader. . . . The cybertext reader is a player, a
gambler; the cybertext is a game-world or world-game; it is possible to explore, get lost,
and discover secret paths in those texts, not metaphorically, but through the topological
structures of the textual machinery" (4).<LI>Aarseth argues that science-fiction authors
have a better theoretical grasp of cybertext than literary theorists, the latter of whom
mistakenly apply metaphorical structures such as labyrinths and ambiguity (typically
found in postmodern texts) with cybertexts that are, in form and content, inseparable
from the textual mazes or variables within the structure of the document, rather than
merely applied by the reader's interpretation. "Thus, the interpretations and
misinterpretations of the digital media by literary theorists is a recurrent theme of this
book" (14).</UL>In the chapter "Intrigue and Discourse in the Adventure Game,"
Aarseth opens with a brief history of the Internet, and offers Don Woods's description of
his collaboration with Willie Crowther in the creation of "Colossal Cave Adventure."
Aarseth agrees with Buckles's assessment of the "Adventure" phenomenon as a
manifestation of Internet folk art.<UL><LI>"... the ergodic structures invented by
Crowther and Woods twenty years ago are of course far from dead but instead persevere
as the basic figure for the large and growing industrial entertainment genre, called, by a
somewhat catachrestic pleonasm, 'interactive games.' . . . It is a paradox that, despite the
lavish and quite expensive graphics of these productions, the player's creative options are
still as primitive as they were in 1976" (102-103).<LI>Observes that Buckles, in her
dissertation on "Adventure," "seems uninterested in placing her subject text at a specific
point in history, and she mentions its creators, Crowther and Woods, only in footnotes. . .
. Most commentators and critics of the adventure game genre (Bolter and Joyce 1987;
Randall 1988; Ziegfeld 1989; Bolter 1991; Sloane 1991; Murray 1995) fail to mention
the original Adventure at all, and those who do usually date it far off the mark (Niesz and
Holland 1984; Lanestedt 1989; Aarseth 1994) and often neglect to mention its creators
(Moulthrop and Kaplan 1991; Kelley 1993)" (107).<LI>Offers a detailed analysis of the
writing, plot, characters, and even the software bugs which contribute to (or detract from)
the effectiveness of Marc Blank's "Deadline" (Infocom, 1982) (115127).</UL><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Anderson_et_al_2000">Anderson, Peter Bøgh and Berit
Holmqvist.</A></B> "Interactive Fiction: Artificial Intelligence as a Mode of Sign
Production." <I>AI and Society</I> 4 (1990): 291-313.
<BR><RATING VALUE="1.5"></RATING>The authors advocate artificial intelligence
(AI) as a means of manipulating character behavior within the interactive space wherein
the reader and program together create a story, much as a stage actor employs the script
and fellow actors in order to generate a performance. Anderson and Holmqvist invoke
hypertext theorists and the virtual reality analytics of Brenda Laurel, for the purpose of
presenting a barroom scenario in which the reader/player interacts with several simulated
characters with distinct agendas. A "good" couple (dressed in white) and a "bad" couple
(dressed in black) interact via signified actions (hackneyed "film noir" motifs such as
buying a drink or lighting a cigarette). Their work, from a project at the Institute of
Information and Media Science, University of Aarhus (Denmark), bears much
resemblance the "virtual theater" work of the Oz Project at Carnegie Mellon (see also
§1.2: Bates; Mateas; Mateas and Stern).<P><UL><LI>Just as successful interaction with
a computer application requires a clear difference between, for instance an arrow pointer
(for selecting menus and pushing buttons) and an I-beam (for inserting and manipulating
text), so too, the authors argue, should interactive media develop its own "idioms that
exploit the characteristics of the computer based sign" (291). <LI>This kind of interactive
storytelling involves tracking the internal emotions (loneliness, vulnerability, etc.) of
various simulated characters, and playing out a scenario based upon these states, which
fluctuate with the action. Unlike the profession of literary criticism, which takes a
polished product and analyzes it for evidence of underlying structure, the AI method
begins with the structure, and builds a rudimentary story upon it. </UL><P>[Note: The
AI method of computer storytelling focuses on simulating everyday human behavior; but
good stories generally require unusual events of some kind – or at least an artistic
presentation of everyday events. Many IF practitioners (e.g. §3: Granade, "Artificial
Intelligence in IF") argue that full-blown AI is a red herring. Nevertheless, the
programming of believable supporting characters remains a technical and aesthetic
challenge in command-line IF (see §3: Short).]</P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Buckles_1985">Buckles, Mary Ann.</A></B> "Interactive Fiction:
The Computer Storygame 'Adventure'." Ph.D. Thesis. U. Cal at San Diego, 1985.
<BR><RATING VALUE="5.0"></RATING>In a New Critical approach rarely seen in
academic discussions of IF, Buckles de-emphasizes the role of the programmer/author,
taking "Colossal Cave Adventure" (Crowther, c.1975; Crowther and Woods, 1976) as a
"given," and examining instead the reader/player's efforts to make meaning out of the
experience. As an immature medium, IF has not yet produced great literature: "I do not
believe that the literary limitations of Adventure means that computer story games are of
necessity a sub-literary genre, or that there is something about the computer medium
itself which pre-destines interactive fiction always to be frivolous in nature. The
development of film can be taken as an analogy."<P><UL><LI>On the nature of
language puzzles (as presented in legend, the Bible, and riddle anthologies) as a factor in
traditional fiction. One such puzzle: "Brothers and sisters I have none; but this man's
father is my father's son. Who am I?"<UL><LI>"Especially in the longer stories, the
situations seem to be chosen not only because they express the logical relationships so
well, but [also] because we can interpret them as moral or aesthetic problems"
(47).<LI>"In most of the stories the reader can identify with characters' wishes or needs.
Since their goals make sense to us, there is a reason, a motivation for solving the
problems, i.e. we fulfill our own needs vicariously by fulfilling the characters' needs.
Often the problems are couched in a primitive psychology of reward and punishment: if
the heroes answer the questions correctly they win something valuable, and if not, they
die" (48).</UL><LI>Applies Vladimir Propp's schema for the analysis of folktales, and
concludes that "Adventure" bears only a surface resemblance to the structure of folktales
(104).<LI>Offers thoughtful and interesting commentary on the significance of various
passages for several volunteer players.<UL><LI>"[O]ne reader interpreted her adventure
as entering a cave which all the creatures inhabited and [in which] she was an intruder. It
was her duty not to disturb the creatures if possible. She therefore assumed that the
purpose of the wicker cage was to catch and cage any cave creature she didn't want to kill
outright" (127).<LI>[This same player tried to cage] "every creature she met in
Adventure, including the dwarf throwing axes and knives at her. . . . After it became
apparent that she would try negotiating with the animals, avoiding them, appeasing them,
feeding them — anything but kill them, even when they were attacking her — she and
her playing partner had a philosophical argument as to the validity of her attitude" (128).
(See §1.1: Sloane.) <LI>Her partner then "insisted that she throw the axe at the dwarf,
and she insisted variously that there is good in every creature," "do unto others as you
would have them do unto you," and "of course it's justified in trying to kill us, we're
enfringing [sic] on its territory." The dwarf then killed them, they were reincarnated,
attacked by the dwarf again, she tried a few more non-violent tactics and was killed a
second time. At this point she observed that she guessed the same thing happens to her in
real life. She always tries to see only the good in people and then they dump on her.
Whether she will draw any real-life consequences from this observation is another
question, but she did modify her game-strategy. . . . There is, then an underlying set of
conventions in Adventure that is analogous in some sense to the moral underpinings [sic]
of folktales, but it is the process of decision-making based on self examination and
motive analysis the reader undergoes while solving problems, not the depicted actions
and events in the story" (129).</UL><LI>"Somebody encountering a conventional story
can pass his or her eyes over the entire text without filling in, or even perceiving, any of
the textual gaps. IF is completely different, because the story stops until the 'reader'
attempts to supply the missing action" (165).<LI>Gestures towards, but does not
elaborate upon, the consideration of IF not as an outgrowth of fiction, but as a kind of
lyrical poetry, in which the reader's interpretation of events makes meaning: "Many
readers get intensely, emotionally involved in the fictional events because of their stepby-step activity in exploring the fictional world and mastering the fictional events. This
can unlock strong feelings and memories of associated events from their own lives with
they then build into the imaginary world they are creating. Finally, the fictional events in
Adventure, for example, are only minimally explained, i.e. there is little context provided
for the reader by the author. In this one sense, interactive fiction's quality of evoking
emotionally charged and intellectually complete contexts for the text makes it more
similar to the open textuality of lyrical poetry than the tightly woven textual fabric of
fiction" (178).</UL><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Campbell_1987">Campbell, P. Michael.</A></B> "Interactive
Fiction and Narrative Theory: Towards an Anti-Theory." <I>New England Journal and
Bread Loaf Quarterly</I> 10 (1987): 76-84.
<BR><RATING VALUE="2.0"></RATING>A reading of Robert Pinsky's
"Mindwheel" (Synapse/Broderbund, 1984). Pinsky was the U.S. Poet Laureate from
1997-2000. Campbell spends so much time describing the form of the "computerized
novel") that he has little time to analyze the content. (See also §1.1: Packard.) Since
"Mindwheel" is extremely difficult to find (except via morally ambiguous
"abandon-ware" websites), this article (along with §1.1: Randall) is useful as a fossilized
record of early cyberliterature.<P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Coleman_1990">Coleman, Douglas W.</A></B> "Language
Learning Through Computer Adventure Games" <I>Simulation & Gaming</I> 21
(1990): 433, 8p. Academic Search Elite full text database. 26 par. 30 May 2000.
<BR><RATING VALUE="2.0"></RATING>Although the title suggests an emphasis on
adventure games, of classic text-only titles the article briefly mentions only Zork.
Nevertheless, "some of the games available for home computers are designed around
problem-solving activities and require methodical planning, thinking, and note taking"
(<PAR>4). Of possible interest to IF scholars is Coleman's list of attributes that affect
whether a player perceives a computer gaming session as "fun" — and thus, presumably,
contributes to the player's determination to continue playing.<P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Constanzo_1986">Constanzo, William V.</A></B> "Reading
Interactive Fiction: Implications of a New Literary Genre." <I>Educational
Technology</I> 26 (1986): 31-5.
<BR><RATING VALUE="2.5"></RATING>Most of the article is concerned with
introducing the concept of IF to an unfamiliar audience, using transcripts from Douglas
Adams's "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (Infocom, 1984, with Steve Meretzky), and
James Paul's "Brimstone" (Synapse/Broderbund, 1985). Also features a brief description
of Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" (Spinnaker, 1984). (See also §1.1:
Packard.)<P><UL><LI>"Are interactive texts shaping new attitudes towards reading? If
they provide new contexts for learning about language, story-telling, and ideas, are they
encouraging particular skills and values at the expense of others? What happens to the
traditional elements of fiction when the reader enters the fictional world as a participant?
Does interactive fiction constitute a genuinely new form of literature?" (31).<LI>While
Constanzo does not attempt to answer all the questions he asks above, he does conclude
thus: "When we turn the first pages of The Odyssey, Pride and Prejudice, or Brave New
World, we gain admittance to a system, enclosed and complete. Each system has its
physical and psychological premises, its codes of human interaction, its written and
unwritten laws. Our ability to read a book successfully depends largely upon our
understanding of the fictionalized world order. . . . Until now, readers have had no
genuinely active way to learn the codes in context, as participants, no way to test their
responses against a responsive text. Interactive fiction is changing the meaning of reader
response. It is giving a new generation of readers unprece-dented opportunities to
encounter literature, and in the process it is redefining the relationship between the reader
and the text. As educators, we would do well to watch closely as this relationship
evolves" (35).</UL><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Desilets_1989">Desilets, Brendan.</A></B> "Reading, Thinking,
and Interactive Fiction." <I>English Journal</I> 78 (1989): 75-77.
<BR><RATING VALUE="2.0"></RATING>An embryonic version of his 1999 article,
also describing scenes from "Planetfall" and "Wishbringer," and evaluates the problemsolving strategies of middle-school students playing IF in class. Perhaps most notable in
this article is a brief passage addressing resistance from adults who dislike IF: "What's
wrong with this picture? If you're one of the many adults who has tried interactive fiction
and hated it, you think you may know. Actually, IF aversion is easily understandable, in
that many of us get the worst possible advice [from students who present it as a kind of
novel] as we get started with the genre. . . . And twenty cryptic error messages later,
we've had enough of interactive fiction, because, in truth, even the most sophisticated IF
program can deal with only a tiny portion of the kinds of English sentences that any
speaker of the language uses" (77). Desilets' advice is simple: "all we need to do is read
the clear and witty documentation that comes with each of the programs."<P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Desilets_1999">Desilets, Brendan.</A></B> "Interactive Fiction vs.
the Pause that Distresses: How Computer-Based Literature Interrupts the Reading
Process Without Stopping the Fun." <I>Currents in Electronic Literacy</I> 1 (1999). 19
Sep, 2000. <A
HREF="http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/currents/spr99/desilets.html">http://www.cwrl.utexa
s.edu/currents/spr99/desilets.html</A>.
<BR><RATING VALUE="4.0"></RATING>Writing mostly for an audience unfamiliar
with IF, Desilets presents his experience using interactive fiction to teach literary
concepts (plot, setting, point of view) to children ages 11 through 14. He reports that
about 70% of the students preferred to study IF texts, in part because "it challenges them
to recognize and solve problems in ways that no textbook seems to be able to match"
(<PAR>8). (See also §1.1: Packard.)<P><UL><LI>Desilets presents his seventh-grade
class encountering an unfamiliar word in "Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur" (Bob Bates,
1989), and discusses the opening scenes of "Planetfall" (Steve Meretzky, 1983) and the
sleeping grue puzzle in "Wishbringer" (Brian Moriarty, 1985) for their value in
challenging readers to conceptualize problems according to their experience of the
text.<LI>He also refers to the plot ramifications connected with moral choices such as
"killing a bellicose stranger" in "Zork III" (Infocom, 1978-81) and "deciding whether to
respect the orders of Preelman" in "A Mind Forever Voyaging" (Steve Meretzky, 1985).
Praises "A Mind Forever Voyaging" as "a work of serious science fiction that many
readers regard as the finest piece of IF yet written" (Par. 15).<LI>Desilets describes
methods of using IF to teach, including having a student seated at a single computer read
the text for the rest of the class; using an LCD panel on an overhead projector; and
having students assemble maps, hints and other supporting material in folders dedicated
to each IF story.<LI>The classic Scott Adams adventures (circa 1979) "offer little in the
way of theme and character development" (Par. 24), but in "Photopia" (Adam Cadre,
1998), "the thoughtful student reader, with the right kind of help, comes to see that the
astronomical concepts that emerge from the a [sic] touching father-daughter dialogue
illuminate another subplot of the story, one in which the daughter, some years later,
weaves a tale of space travel for a younger girl who idolizes her" (Par. 25).<LI>Discusses
the character of the knight who challenges the young Arthur to a joust in "Arthur,"
demonstrating that the text presents the knight as honorable, and that the game penalizes
a player who suspects the knight of cheating during the contest.</UL><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Dewey_1986">Dewey, Patrick R.</A></B> "Interactive Fiction: A
Checklist." <I>American Libraries</I> 17 (1986): 132-7.
<BR><RATING VALUE="3.0"></RATING>General introduction to the IF genre,
written by a supportive librarian and amateur IF author. Includes capsule reviews of such
titles as Ray Bradbury's "Farenheit 451" (Spinnaker, 1984), Michael Crichton's
"Amazon" (Trillium, 1984), Arthur C. Clarke's "Rendezvous with Rama" (Spinnaker,
1984), and Douglas Adams's "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (Infocom, 1984; with
Steve Meretzky). Also, includes summaries of four IF authorship
utilities.<P><UL><LI>"All-text interactive fiction is also the best type of game for
libraries to purchase and circulate because it requires lots of reading. Some libraries have
encouraged it, playing host to adventure clubs. Others have allowed them to be counted
as books read in the summer reading program" (133).<LI>"An all-text interactive fiction
game is also an investment in longevity, since it can take weeks to complete. Some are
so complex that they require 'mapping' (the representation of the landscape – or locations
– on paper by the player) to solve" (133).<LI>"Aficionados can produce original
adventure games by using any one of several authoring systems. . . . It's unlikely,
however, that homemade games will be quite as spectacular as, say, Infocom's Zork
series" (133).<LI>"My hope is that all-text games will not be replaced by the comic-book
variety of graphics-intensive games" (133).</UL><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Dunman_1987">Dunman, Susan K.</A></B> "Judging the Book By
a New Cover: Interactive Fiction." <I>Media and Methods</I> 23 (1987): 12-13+.
<BR><RATING VALUE="2.5"></RATING>A reference librarian laments that
computers placed in the middle of libraries tend to draw attention away from books. "The
increasingly popular form of software known as 'interactive fiction' provides an
opportunity to combine the power of the computer with the power of the written word"
(12). (See also §1.1: Packard.)<P><UL><LI>Refers to IF adaptations (including
"Fahrenheit 451," "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," "The Hobbit," "Treasure Island")
that could be taught in conjunction with the source; also, original IF titles that fall into
genre categories such as science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and adventure.<LI>"Whether
or not interactive fiction represents an emerging literary art form is certainly open to
debate, but if this should prove to be the case, what better place than the library to first
experience it?" Playing IF requires students to practice such desirable classroom skills as
accurate typing and spelling, recognizing basic parts of speech, reading instruction
booklets and scene-setting pamphlets, taking notes, sharing resources, and interacting in
small groups (40).</UL><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Harris_and_Appleby_1987">Harris, Barbara and Bruce C.
Appleby.</A></B> "Interactive Fiction." <I>English Journal</I> 76 (1987): 91-2.
<BR><RATING VALUE="2.0"></RATING>Brief introduction to IF, with belated
reviews of "Mask of the Sun" (Ultrasoft, 1982) and "Deadline" (Infocom, 1982). IF
"comes close to being a genre of fiction. . . . Is this literature? . . . That they need to be
read with care and demand careful and logical responses makes them worth considering
for your students" (91). (See also §1.1: Packard.)<P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Howell_and_Douglas_1990">Howell, Gordon and Jane Yellowlees
Douglas.</A></B> "The Evolution of Interactive Fiction." <I>Computer Assisted
Language Learning: An International Journal</I> 2: (1990). 93-109.
<BR><RATING VALUE="1.0"></RATING>Howell and Douglas make no reference to
command-line IF, but rather discuss the canonical works of early hyperfiction (Joyce's
"Afternoon"; Moulthrop's "Garden of Forking Paths") which Landow would later
examine in his influential Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory
and Technology. Nevertheless, this article begins with a useful analysis of Tristram
Shandy, the experimental eighteenth-century novel which seems to have discovered
postmodern narrative long before the twentieth century did.<P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Hutcheon_1988">Hutcheon, Linda.</A></B> <I>A Poetics of
Postmodernism</I>. New York and London: Routledge, 1988.
<BR><RATING VALUE="2.0"></RATING>A very brief reference. Hutcheon,
discussing the postmodern tradition of emphasizing the receiver's role in constructing a
text, and who then offers interactive fiction as "the most extreme example I can think of"
(77). Hutcheon quotes Niesz and Holland to claim that, in interactive fiction, "there is no
fixed product or text, just the reader's activity as producer as well as receiver." (See §1.1:
Aarseth, who calls this observation "clearly false; otherwise [IF texts] could hardly be
discussed at all" [106], and observes that "Hutcheon's misrepresentation is
understandable in light of the often self-contradictory Anthony Niesz and Norman N.
Holland article she refers to." See also §1.1: Niesz and Holland.)<P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Kelly_1993">Kelley, Robert T.</A></B> "A Maze of Twisty Little
Passages, All Alike: Aesthetics and Teleology in Interactive Computer Fictional
Environments." <i>Science Fiction Studies</i> 20 (1993): 52-68.
<BR><RATING VALUE="4.0"></RATING>The author treats IF in part as a launching
point in order to examine the potential of virtual reality, but along the way he examines
other issues as well. IF is not central to this paper, yet Kelley writes with a welcome
awareness of earlier IF scholarship.<P><UL><LI>He begins with a discussion of a short
story by Stanislaw Lem, about a robot who created a simulated microminiature kingdom
in order to pacify the power-lust of a brutal king, only to realize that the slavery of
simulated citizens is an equal moral horror. The king's involvement with the simulated
world is likened to an actualization of Barthes's "writerly text."<LI>Kelley notes that the
interactivity that many theorists claim for hypertext is largely mythical, but rightly
questions the tendency of Niesz and Holland to overlook the narrative limitations of
IF.<LI>To stake out a middle ground, Kelley refers to Brenda Laurel's three levels of
interactivity (see §1.1: Laurel 1993).<LI>With his brief but insightful assessment of the
political storyline in "Trinity" (Infocom, 1986), Kelley offers one of very few extended
critical readings of IF beyond the canonical "Colossal Cave Adventure" and "Zork." (See
also §1.1: Aarseth; Campbell; Desilets; Randall.)<LI>Observes that IF seems to require a
trade-off between the range of choices (as in the "Zork" games) and depth of story (as in
"Trinity").</UL><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Kobylinski_2002">Kobylinski, Wayne.</A></B> "Intimations of
Immateriality: Narratives of Electronic Literary Space." <I>Text Technology</I> 11.2
(2002).
<BR><RATING VALUE="2.5"></RATING>Uses canonical hypertext theory drawn
from sources such as Derrida, Baudrillard and Bolter as a launching point for a
typographical and iconological examination of the holographic poetry of Eduardo Kac.
Whereas Landow found, in hypertext, a technological embodiment of pre-existing literary
theories, Kobylinski quotes Baurdillard as identifying the shifting image of the holograph
as “the perfect space” within which to encounter spatial metaphors. While Kobylinski
does not actually refer to the interactive fiction that is the focus of the other contributions
to this issue, readers who are familiar with anthropomorphic wordsmithing of Schmidt’s
“For a Change” (see §1.1: Paetsch) will immediately recognize the applicability of this
essay towards the development of a poetics of interactive fiction.<P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Lancy_and_Bernard_1988">Lancy, David F. and Bernard L.
Hayes.</A></B> "Interactive Fiction and the Reluctant Reader." <I>English Journal</I>
(November 1988): 42-45.
<BR><RATING VALUE="3.0"></RATING>"[I]nteractive fiction could offer students
who are reluctant readers a new motivation and interest to use their reading ability for
personal satisfaction" (42). While the authors feel that calling IF (by which they mean
both text-only and text-with-graphics titles) a new literary form is "debatable... there is no
doubt that these sophisticated, interactive games involve the reader in activities that many
current reading theorists would emphasize as important and essential in developing
reading comprehension strategies" (42). Among the IF works presented to fifth-grade
students were Infocom titles "Zork," "Seastalker," and "Wishbringer"; Sierra versions of
"Winnie-the-Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood" and "Ulysses and the Golden Fleece"; and
Windham Classic versions of "Alice in Wonderland," "The Wizard of Oz," "Treasure
Island," and "Swiss Family Robinson." The article focuses on the reading strategies of
the children, rather than on any of the IF titles, although "Seastalker" is identified as an
"electronic novel" that presupposes advanced reading skills.<P><UL><LI>"Whatever
one may think of interactive fiction as <I>literature</I>, it does require students to read
and in most cases, to write. It, therefore, has a place in school-supported recreational
reading programs, on the school library shelves, and on recommended reading lists" (4546).<LI>The authors conclude with their "impression that those students who are most
often hardest to 'reach' in conventional literature and composition classes — those we
have labeled reluctant readers — are often most enthusiastic about computers and the
game-like qualities of interactive fiction" (46).</UL><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Laurel_1993">Laurel, Brenda.</A></B> <I>Computers as
Theatre</I>. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1993.
<BR><RATING VALUE="2.5"></RATING>Computers as Theatre is a theoretical
book, which offers stagecraft as a metaphor for the design of computer interfaces. Laurel
does not address IF proper, except in passing, although her quantification of the three
levels of interactivity (frequency of interactive opportunities, range of choices, and the
degree to which any particular choice will truly affect the outcome) is extremely useful.
Laurel used her research in theatre, education, and gender issues to found the software
company devoted to creating non-violent computer games for girls. In 1999, that
company, Purple Moon, rejected a $45 million takeover offer from Mattel. Laurel herself
is now a respected computer interface authority, who in August 2000 joined the
consulting firm of high-profile Internet usability guru Jakob
Nielsen.<P><UL><LI>Color Plate XI shows <I>Star Trek: The Next Generation</I>
characters Data, LaForge, and Pulaski in Victorian costume. The caption reads "two
members of the Starship Enterprise crew relax with an interactive Sherlock Holmes
mystery." In fact, the photo shows three crewmembers—one of them dressed as
Holmes.<LI>"Other kinds of failures in human-computer activity can also be seen as
failures on the level of thought. One of my favorite examples is a parser used in several
text adventure games. . . . . [A] person might read the sentence, 'Hargax slashed the
dragon with his broadsword.' The person might then type, 'take the broadsword,' and the
'game' might respond, 'I DON'T KNOW THE WORD "BROADSWORD".' The inference
that one would make is that the game 'agent' is severely brain-damaged, since the agent
that produces language and the agent that comprehends it are assumed to be one in the
same" (59).</UL>In the chapter "Dramatic Foundations II: Orchestrating Actions,"
Laurel "deals with how plots—representational actions—are constructed so that they
provide emotional and intellectual satisfaction, and how these dramatic principles can
inform the design of human-computer activity" (68).<UL><LI>Laurel argues that
computer programs have more "potential for action" than plays. Refers to Aristotelian
formulation of plot as a progression from many possibilities to few, as the motives of the
character are revealed; as the play reveals more information, it steadily excludes
competing possibilities and directs the action of the play in a particular path. "At the
final moment of a play. . . all of the competing lines of probability are eliminated except
one, and that one is the final outcome" (69).<LI>"A program that reformulates the
potential for action, creating new possibilities and new probabilities "on the fly" as a
response to what has gone before, is equivalent to a playwright changing a plot in real
time in collaboration with the actors and director, and communicating some new portions
of script to them in real time through some automagical means" (72-73).<LI>Refers to
Gustav Freytag's "visualization of dramatic anatomy" and "[t]he notion that the action of
a play could be quantified" (82). Offers short samples of dialogue, which she then
analyzes according to whether each bit of information communicated by the dialogue
complicates or resolves action, and the degree of significance of each. "Given an
informational analysis of the potential actions involved in human-computer activity,
quantitative structural criteria could be used for orchestrating those incidents into the
desired overall shape" (86). (See §1.2: Mateas; Sharp).<LI>In a discussion of the
disruption experienced by users when computers won't accept their commands: "People
are encouraged to use natural language to express their choices, and so they expect words
to work. They have no clue to tell them which words are unknown to the system except
the experience of failure. On the other hand, given the text-based nature of the game and
the equipment that it is usually run on, people are never encouraged to attempt to express
themselves through gestures or physical actions. The absence of visual and kinesthetic
modes in the system is accepted as a given, and the resulting constraints are unobtrusive.
Such constraints are extrinsic to the action but may be utilized effectively if they are
presented simply and explicitly, or if they are integrated into the mimetic context (for
example, 'this ship is not equipped for voice communication.')" (112).<LI>Applies
Coleridge's "willing suspension of disbelief" to computer applications (arguing that the
representation of an object, such as a manuscript or spreadsheet, on the computer screen
is as pretend as the representation of objects in a game or actions on a stage
(113).<LI>While much discussion of interactive narrative emphasizes the branching
nature of plots (see §2.1: Herz), Laurel offers the "flying wedge" as a model for linear
narrative: "A plot is a progression from the possible to the probable to the necessary."
That is, at the beginning of a plot, many actions seem possible; for the plot to be
effective, it must subsequently present probable actions, until ending with necessary
actions (69-73).</UL><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Laurel_1986">Laurel, Brenda.</A></B> "Towards the Design of a
Computer-based Interactive Fantasy System." Ph.D. Dissertation. Ohio State University
1986.
<BR><RATING VALUE="?"></RATING>(My repeated attempts to request this via
inter-library loan have been fruitless.)<P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Layton_1987">Layton, Kent.</A></B> "Interactive Text
Adventures." <I>Media & Methods</I> (1987): [page numbers illegible in my copy].
<BR><RATING VALUE="2.0"></RATING>Interactive fiction titles "may be one of the
most underrated types of reading programs on the market." Describes branching prose
fiction as "the less complete type of text adventure," and quotes a short transcript from
"Zork" (Infocom, c. 1979). IF is "conversational in nature and definitively causes users
to feel as though they are actively involved with the story." Offers a list of 15 "reading
skills likely to be used" when students encounter IF. Advocates IF because students are
excited about computers; they must read and express their own wishes textually; and
because IF works well in small groups. "To the classroom teacher, the reading teacher,
and the school library media specialist, interactive text adventures are much more than
computer games. . . . More importantly, interactive text adventures help to foster a love
for reading that may in turn foster a lifelong reading habit."<P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Lebling_et_al_1979">Lebling, David P., Marc S. Blank, Timothy A.
Anderson.</A></B> "Zork: A Computerized Fantasy Simulation Game." <I>IEEE
Computer</I> 12:4 (1979): 51-59. 7 Jan, 2000. <a
href="http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/Articles/ieee.html">http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infoc
om/Articles/ieee.html</a>.
<BR><RATING VALUE="4.5"></RATING>With this article, the creators of "Zork"
announced their contribution to the IF genre. These programmers, who would go on to
create Infocom (which marketed most of the classic 80s IF) thought of the new genre as a
platform for a "fantasy simulation game," very closely tied to the world of Dungeons and
Dragons. Soon thereafter, thanks in large part to the efficiently-programmed works of
Scott Adams, IF would expand into other genres (mystery, science fiction,
etc.).<P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Montfort_2002">Montfort, Nicholas A.</A></B> "How Zork
Advanced the State of Interactive Fiction's Literary Art." <I>Text Technology</I> 11.2
(2002).
<BR><RATING VALUE="5"></RATING>Montfort does not merely treat IF as an
emergent literary subgenre; he acknowledges IF as a textual creation which, whatever its
literary qualities, must necessarily be fun in order to succeed as a game. The setting for
"Adventure" was dictated in part by Crowther’s desire to share with his two young
daughters his intimate knowledge of caving expeditions. Thus, to play “Adventure” is to
immerse oneself in caver lore, as it was practiced in the early and mid 70s, and as filtered
through a Tolkienesque lens. Noting that the technical improvements of “Zork” were not
striking enough to explain its immediate and lasting success, Montfort points to the
inspiration the implementors drew from the lively, eclectic, somewhat cynical, but always
playful hacker subculture at MIT. The article also examines the engineering in-jokes and
mythological sub-themes that contextualize the puzzles, and compares the "lean and
hungry" gentleman-thief of Zork to the comical pirate of "Adventure."<P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Montfort_2000a">Montfort, Nicholas A.</A></B> "Cybertext Killed
the Hypertext Star" <I>Electronic Book Review</I> 11 (2000). 8 Jan 2001. <A
HREF="http://www.electronicbookreview.com/ebr11/11mon/index.html">http://www.el
ectronicbookreview.com/ebr11/11mon/index.html</A>.
<BR><RATING VALUE="3.5"></RATING>[Review of §1.1: Aarseth]. Observes that
"hypertext. . . includes only a subset of electronic literary efforts" ("the hypertext murder
case" <PAR>4) and approves of Aarseth's accomplishment: "to erase the stifling
hypertext boundary, and to redraw that boundary so that it demarcates a more interesting
territory of reader-influenced texts. The cybertext terrain includes computational literary
artifacts that are in some cases novel, although yet to be thoroughly explored" ("the
hypertext murder case" <PAR>2). (See also §1.2: Montfort, especially his close reading
of "Deadline.")<P><UL><LI>Montfort expressively captures the friction between
hypertext theorists and those who wish to examine other forms of electronic narrative:
"The phrase 'interactive fiction' . . . can cause loud gnashing of teeth among hypertext
authors. They ask, 'if these things is [sic] interactive fiction, what is my work -not
interactive?' (This complaint usually comes from the people who brought you 'serious
hypertext,' a phrase that clearly suggests everything else is not serious.) . . . The term
'interactive fiction' is not a claim that the form it describes is the only fiction that is
interactive in any way. It was simply coined because interactivity and fiction are central
features of this form, which also has other distinguishing characteristics that do not lend
themselves to encapsulation in two words" ("text adventures and interactive fiction" Par.
5).<LI>Montfort identifies the hapless protagonist of an IF game with the protagonist of
Christopher Durang's Actor's Nightmare ("meeting deadline" Par. 1), and defends
"Deadline" for not complaining about Aarseth's effort to have his detective-character
fingerprint himself. Aarseth finds it ridiculous that the game returns a stock phrase about
how "fingerprinting the me" would be unproductive, yet Montfort argues that "The one
who pokes at the interface to see what will happen is actually being playful" ("meeting
deadline" Par. 4).</UL><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Moulthrop_and_Kaplan_1991">Moulthrop, Stuart and Nancy
Kaplan.</A></B> "Something to Imagine: Literature, Composition, and Interactive
Fiction." <I>Computers and Composition</I> 9.1 (1991): 7-23. 15 Dec 2000. <A
HREF="http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~ccjrnl/Archives/v9/9_1_html/9_1_1_Moulthrop.ht
ml"</A>http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~ccjrnl/Archives/v9/9_1_html/9_1_1_Moulthrop.ht
ml</A>.
<BR><RATING VALUE="1.0"></RATING>Moulthrop and Kaplan describe the
experience of teaching "a first-year writing course on the literature of fantasy" that
"enabled students to explore this mode of expression both as readers and writers of
interactive fiction" (<PAR>2). In a section titled "The Concept of Interactive Fiction,"
the authors write, "When writers make use of hypertext to produce fictional narrative, the
result is interactive fiction, a form of writing which regularly calls upon the reader to
respond in some way (e.g. by keying commands, highlighting a phrase with a pointing
device, or touching a button on the screen)" (<PAR>14). Hence, Moulthrop and Kaplan
seem to define the term "interactive fiction" broadly enough to include command-line IF,
and they do in fact quote from a transcript of Pinsky's "Mindwheel"
(Synapse/Broderbund, 1984); yet their application is focused on hypertext. Because they
cite (§1.1) Niesz and Holland's article as the "first critical appraisal of electronic fiction"
(<PAR>45), Moulthrop and Kaplan appear to be comparing apples and oranges when
they argue "this new form of writing [hypertext] is neither as unimaginable as Niesz and
Holland anticipated nor quite so likely to alienate anyone's literary affections"
(<PAR>46). Nevertheless, this article, written a few years before the advent of graphical
browsers for the masses, ends with intriguing and salient questions about the possibility
of interactive electronic narrative to provide professionals and amateurs with a sense of a
reading and writing community.<P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Moulthrop_1999">Moulthrop, Stuart.</A></B> "Misadventure:
Future Fiction and the New Networks" <I>Style</I> 33.2 (1999): 184-203.
<BR><RATING VALUE="?"></RATING>(Not rated.) The abstract: "Traditional
criticism relegates divergent narrative forms--e.g., computer games, hypertext fiction,
comics--to anonymous and subcultural status, arguing that narrative must be defined in
terms of what lies within the frame, e.g., of cinematic vision or narrative attention. By
reflecting on several crucial misreadings of electronic texts, notably of the the adventure
game Riven, this essay attempts to develop an approach to narrative based not on the
hegemony of the frame but on a complex interplay between the focal unit and the
margins or interstices that surround it. The author proposes a new conceptual category,
interstitial fiction, as a way to think about common properties of narrative forms outside
the literary mainstream."<P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Murray_1997">Murray, Janet Horowitz.</A></B> <I>Hamlet on the
Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace</I>. New York: Free Press, 1997.
<BR><RATING VALUE="4.0"></RATING>Murray takes "interactive fiction" to
include hypertext and other forms of interaction, and thus has little to say about parserbased IF; yet her observations about the nature of electronic narrative are indispensable.
Regarding command-line IF, the bibliography cites only "Adventure," "Deadline,"
"Planetfall" and "Zork."<P><UL><LI>While she acknowledges the powerful effect that
the death of Floyd has upon many players of "Planetfall" (52-53) and her annotated
transcript from "Zork" is an excellent introduction to the genre (74-82 passim), Murray,
like (§1) Buckles, does not articulate an awareness of interactive fiction as the creation of
an author/programmer; this necessarily limits the kinds of insights this book offers.
Nevertheless, Murray articulates an optimistic view of computers in the service of human
creativity.<LI>"Whether or not we will one day be rewarded with the arrival of the
cyberbard, we should hasten to place this new compositional tool as firmly as possible in
the hands of the storytellers" (284).</UL><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Newman_1988">Newman, Judith M.</A></B> "Online: Write Your
Own Adventure." <I>Language Arts</I> 65 (1988): 329-234.
<BR><RATING VALUE="1.0"></RATING>Describes the experiences of a fifthgraders using Story Tree (Scholastic) to write branching prose fiction, in the style of the
"Choose Your Own Adventure Novel." No explicit references to command-line IF.
While Newman is generally positive about the students' experiences, as well as her own,
she ends with the following caution: "While software such as Story Tree can be
wonderfully useful in the classroom we mustn't lose sight of what we're using it for—to
enrich and support children's learning experiences" (234). (See §1.1:
Packard.)<P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Niesz_and_Holland_1984">Niesz, Anthony J. and Norman N.
Holland.</A></B> "Interactive Fiction." <I>Critical Inquiry</I> 11 (1984): 110-129.
<BR><RATING VALUE="5.0"></RATING>In their near-evangelistic praise of the
emerging genre, Niesz and Holland sound not unlike George Landow or Stuart
Moulthrop in the early 90s, writing about hypertext narrative. So far as I can tell, this
article is the first to consider seriously how literary criticism (particularly reader-response
theory) might handle IF. As the authors themselves admit, "Writing about interactive
fiction in 1984 is like writing about the movies in 1900 or television in 1945." When they
speculate on what shape interactive fiction will take in 2004, they immediately latch upon
"[n]ationwide computer networks now connected by telephone" (126), and refer to
technological methods to enact T. S. Eliot's dictum that the best response to a poem is
another poem. The authors conclude: "Microcomputers will change our ideas and our
practice of literature as much as Gutenberg did, deeply refining the humanities in the
process."<P>The authors make several other notable observations about
IF:<UL><LI>The most "literate" IF draws heavily upon formulas such as those found in
Sherlock Holmes or Horatio Hornblower stories. Further, "as of 1984, no interactive
fiction. . . measures up even to these originals" (120).<LI>The fact that IF requires the
mediation of a computer distances the reader from "the text" in unexpected
ways:<UL><LI>Since the plot only advances when the reader issues commands, the
reader cannot skim through boring sections or peek ahead.<LI>Once text scrolls off the
screen, the reader cannot review it. [Note: this desirable feature is readily available for
recent IF, and can in many cases be retroactively applied to older titles.]<LI>"Because
the fiction is inseparable from the system that enables one to read it, one cannot, as it
were, hold the whole novel in one's hand." For interactive fiction, "there is no text" (120).
Now that technological advances have in fact brought us palmtop computers, the authors
would need to rethink this portion of their argument, but the points they raise are still
valid.<LI>"A reader of an interactive mystery could take as long to solve it as Sherlock
Holmes would in 'real life'" (120).</UL><LI>The authors also observe that IF can be
extremely nerve-wracking. The player-character (PC) can die frequently, without
warning, and for what seems like no good reason; the player must therefore replay and
attempt to muddle through difficult sections. "Nothing is quite as frustrating as knowing
that you have just permitted yourself to fall into one of the author's traps and
experiencing the unmistakable feeling that he is laughing at your expense"
(121).<LI>"This kind of finite, puzzle-solving interactive fiction demands determination
and persistence from a reader if she is to overcome the obstacles which confront her. At
the same time, however, this finite kind of interactive fiction is fundamentally optimistic.
Its fictional universe is completely knowable" (122). (But see §1.1: Aarseth's statement
that any action that makes part of the text more accessible is likely to make another part
less accessible.)</UL><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Packard_1987">Packard, Edward B.</A></B> "Interactive Fiction
for Children: Boon or Bane?" <I>School Library Journal</I> 34 (1987): 40-1.
<BR><RATING VALUE="2.5"></RATING>Of the librarians, teachers, and researchers
who introduce their readers to the educational potential of interactive fiction in the late
80s (§1.1: Costanzo; Desilets 1989; Dewey; Dunman; Harris and Appleby; Lancy and
Hayes; Layton; Newman; Sampson), Packard is notable for his caution. Referring not to
command-line IF but rather to branching-plot novels (essentially bound paper
hypertexts), Packard observes that it has been known to motivate poor readers, but notes
that some professionals consider it "junk food for the brain" (40). He concludes that
"[I]nteractive fiction is a useful literary device, which like so many other things, may
serve—to a greater or lesser degree—either to close young minds or to enlighten them"
(41).<P><UL><LI>Sensibly, Packard observes that "interactive books are not
interchangeable commodities," and lays out a deceptively simple, coherent, and useful
criterion. A story which morally meaningless choices ("Do you open the door on the left
or the door on the right?") is "an almost sure sign that the reader is being offered a
mindless exercise in page turning. If these books are to be exercises in decision-making,
as they profess to be, there should be motivation for each choice offered so that the reader
is obliged to weigh the factors in favor of each, testing in some modest way his or her
powers of analysis and comprehension of what has come before" (40-41). <LI>[We
might ask whether Packard's observation extends to canonical literary hypertext, in which
chunks of text are frequently linked by a character's name or a thematic keyword.
Selecting these links do not involve moral choices; hence, when judged by Packard's
criterion of meaningful story interaction, even the best literary hypertext would be "a
mindless exercise in mouse clicking."]</UL><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Paetsch_2002">Paetsch, Sarah.</A></B> "Language Play and
Protective Metanarrative: Encouraging Reader Immersion in Worlds Apart and 'For a
Change.'" <I>Text Technology</I> 11.2.
<BR><RATING VALUE="5"></RATING>Analyzes the literary quality of two recent
works of interactive fiction: Suzanne Britton's "Worlds Apart" (1999) and Dan Schmidt's
"For A Change" (1999). Paetsch briefly touches on Austin's speech act theory and
Heidegger's phenomenology, but is most insightful when she challenges Brenda Laurel's
dismissal of the parser-based interface, and investigates the linguistic and narrative
strategies employed by Britton and Schmidt in their successful efforts to engage the
reader/player. Paetsch is currently working as a writer for Ion Storm's much-anticipated
graphic adventure/role-playing/first-person-shooter hybrid "Deus Ex 2."<P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Peterson_1983">Peterson, Dale.</A></B> <I>Genesis II: Creation
and Recreation with Computers</I>. Reston, Va: Prentice Hall, 1983.
<BR><RATING VALUE="2.0"></RATING>Pages 187-195 describe "Adventure"
(Crowther, c.1975; Crowther and Woods, 1976) and mainframe "Zork" (Anderson,
Blank, Daniels and Lebling, 1978-1981). Offers a rare quotation from Crowther about
the creation of "Adventure."<P><UL><LI>Quotes Will Crowther: "I had been involved
in a non-computer role-playing game called Dungeons and Dragons at the time, and also
I had been actively exploring in caves—Mammoth Cave in Kentucky in particular.
Suddenly, I got involved in a divorce, and that left me a bit pulled apart in various ways.
In particular I was missing my kids. Also the caving had stopped, because that had
become awkward, so I decided I would fool around and write a program that was a recreation in fantasy of my caving, and also would be a game for the kids, and perhaps had
some aspects of the Dungeons and Dragons that I had been playing. My idea was that it
would be a computer game that would not be intimidating to non-computer people, and
that was one of the reasons why I made it so that the player directs the game with natural
language input, instead of more standardized commands. My kids thought it was a lot of
fun" (187-88).<LI>Quotes Don Woods: "I was a student at Stanford University. . . and I
head through the grapevine that someone had found this game on the medical center
computer. So I hauled it over, and started playing it a little. It had some bugs in it, but it
was an interesting idea. So I tried to figure out how to improve it. Of course, all I got on
the network was just the game: the source code for the program wasn't accessible. But it
did mention Will Crowther, and I sent messages all over the ARPAnet addressed to him.
I got in touch with him that way, and he sent the source code. I cleaned it up and began
expanding it, adding some of the trickier treasures, and possibly tripling the size of the
game—with the help of a few of my friends, roommates, and classmates. After that, I
figured I might as well put it back out on the ARPAnet. I did, and sent out a few
messages to various sites around the country to get people interested. Then I left for a
couple of weeks' vacation. Well, when I came back, Stanford was irritated with me.
Their computer had been swamped with people connecting via the network just to play
the game! I accumulated the comments that people had about the game, and then fixed
up some bugs and added features, and eventually came up with the version that got
spread around" (188-89).<LI>Woods says that he add ten more treasures to the five that
Crowther had already created. "Some of the rooms, such as Bedquilt and the Swiss
Cheese Room, were in Will's version, but didn't really have anything and so were tagged
as 'under construction.' There were indeed some bugs, such as rooms you could get into
and couldn't get out of. Things like that. So all of the stuff beyond Bedquilt, pretty
much, was that I added. The entire Troll Bridge section was mine. The Soft Room, the
Vase, the Oriental Room, and the Chasm and Waterfall and Witt's End. Will's version
had this sign hanging in midair, just before you got to Bedquilt, which said 'Cave under
construction. Proceed at your own risk.' I thought that was a nice sign, so I moved it off
to the entrance to Witt's End, and just left it there as an annoyance to anyone who
wandered past. Anyway, after I had finished that, I sent out to MIT and various other
places on the ARPAnet, and the requests for copies began pouring in. I offered people
what help I could with that, and it just exploded from there" (189).</UL><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Randall_1988">Randall, Neill.</A></B> "Determining Literariness
in Interactive Fiction." <I>Computers and the Humanities</I> 22:3 (1988): 183-191.
<BR><RATING VALUE="4.5"></RATING>Cites Wolfgang Iser's examination of
Fielding's <I>Joseph Andrews</I>, Thackeray's <I>Vanity Fair</I>, and Joyce's
<I>Ulysses</I> as examples of interactivity in literature. Randall refers to Steve
Meretzky's "A Mind Forever Voyaging" (Infocom, 1985), Robert Pinsky's "Mindwheel"
(Synapse/Broderbund, 1984); Bill Darrah's "Essex" (1985); James Paul's "Brimstone"
(Synapse/Broderbund 1985); and Rod Smith's "Breakers" (Synapse/Broderbund 1986),
which "all begin as traditional fiction, with roughly thirty printed pages serving as the
first chapters of the story" (186), after which exposition the interactive portion is played
out on computer.<P><UL><LI>"Mindwheel," based on Pinsky's own poetry, is "selfreferential and dream-like" (187); it juxtaposes the synchronic and the
diachronic.<LI>"Brimstone" is "the most literarily allusive" work of IF, and also
"perhaps the most literary of all current interactive works" (187).<LI>"A Mind Forever
Voyaging" dispenses with the "score" feature, and offers a "rhetorically powerful" story.
"The novel's power stems from the reader's gradual understanding of the incessant decay
of the societies of the future" (187).<LI>Brian Moriarty's "Trinity" "derives literariness
from the combination of strangeness and familiarity.... Most recent, serious interactive
fiction forces moral action upon the reader, thereby abandoning (in apparent disgust) the
kill-and-steal mentality of the genre's early works" (188).<LI>Rob Swigart's "Portal"
(1986) is "certainly the most unusual and arguably the most interesting interactive fiction
work yet written." In it, the player interacts with an unreliable narrator, in the form of a
computer database named Homer. The title is "ultimately, a metaphor for the writing
process. We watch on the screen as the story's intertext is molded by the narrator into a
psychologically valid myth of the heroic scope, and we watch too as the narrator
questions the act of narration" (188-9).<LI>"Even if we grant Niesz and Holland's claim
that interactive fiction 'simply pushes the role of the text back a stage' (1984, p. 124),
forcing the reader to decipher the 'underlying nexus of puzzles or conundrums [that] is
the creation of the author', the fact remains hat the reader of an interactive text must
physically act if she is to complete, decipher, discover the text she is reading. . . . or the
story simply will not continue" (189).<LI>"Just as it makes the familiar strange and the
strange familiar, interactive fiction allows the reader to partake, first-hand, of a new
literary world, and the unfolding of that world is continuous, even if the plot is not"
(190).</UL><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Samson_1987">Sampson, Fay.</A></B> "Interactive Fiction: An
Experience of the 'Writers in Education' Scheme." <I>Children's Literature in
Education</I> 18 (1987): 184-91.
<BR><RATING VALUE="1.0"></RATING>An author of children's books reflects
upon the energy she receives from reading her books to young schoolchildren, and notes
that as children get older, and more indoctrinated by the idea that a writer is a special
kind of person, their questions become less probing. Only the following passing
reference to interactive fiction:<P><UL><LI>"Should I be moving into the fashion for
interactive fiction? How can the novelist make creative use of the computer's
possibilities, and I don't just mean word-processing? Never mind that many early
experiments are of dubious merit. Is the potential there? Is it my job to explore it, or
someone else's? Anyway isn't all fiction interactive? The story is a different experience
for each reader" (187). <LI>[See §1.1: Aarseth for commentary on the important
difference between the interpretive variability of linear text and the inherent variability of
cybertext.]</UL><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Silcox_2002">Silcox, Mark.</A></B> "'...not that you may
remember time…': Interactive Fiction, Stream-Of-Consciousness Writing and Free Will."
<I>Text Technology</I> 11.2 (2002).
<BR><RATING VALUE="3.5"></RATING>Begins by critiquing Murray’s <I>Hamlet
on the Holodeck</I>, and continues by applying brief analyses of Woolf, Faulkner and
Joyce to an analysis of the concept of free will as it appears in several works of
interactive fiction, from the “classic” age of Infocom to more recent works, such as Adam
Cadre’s “Photopia” and Paul O’Brian’s “L.A.S.H.” Silcox writes with a well-developed
sense of the IF canon, no doubt developed during his tenure as the interactive fiction
editor for Suite101.com.<P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Sloane_1991">Sloane, Sarah.</A></B> "Interactive Fiction, Virtual
Realities, and the Reading-Writing Relationship." Ph.D. dissertation. Ohio State
University. 1991.
<BR><RATING VALUE="4.0"></RATING>Sloane studies interactive fiction because
it provides her a convenient
example with which to &quot;contribute to our academy's working hypotheses about how
language, legality, and subject in general relate,&quot; and sees it as
&quot;a tool with which to probe the composing models of social constructionists
and cognitivists&quot; and &quot;a window into how texts constrain readers and
even into how the world constraints interpretations.&quot;&nbsp; Hence, the main
thrust of her argument has little to say about interactive fiction per se, but
rather supporting argument that &quot;computer-based fictions. . . require
researchers in Departments of English to reconfigure their critical theories and
models of textual interpretation that are based on readings of paper texts&quot;
(2).</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>&quot;It is the intent of this dissertation to examine reading and writing
interactive fiction and to demonstrate how these electronic texts and a
dimension to our critical understandings of the ethics of reading, the
collaborations of composing, and rhetorical triangle, has traditionally
conceived. In short, this dissertation intends to answer the following four
questions: What is the experience of reading and writing interactive fiction?
How is this experience different from traditional, paper based acts of reading
and writing? What do interactive fiction and antecedent, virtual reality, tell
us about the reading-writing relationship in general? And how must we adjust
our rhetorical theories and models to account for this kind of electronic
text?&quot; (3-4).</P>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>This dissertation won The Hugh Burns Award for the best dissertation in Computers
and Composition Studies. </P><P><UL>
<LI>Describing an encounter with an interactive fiction text: &quot;It is a
scene that is postmodern: heteroglossic and fragmentary, occasionally
nihilistic, disjointed. Within the scene, interactive fiction evokes sets o
readerly and writerly activities whose new visibility makes clearer
the rhetorical dimensions of electronic text in general&quot; (3).</LI>
<LI>&quot;Existing models of reading and writing fail to encompass
interactive fiction, I argue, because they are limited to either social
constructionist or objectivist epistemologies. The phenomenon of interactive
fiction, in contrast, currently requires a model the bridges these two
epistemologies. As result, I suggest we revise our models of the rhetorical
triangle to encompass the multiple reading paths, the layered
collaborations, and the unstable texts characteristic of interactive fiction
and virtual realities&quot; (15).</LI>
<LI>&quot;Interactive fiction throws into confusion the boundaries between the
inside and outside of text; the text and its readers and writers merge into
a visually seamless collaboration that exposes the rhetorical triangle as a
flawed model of the spatial transactions of the electronic text&quot; (16).</LI>
<LI>&quot;The narrative technique of interactive fictions (and it is that
technique, combined with computer presentation, I am claiming contribute
primarily to the heightened reader involvement and related ethical
culpability) is fairly constant across interactive fiction texts; <I>Deadline</I>,
however, is anomalous in its contents because it doesn't involve the reader
in nihilistic activities nor in a culturally male (as do, for
example, the <I>Zork </I>trilogy, <I>Leisuresuit Larry</I>, or <I>Leather
Goddesses of Phobos</I> [the latter of which incidentally permits the player to choose
the gender of the PC]). By choosing <I>Deadline</I>, I am removing the
effect an overtly misogynist content might have on my analysis of how
readers resist the scripts of interactive fictions while at the same time they
respond to textual invitations&quot; (26-27). <I>Deadline</I> avoids
&quot;the misogyny and plunder mentality of other interactive fictions&quot;
(76). (See §1.1: Buckles.)</LI>
<LI>&quot;In contemporary interactive fictions, both male and female readers
can feel trapped in a rigid, fatally-scripted text that silence dissent,
force conformity, or compel other unpleasant textual collaborations for
which he may feel culpable. Although the stories are uniformly advertised as
participatory stories in which 'You, the reader, determine what happens,' a
more critical reading reveals that in actuality in many of the stories the
reader does nothing more than attempt to stay alive in the scripted
microworld&quot; (75).</LI>
</UL>
<P>Sloane's chapter on IF composition is weakened by the lack of availability
(at that time) of published secondary material concerning the complex
relationship between the programming and linguistic creative tasks undertaken by
the author-programmer.&nbsp; She turns instead to studies of the Oz Project and
Interactive Fantasies -- electronic text projects that differ in important ways
from the form and style of the classic text-adventure game. </P>
<UL>
<LI>More relevant resources for an academic exploration of the composition
process of an IF author may be found in the author interviews regularly
published in fan newsletters (§4 <I>XYZZYNews</I> and <I>SPAG</I>), in Graham
Nelson's <I>Inform Designer's Manual</I> and Michael J. Roberts's <I>TADS
Authors Manual</I> (each of which covers both programming and content), and
in reflective and analytical essays written by contemporary and recent IF
authors (§3 Short; Rees).</LI>
<LI>Sloane's revision of the classical rhetorical triangle (expressor,
receptor, and language signs) proposes three new categories: <B>materials</B>
(the technological and organizational properties of the electronic text),
<B>processes</B>
(&quot;the sequences of activities and mentations typical of users,
programmers, authors, and participants&quot;), and <B>locations</B>
(accounting for differences between the world views of the author and each
of the players).</LI>
<LI>In her conclusion, Sloane applies her poststructrualist, post-authorial,
and reader-centered observations to the greater world of literary study.</LI>
</UL></P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Tosca_2000">Tosca, Susana Pajares.</A></B> "Playing for the Plot.
Blade Runner as Paradigm of the Electronic Adventure Game." <I>dichtung digital
Beiträge zur Ästhetik digitaler Literatur und Kunst</I> (31 May 2000). 4 Jan 2000. <A
HREF="http://www.dichtung-digital.de/2000/Tosca-31Mai/index.html">http://www.dichtung-digital.de/2000/Tosca-31-Mai/index.html</a> or
<A HREF="http://www.dichtung-digital.de/2000/Tosca-31-Mai/ToscaBladerunner.rtf">http://www.dichtung-digital.de/2000/Tosca-31-Mai/ToscaBladerunner.rtf</A>.
<BR><RATING VALUE="3.0"></RATING>Tosca examines the graphic computer
game "Blade Runner" (Westwood, 1997) as an example of digital narrative, and offers
insight as to reasons for its effectiveness. The game is set in the same world as the movie
directed by Ridley Scott (Warner Bros., 1982; director's cut 1992), which is in turn based
on the novel by Philip K. Dick, <I>Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?</I> (Del Ray,
1968). Textual variations among several overlapping versions of the story already suggest
a kind of multiform narrative, which Tosca touches on briefly. Although she makes only
passing references to command-line IF, Tosca demonstrates a welcome understanding of
the specific narrative strengths of text-based participatory fiction. The close reading of
the "Blade Runner" game is a excellent blending of gaming and narrative theory, yielding
much useful and valid insight.<P>If the article breaks little new critical ground, it does
present a competent application of existing theory to this relatively unexamined literary
form. To contextualize the close reading of the game, Tosca regularly refers to the
literary and narrative qualities of interactive games — yet her bibliography is heavy on
cybertext theorists, and light on those literary postmodernists and structuralists to whom
the cybertheorists themselves turn in order to orient their theoretical
inquiries.<UL><LI>"Adventure games form a genre of their own, and are direct
descendants of the first text-based adventures that can be said to have inaugurated digital
narrative. The puzzle solving and plot development were afterwards combined with the
powerful visual element evolved from action games and others, first incorporating
moving images and then videos and 3D landscapes to the story-driven games. These
games present a new challenge to literary studies, as their acknowledged aim is to let the
user 'live' a story" ("Introduction" Par. 2).<LI>Useful reflections on narrative and game
as both springing from conflict with an opponent (concurring with §1.1: Murray, and
§2.1: Costikyan).<LI>In a section called "Adventure Games," Tosca observes that "the
last generation of tabletop roleplaying games, in the Whitewolf style, insist more on
storytelling and less on dice rolling" ("Adventure Games" Par. 1). She also writes that
"Adventure" and "Zork" "established the basis of puzzle solving and mysterious plot that
characterizes the genre, and are still regarded by many fans as superior to their graphic
followers."<LI>Compares "the detective of Deadline, the mystery-writer. . . of the
Gabriel Knight series, the curious traveler of Myst, the journalist of 11th Hour" and
observes that, in the wake of some crime or disaster, the player has to "look for a plot
behind the apparently meaningless terrible acts in order to reconstruct the story from
clues" ("Adventure Games" Par. 6).<LI>"Games don't give an elaborated finished plot
that we can read about, instead they force the player to get involved in the process of
making meaning out of the elements the designers have laid out. . . . there are other
elements that can interest us, like the exploration of engaging 3D worlds or the solving of
the puzzles, but the narrative component is the strongest force of motivation in adventure
games, I suggest" ("Adventure Games" Par. 7).<LI>The section "Blade Runner" is a
close reading of the 1997 Westwood game, in which a limited number of key plot
elements are randomized, so that the same actions bear different moral consequences
each time you play the game.<LI>"As any 'shoot 'em up,' the game starts with the
assignment of 'retiring' escaped replicants, but unlike in these narratively simple games,
the player has the choice of hunting them, letting them [e]scape or even helping them.
There is no 'right' thing to do to win the game, the final decision about what is best is left
to the player. Indeed the player's decisions affect not only the behavior of the nonplaying characters towards [the player-character] McCoy, but also bring out different
endings to the game. This is a huge leap in adventure games, for even if the decision
points are not many, they are so significant to the ethos of the story that it truly feels as [if
it were?] multi-linear, something that literary hypertext hasn't yet achieved despite some
critics['] claims (see A[a]rseth 76-97)" ("Blade Runner" Par. 12-13).</UL><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#van_der_Linde_2000">van der Linde, Gerhard.</A></B> "Text
without boundaries." <I>Trans: Internet-Zeitscrhift für Kulturvissenchaften</I> 9 (2000):
n.p. 20 Dec 2000. <A
HREF="http://www.inst.at/trans/9Nr/linde9.htm">http://www.inst.at/trans/9Nr/linde9.ht
m</A>.
<BR><RATING VALUE="1.5"></RATING>Refers to IF proper only in passing, within
the context of a systematic classification of electronic texts. Unlike many humanities
studies of electronic text, which seem to begin and end with the canonical literary
hypertexts of Joyce and Moulthrop, van der Linde identifies a wide range of ways in
which a particular text can be electronic. He identifies online versions of traditional
texts, such as those published by Project Gutenberg, which "are read in basically the
same way one reads traditional books" (§3), and which rely upon computers almost
solely for distribution.<P>A second class of e-texts "are fully accessible only in
electronic format" (§4), comprising multimedia CD-ROMs; the canonical literary
hypertext; multimedia hyperfiction that uses the interactive capabilities of the Internet
(chat, message boards, etc.) to extend the boundaries of the text; the "interactive novel"
(what this bibliography terms "command-line IF"); a kind of role-playing hyperfiction in
which "the reader-protagonist enters a virtual scenario in which he has to solve problems,
overcome obstacles and so on" (§4.5) [this is presumably something like the literary
equivalent of the "How to Host a Murder" party games, in which party guests are
assigned roles and expected to improvise conversations with other party guests who have
taken on other roles, although van der Linde does not offer that analogy]; and
collaborative hyperfiction, in which authors collaborate in series or in parallel, in which
readers influence the story either indirectly (by communicating their preferences, offering
suggestions, etc.), or by writing additional branches of the story themselves (which
completely eliminates the boundary between author and reader). The article concludes
with a discussion of the "e-book" as structure, content, object, and mechanism.
<UL><LI>While most scholars writing on interactive fiction are fairly certain, and at
times apologetic, about the status of IF proper as a textual game not unlike a crossword
puzzle, van der Linde sees only "a certain resemblance between interactive fiction and
computer games in which the player as protagonist has to navigate a number of obstacles
or solve certain problems" (§4.3, Par. 3).<LI>"One of the most significant innovations of
this form [i.e. interactive fiction] is that the distinction, theorised by Barthes and others,
between a pre-determined 'work' and an indeterminate 'text' becomes redundant, as only
an indeterminate, or at least a variable text remains (Ziegfield, 1989:364). The notion of
the reader as co-producer of the text is concretised in the interactive novel" (§ 4.3, Par.
4).<LI>"Information technology and advances in telecommunications. . . develop at a
rate which would be unthinkable in academic literary studies. Developing a body of
theory which would offer an informed response to electronic literary forms therefore is a
considerable challenge. This is made even more problematic by the changeable and
sometimes ephemeral nature of Internet literature, and by the traditionally adversarial
relationship between technology and the humanities" (§7).</UL><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Vander_Ploeg_and_Phillips_1998">Vander Ploeg, Scott D. and
Kenneth Phillips.</A></B> "Playing with Power: The Science of Magic in Interactive
Fantasy." <I>Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts</I> 9:2 (1998): 142-56.
<BR><RATING VALUE="1.0"></RATING>Focuses exclusively on role-playing board
games of the "Dungeons and Dragons" variety. The authors observe that, while some
authors ignore or actively scorn role-playing games, such games have undeniably
influenced the fantasy genre. This article is of some interest to IF because D&D heavily
influenced the content and style of Crowther's original "Colossal Cave Adventure"
(c.1975) as well as the Zork series (1978-81).<P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Whelan_2002">Whelan, Laura Baker</A></B> "Narrative and
Reader Interaction: Revisiting the Question of Genre in Interactive Fiction.” <I>Text
Technology</I> 11.2 (2002).
<BR><RATING VALUE="5.0"></RATING>Cautiously observes that interactive fiction
has not yet achieved the great promise it seemed to hold in the 1980s. At that time, Niesz
and Holland had predicted that integrating user input as a compositional device was “as
fundamental a change for literature as that between a courtly audience listening to
Chaucer and a solitary reader poring over his private copy of ‘The Faerie Queene’” (110).
Had Whelan chosen games that had been singled out as exceptional treatments of those
generic qualities that she is most interested in seeing , rather than a random sampling, she
may have altered her conclusion somewhat. By choosing to examine a random sampling
of IF competition entries, rather than winning entries, and by citing often disapproving
reviews of these non-exceptional works, Whelan affirms the formative influence of the
community of opinionated and experienced players of contemporary interactive fiction,
just as the tastes of the courtly community of Chaucer’s day influenced the development
of romantic verse. After assessing the state of contemporary IF, Whelan suggests that
that live-action role-playing of the sort found in multi-player textual spaces (MUDs and
MUSHes) and the social-behavior game “The Sims” are more reliable sources of the kind
of interactive experiences that IF has promised but only sporadically
delivers.<P><P><BR>
<B><A NAME="#Ziegfeld_1989">Ziegfeld, Richard.</A></B> "Interactive Fiction: A
New Literary Genre?" <I>New Literary History</I> 20:2 (1989): 341-372.
<BR><RATING VALUE="2.5"></RATING>This theoretical, rather free-ranging article
describe the tools of electronic publishing to an unfamiliar audience, discusses the
"literary applications" of this technology (e.g. Faulkner could have included maps the
Yoknapatawpha area; for <I>The Name of the Rose</I>, Umberto Eco could have helped
readers visualize the detail of the abbey, etc.). A third section assesses the contemporary
state of interactive literature.<P><UL><LI>"For now, interactive fiction's reality is
disappointing because it is often associated with adventure software. Some popular
writers such as Michael Crichton and a few high-culture artisans such as Michael
Newman have explored this possibility, but interactive fiction still awaits a major highculture advocate whose software product wins coverage in the <I>New York Times Book
Review</I>" (358-9) (but see §2.1: Rothstein; Pinsky).<LI>"The main cause is that as
yet we lack the literary harbinger, with impeccable credentials and startling creative
ability, who delivers a concrete application of the abstract possibilities I described
above." Ziegfeld likens himself to Emerson, who "described the traits of the great
American poet many years before Whitman published Leaves of Grass"
(359).<LI>Offers criteria for whether a literary product can be considered "new." It must
require a new production technique; require a new aesthetic criteria; require training for
the user to evaluate it properly; lead to new experiences; and prompt "genuinely new
questions about the nature of the literary discipline" (359).<LI>The average novel
requires about six to eight hours of reading time, but a "Dungeons and Dragons" game
takes up 40 to 70 hours of playing time (363). [Note: Ziegfeld attributes the extra time to
the complicated, branching story, but multi-player gaming involves much conferring,
waiting, interpreting, and debating. The social aspect of the multiplayer gaming supplies
much value that is not apparent to a purely literary analysis of
"narrative."]<LI>Paraphrases a comment from a teacher of six-year-olds: "even children
who were sometimes indifferent students seemed to be drawn into the process"
(366).<LI>Offers brief analyses of the potential effects of interactivity on drama, poetry,
oral literature, and "film, TV, video and radio" (368-69).<LI>"[M]any people who have
tried adventure games such as 'Zork' do not consider them literature. Language is not a
high priority for adventure game developers; in fact, some appear to disdain the word"
(370). [Note: Ziegfeld does not expound upon this pronouncement.]</UL><P><BR>