My favourite sites are all about web accessiblity, like Jakob Nielsen's site, but I'm afraid I've got quite utilitarian in my uses of the web. I buy things for friends and family in America on it. I find train times on it. I get a quick short article on a subject from it. I do not surf for fun much.
Geoff Ryman
I work with a lot of scientists, and one of the frustrating things they find is that all this fascinating stuff is being done which doesn't find its way into science fiction. They say look at the science fact pages - they're so much more imaginative than science fiction.
The trouble with writing for the web is that writing is about getting people to forget they're reading. Anything that reminds them they are reading, or which annoys or distracts them, bounces them out of the world. And the web, it seems to me, is all bounce. A very, very difficult medium to write for.
Franchising implies a financial arrangement, and I am always pleased to consider those.
With the hyperlinks, '253' says, 'Look at all the links we have we don't know about.' Without the links, the message becomes, 'Look at God's infinite variety.'
I sure do think it is an emergent form, but I also despair of reading online until screen quality is better.
Traditional fiction has a little bit of spatial exploration but is basically a question of time - the question is, what happens next?
'253' has a little bit of time in it, but basically, everything's happening at once in a small space, and you're exploring the space. 'What happens next?' is not the question that you're asking or answering. It's where do you go, and why should you go there?
It's my experience that scientists can find it difficult to understand the needs of scriptwriters or storytellers.
