Subject: Eastgate Quarterly of Hypertext

From: "Evelyn C Leeper" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 1995 23:36:05 GMT

"In Small and Large Pieces" by Kathryn Cramer
                   "Unnatural Habitats" by Kathy Mac
     Eastgate Systems, ISBN 1-884511-15-5, 1994, 1.61MB, US$19.95
                  A "book" review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		    Copyright 1995 Evelyn C. Leeper

     At the beginning of Cramer's work, there is a quote from E. M. Forster
about how Gertrude Stein was trying to eliminate the sequentiality of words:
"She wants to abolish this whole aspect of story, this sequence in
chronology, and my heart goes out to her.  She cannot do it without
abolishing the sequence between the sentences.  But this is not effective
unless the order of the words in the sentences is also abolished, which in
its turn entails the abolition of the order of the letters or sounds in the
words.  And now she is over the precipice."  Well, the publication of these
hypertext editions of these stories (on diskette) is another step in that
direction, but not a very good one.  Next just worse step things would the
make and.  Doluw adeirsst be alst a eth.

     Okay, enough silliness.

     Now, one problem I had was that it took me a while to get to this,
since my only PC with Windows capability is at work, and this won't run on
my palmtop.  But even after I sat down to read these, I had problems.  As
with a lot of computer software, the documentation didn't match the
actuality.  For example, the documentation said just to click on the forward
arrow in the bottom left of the window to read the story in the default
sequence.  There was no arrow there.  Hitting return seemed to work for
Cramer's story, but I was unable to read Mac's story in that fashion at all.

     But obviously the main reason for this format is to be able to read the
stories non-sequentially by clicking on various words or parts of the
screen.  I played with this a while with unsatisfactory results: the screens
have no highlighting or marking to indicate WHAT you can click on (for
example, in Mosaic clickable words are underlined), so I did a lot of
clicking that kept sending me to the same place before discovering what
would send me somewhere new.

     On the other hand, it you want to examine the STRUCTURE rather than the
content, there are lots of things you can do.  Almost the entire menu bar
and most of the lower buttons are for showing you roadmaps, diagrams, etc.,
with the layout of the stories.  Interesting, but a bit more to help me
actually READ the stories would have been nice.

     As for the content, I can comment only on Cramer's "In Large & Small
Pieces" (since as I noted I couldn't manage to figure out how to read Mac's
"Unnatural Habitats").  "In Large & Small Places" is inspired to some extent
by Lewis Carroll's THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (and the artwork--yes, there is
artwork--is certainly inspired by Tenniel's artwork), but is written in a
literary style not to my liking, and certainly with more horror and
dismembered bodies than Carroll had or I want.

     Now, maybe some techie out there who can figure out how to read these
better, or some fan of literary techniques who loves non- sequential works,
would like this more.  Me, I think I'll stick to sequential works in a more
portable--and cheaper--form.

%T      In Small & Large Pieces
%A      Kathryn Cramer
%T      Unnatural Habits
%A      Kathy Mac
%C      Watertown, Massachusetts
%D      Summer 1994
%I      Eastgate Quarterly Review of Hypertext
%O      diskette for Windows or Macintosh, US$19.95
%G      ISBN 1-884511-15-5
%P      1.61 MB

-- 
Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | [email-masked]
"I don't think adversity necessarily builds character, but it certainly gives
you an opportunity to display it."  --Gary Bean (Open Systems Today, 1/9/95)
--
--Alan Wexelblat, Reality Hacker, Author, and Cyberspace Bard
MIT Media Lab - Intelligent Agents Group		finger(1) for PGP key
Voice: 617-253-9833	Pager: 617-945-1842		[email-masked]
	http://wex.www.media.mit.edu/people/wex/
"Are we fugitives from the law?" "Yes."  "Idiocy is our only option."