I really need to say more about this piece. Michael Joyce is a true creative writer, both in his exploration of the language as well as in its method of presentation, in this case, hypertext narrative.
When it is cold enough, perfectly incredibly cold, the trees moan and roar all the night. And in the summer, ha! then it is all sex with them, seeds by the thousands, the air full of sex, spermy light, and the scent of pollen everywhere…They assert their ascendency, trees do, just look at that place out west, what’s its name? Mount-Something-or-other, where the volcano sheared the mountain top? they grow in moon dust there, in the sterility of ash, don’t you see? (p. ?)
Interesting; just clicked off into a strange world that I hadn’t seen before–just when I’d thought I’d seen it all.
And what I’m learning is not just about the form of the medium, but of myself as reader. Despite the story, the beauty of the words, the interest of the changes I can–yet can’t–control, I’m still not yet taken with this text only interactivity. For one thing, I found that the reader’s control is still limited to wherever the author allows him to go, and of course, just as in straight text, interpretation opening roads beyond. But I personally found myself wondering and conjuring less because my thinking time was being usurped by this business of clicking. Often I got very into the narrative only to to stand bewildered in a strange scenario; the feeling of walking off the stage and onto one adjoining where Shakespeare and Cats were playing side by side.
It is me. I like continuity unless I’m playing pinball. Not quite that bad; when I’m involved in great story, I don’t want to lose the thread.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology