HEADLINE
Read Any Good Webs Lately? 
That's the question in a new field of computer fiction,
where readers shape novels and stories never end.

SIDEBAR:
When Art Resembles National Security (See end of text).

BYLINE
By Joshua Quittner.
NEWSDAY STAFF WRITER

LENGTH
214 Lines



PAY CLOSE ATTENTION if you read "Agrippa," a short story written for
the computer by science fiction author William Gibson.

It turns to gibberish after you view it. 

You won't have that problem with Judy Malloy's "Its Name Was
Penelope." Then again, don't lose your place in her piece: "Penelope"
shuffles nearly 400 pages of a fictional woman's "memories" every time
you reread it. It's never the same twice. 

During the past few years, dozens of writers have been experimenting
with a brave new way to tell stories. Rather than simply placing
traditional books on computer disks, as some publishers have done,
they are using the computer as an instrument with its own powerful
voice--and creating literature that couldn't exist without it. These
stories, called webs, can include sound, graphics, even limited video.
They usually make the reader help shape the fiction, cracking the wall
that separates the reader from the thing that's being read. 

While some critics dismiss computer-based literature as a curiosity
more interesting to talk about than actually view, others say a new
art form is being born that promises to be as significant as the
motion picture. 

"It really has the potential to be the next wave of story telling,"
said George P. Landow, an English professor at Brown University and
the author of two books about computer-based texts. "The question is,
is this total chaos and anarchy, or is it a new reading form that
makes the reader a kind of creator?" 

In the modular bitspeak of cyberspace, most of this interactive
literature is described as hypertext, a format in which key words or
images on a computer screen are highlighted and interconnected. When a
reader "clicks" with a pointing device, such as a mouse, on a
highlighted section of the text, the reader pops into a new place in
the hypertext work. By following links around the web, the reader
discovers different ideas and themes. 

With a number of webs recently released or about to be published,
computer users can decide for themselves whether this is a gimmick or
a new art form. While most webs can be read only on Macintosh
computers, versions for IBM compatibles are starting to arrive. Some
hypertext pieces have been posted on electronic bulletin boards. Plans
are even being laid for an interactive fiction cable-TV channel. 

"Let's just call it a 'word channel,' " said Mary Milton, a Manhattan
publisher who has been talking to a number of cable companies about
her idea. "Some of these word groupings will be just linear, so that
you can just download them and keep them. Others will be interactive
and you can respond in a variety of ways." 

Milton, who said she has 15 people preparing humorous, political and
fiction writings for a cable channel, promised that "this is stuff
that everybody will be able to read. It's a totally new kind of art." 

For instance, in "afternoon," by Michael Joyce, a man is having lunch
with his boss, whom he suspects of having an affair with his wife. The
man sees a bowl of hard candy on the table. The reader may click on
the words "crystal bowl" and be linked to another section, in which we
learn that the man believes he may have seen his wife and son die in a
traffic accident earlier that day. 

On any given screen of text in "afternoon," as many as 15 words can be
selected that take the reader "off on different reflections," Joyce
said. 

This allows the story to be told from different perspectives--the
man's, the boss's, the wife's--and, Joyce maintains, more closely
simulates the complexity of life. "It's a better way of telling a
story because it redeems the multiplicity that we're used to," Joyce
said. "We know that in our own lives, the track that ends up being our
life is filled with change and could have gone in all different ways."

His piece is published by Eastgate Systems Inc., in Cambridge, Mass.,
the largest publisher of hypertext fiction. 

"Breaking the scroll"--getting away from traditional, straight-line
narrative--has been a concern of many modern fiction writers since
long before the personal computer. For instance, James Joyce's 1939
"Finnegans Wake" is sometimes described as a book that can be read
starting from any page. 

More recently, writers like Milorad Pavic, author of the 1988
"Dictionary of the Khazars," have been working toward a fiction that
begins in the middle, not necessarily on Page 1. But for writers like
Malloy, who worked with "experimental books and artists' catalogs"
--books whose pages can be rearranged to yield new stories--using
computers is a more natural way to explore nonlinear plot lines. 

Michael Joyce and other hypertext authors agree that the "forking
paths" structure of the new literature poses new problems for
readers--for instance, how do you know you're finished reading
something that forks all over the place? The effect is also
disorienting to first-time readers who are used to the unbroken scroll
of conventional books. 

Landow, of Brown University, said that some of these problems will be
solved by new writers, while others may simply disappear as readers
get more sophisticated. The potential audience of hypertext fiction,
he said, is huge: Today's students are already working with hypertext
in educational software and are comfortable with the idea of wandering
around through a maze of ideas. 

"Look at kids watching 'Sesame Street' on TV. They can follow rapid
soundbites and things that are very disorienting to people in their
60s," he said. 

The new medium "is creating creative minds," said Robert Coover,
author of the best-selling post-modern novel, "The Public Burning." "A
lot of people who never thought of themselves as artists or writers
suddenly are doing it." 

Coover started teaching a hypertext fiction workshop to undergraduates
at Brown University last year. While he is unsure whether the medium
will take off--Coover himself has no immediate plans to write a
hypertext novel--he believes something important is going on. 

That was evident the first time he sat down with a dozen students in
his hypertext class. "We started out having two rooms, one where the
machines were and one were we could go away and talk about it," Coover
said. "We found out that we never wanted to go away." 

He said the students created a piece called "Hotel," in which readers
could wander around the main desk, the restaurant, swimming pool and
lodging rooms of a hypertext hotel, and read interlinked stories. 

"The students were free to open up a room," he said. "You could
actually change the text that someone else had written or undermine a
link, take the story somewhere else." 

When he pointed out one problem to the students - at various times,
the bartender was a woman or man, sometimes young, sometimes old--it
was quickly rectified: 

The next time Coover visited the hypertext hotel bar he found a link
to a hotel room. Inside, was an outerspace creature that was daily
birthing different kinds of full-grown bartenders. 

In interactive fiction, "things happen that couldn't happen in
conventional literature--surprises," said Nancy Pricenthal, a
Manhattan-based critic who has surveyed the interactive fiction field
and was surprised by the huge amount of activity going on. 

Pricenthal, who described herself as "not a person who has any native
sense of sympathy for technology," said she was initially skeptical of
the new medium--and still believes much of it is "a lot more
interesting to talk about than see." 

Certainly, one of the most interesting things that's being talked
about--though few, including its author, have seen it self-destruct
is "Agrippa," by Gibson, who wrote the cyberpunk cult favorite,
"Neuromancer." 

"Agrippa," which will be packaged with separate copper etchings by
Manhattan artist Dennis Ashbaugh, is supposed to go on sale next week,
its publisher Kevin Begos says. It will sell for $450, or $1,500 for
the deluxe edition. This seems like a lot of money to pay for
something that turns into unbreakably encoded nonsense after you read
it; but you do get to keep the etchings, which change, too, yielding
new images, when exposed over time to light. 

The furtiveness--"like something glimpsed through a keyhole"--is
part of Gibson's message, he said, explaining that the story deals
with his recollections of his father, who died when Gibson was a boy. 

"There are several levels of irony at work in this thing. I would hope
it will compel the reader's very close attention," Gibson said. "It's
sort of like, okay listen up - I'm only going to say this once." 

While the computer works well for this piece, Gibson says he has no
plans to write a hypertext novel. "I'm strictly of the old school," he
said. "My thing is words in a row." 

			* * * 

SIDEBAR: When Art Resembles National Security

IS IT ART? Or is it national security? 

William Gibson's short story, "Agrippa," is designed to automatically
and irrevocably encode itself after a viewer reads it on a computer
screen. But because a sophisticated and virtually unbreakable
encryption program, known as RSA, is used to do the code work, and
because RSA, like most encryption devices, is closely guarded by the
U.S. government, it's possible that "Agrippa" may not be sold
overseas, said Kevin Begos, the publisher. 

"It's just a strange issue," Begos said. It could be a lucrative one
as well, because a Japanese company has already asked for exclusive
rights to market hundreds of copies of "Agrippa" there. Interest in
Europe has been high, too, Begos said. "We just don't have the
faintest idea what to do." 

On the one hand, exporting a product with RSA code built into it is
clearly controlled by the government, which monitors use of the code
with particular attention because it is considered one of the best
codes ever devised. 

"We want to know where it went and who's got it and how it's being
used," said Daniel Cook, a spokesman for the State Department's Office
of Defense Trade Controls. "The intent is to keep it out of the hands
of people who shouldn't have it. 

"By definition, it would be controlled by us until you got a letter
from us saying it wasn't," he added. 

"On a constitutional level, I find it personally offensive to have to
ask" permission from the government, Begos said. 

Begos pointed out that this is a work of art, not a weapon. And it's
no secret how RSA works; many papers have been published on the
subject. 

Cook suggested that the publisher could avoid the whole issue by
simpling creating an export copy that automatically deletes - rather
than encrypts - the story. But because most good hackers can easily
restore deleted files, this would hardly be a satisfactory resolution.


In any event, Cook said that because the program apparently doesn't
contain a key to decrypt the file, "I don't see us getting a major
heartburn over it." 

Just ask for permission first, he said. 

			* * * 


The Tangled Webs  

A sampler of hypertext webs available or about to be released. Note
that current webs are for Macintosh computers only; IBM-compatible
versions will be released shortly. Webs cost $20-$30.  

afternoon  

"afternoon" by Michael Joyce. Considered to be the first "major"
example of hypertext literature. Man, walking to work, sees a fatal
accident and believes his wife and son may be in the wreckage. But he
doesn't stop.  Published by Eastgate Systems Inc., Cambridge, Mass.  

Victory Garden  

"Victory Garden" by Stuart Moulthrop. The gulf war, as seen through
the eyes of several people. Published by Eastgate Systems Inc.,
Cambridge, Mass.  

Beyond Cyberpunk!  

"Beyond Cyberpunk! A Do-it-Yourself Guide to the Future" by The
Computer Lab, Rt. 4 Box 54C, Louisa, Va. 23093. Not a work of fiction,
but the best use of sound, text and limited video graphics. A
compendium of information about cyberpunk, a post-modern,
techno-vision of the world.  

Its Name Was Penelope  

"Its Name Was Penelope" by Judy Malloy. A hypertext poem in six
stanzas about a woman photographer. Reader begins with the first
stanza, which contains a number of "memories." Each one of the
reveries is postcard sized. Program shuffles the memories each time
you reread it so that "you start to see echos and resonances of what
you've seen before--literally," Malloy said. Published by Eastgate
Systems Inc., Cambridge, Mass.  

The Dickens Web  

"The Dickens Web" by George P. Landow and others. Not fiction, but
rather a hypertext web that contains 245 documents and 680 links,
interweaving Dickens' novel, "Great Expectations," with related
subjects, including history, religion and social issues in Victorian
England. Published by Eastgate Systems Inc., Cambridge, Mass.  

**END OF STORY REACHED**