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From: erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
Subject: Re: WANTED: Your thoughts on fantasy I-F
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Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 16:41:26 GMT
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Matthew Amster-Burton (mamster@u.washington.edu) wrote:

> This has just made me think of another questions.  How many works of
> IF can we collectively think of that have no fantasy elements at all?
> That is, no sci-fi, no magic, nothing that couldn't actually happen
> (farfetched is okay).  Let's see...there's Deadline (haven't played
> the other Infocom detective games, so I don't know about those).
> What's everyone's prognosis for such "mundane" works?  Does the medium
> fare well without magic?

I read practically nothing without magic (or sci-fi) elements. This 
doesn't mean I'm morally opposed to them, and I've enjoyed the few that I 
was inspired to read (by some other factor.) (There's a famous case of 
one of Spider Robinson's "Callahan's Bar" stories which had absolutely 
no SF or fantasy elements at all. One of the best ones in the series, 
which is otherwise heavily SF.) 

The other Infocom detective games were also real-world.

_Seastalker_ may or may not count as SF for you. There's nothing 
particularly advanced about its tech... well, maybe the monster does it 
for you. :)

About certain competition entries this year, we speak not. Last year, 
weren't "The Big One" and "Tube Trouble" real-world? It's been a while.

--Z



-- 

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
