The Frame

Penguin Books has launched a new site that explores some of the possibilities for interactive fiction. Six contemporary authors will, over the next few weeks, write stories inspired by classic works using new media opportunities on the web. The first week was a take-off on John Buchan’s The 39 Steps, with a detective story overlaid on a GoogleMap of London, told through waypoints and pop-up boxes. The second integrates blogs and Twitter to tell of a young girl and her parents moving to England from both of their points of view. The rest haven’t gone up yet, so we’ll have to wait and see where they go. I’m unsure about these two methods, at least in the long run…I enjoyed the GoogleMaps one, but I wouldn’t have wanted it to go on any longer, and I have yet to finish catching up with the blog/Twitter attempt. Still, the idea is an interesting one, and I think there are definitely possibilities in these areas; kudos to Penguin for innovating.

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