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From: erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
Subject: Re: I-F...  NO FANTASY???
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Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 18:35:13 GMT
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George Caswell (timbuktu@adamant.res.wpi.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?

>    ...From what I've seen of Infidel and Ballyhoo (no spoilers please) they
> might fit...

Correct. I'd forgotten those.

>    ...Of course, how much I-F can -really- give that sort of real-story
> performance, especially text I-F...?  With no AI or dynamic prose or dialogue,
> everything is limited to what the author forsees, so from an interactive
> standpoint the story has very little to work with in the way of emotional
> situations- 

Compared with what? There's no AI in the spine of a hardback book. (Yet.) 
Somehow static fiction pulls off "real-story performance," and it's 
certainly not going outside what the author foresees.

I'm not sure what you mean by "from an interactive standpoint."

I persist in insisting that there is no technique of prose writing which 
is not usable in IF.

--Z

-- 

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