From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 28 13:41:14 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.books.reviews,alt.hypertext Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!sunic!sunic.sunet.se!news.luth.se!eru.mt.luth.se!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!nobody From: "Evelyn C Leeper" Subject: Eastgate Quarterly of Hypertext Message-ID: <9504241209.ZM8073@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: news@news.media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Date: Tue, 25 Apr 1995 23:36:05 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 77 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:756 rec.arts.books.reviews:499 alt.hypertext:8262 "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 | Evelyn.Leeper@att.com "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 wex@media.mit.edu http://wex.www.media.mit.edu/people/wex/ "Are we fugitives from the law?" "Yes." "Idiocy is our only option."