Mike Mulvey
Dr. Liu
Patchwork Girl
May 5, 2010
Patchwork Work
Shelley Jackson’s hypertext narrative Patchwork Girl, is a more modern re-hashing of Mary Shelley’s popular novel “Frankenstein”. The electronic piece is rife with allusions to the original horror tale written over one hundred years ago. In fact, the creature in Patchwork Girl is created by a woman named Mary Shelley. After reading Patchwork Girl, it is clear that this modern re-telling is intended to serve as homage to the original “Frankenstein”. While there is a clear linkage between these two pieces of literature, it can be said with certainty that Shelley Jackson’s work is a unique narrative worth some analysis. This forces us to ask the question is Patchwork Girl really just a simple re-telling of “Frankenstein”, or is it something more?
The answer to that question, simply put, is that Shelley Jackson’s hypertext narrative is its own tale of horror, adventure, and self-discovery. It is clear that Jackson’s piece is not a massive departure from the Mary Shelley’s work in terms of the overall plot. Both narratives describe a series of events in which an intellectual creates a creature from the body parts of dead human beings. In both tales, the creature embarks on a quest to become more human but finds this to be a difficult task. Apart from that, the two creature’s journeys could not be more divergent. In Jackson’s Patchwork Girl, the creature is created with love and initially cared for like a child, whereas the Frankenstein Monster was brought into existence to satisfy Victor’s scientific zeal. The two creations ultimately meet different fates, with the Victor’s monster trapped on an ice float in Antarctica, and Mary’s creation, (Mary Shelley is the name of the creature’s creator in Jackson’s tale), seeking peace and solitude in the American Southwest. It is important to note the ultimate fate of both creatures as this contributes significantly to the theme of Jackson’s piece.
As mentioned previously, Patchwork Girl chronicles the “life” of a creature assembled from human body parts. The bulk of the story follows the Patchwork Girl as she tries to adapt to life in post-civil war America. In order to understand some of the primary themes in Jackson’s narrative, one must consider the significance of the creature’s name. Consider for a moment that Mary’s creation is stitched together with different parts and pieces similar to a quilt. Each piece is different and significant in its own way, but they will never match. In this regard, one could argue that Shelley Jackson chose the perfect media for her story, as hypertext narrative is like a patched quilt, in that it takes different bits and pieces and organizes them in a semi-coherent fashion. One could even make the argument that Jackson uses Patchwork Girl to comment on the very nature of hypertext narrative by creating a character assembled in the same way as one would put together a piece of hypertext narrative. To her credit, Shelley Jackson uses the capabilities of hypertext to establish and reinforce her themes. For example, throughout the story, the Patchwork Girl repeatedly finds herself having to replace pieces that fall off of her. Despite her best efforts none of her body parts match and she has difficulty getting her body to perform simple tasks such as walking. In many ways the text helps convey this mismatched feeling to the reader, as the story is assembled from a number of independent texts, which do not flow together well, but ultimately create a narrative.

The picture above is the table of contents for Patchwork Girl. The user can click on the graveyard, a journal, a quilt, ect to access different pieces of text which reveal different aspects of the story. By clicking on “A Quilt” for example the user is shown a bit of text that describes the components Mary collected to make the Patchwork Girl.



The second picture above is an example of the text provided once the user clicks on “A Graveyard”. This set of lexia under the graveyard heading describes the collection of the necessary body parts from the perspective of the Patchwork Girl. The main story of the narrative can be found under the “A Story” heading, which tells the tale from Mary’s point of view, and also the “A Journal” heading which describes the story from Patchwork Girl’s perspective.


The picture above is a sample of lexia from the “A Journal” heading. It is clearly illustrated in the blurbs that the story is not one cohesive narrative that follow a specific order. Rather the work is a large collection of lexia that fit together like a puzzle, to create the whole image. In this way, the narrative is an expression of Patchwork Girl. The Patchwork Girl’s body as a whole does not function properly because her parts are not strung together properly, much in the same way that the non-linear strings of lexia do not fit together perfectly but still reveals the story. In my opinion, Shelley Jackson should be hailed for using the tools of hypertext narrative to strengthen the overall impact on the reader. With that being said, there are some fundamental problems that underpin the successful conveyance of the theme in Patchwork Girl.
I have always been open about the fact that most forms of electronic literature are completely new to me, and it is typically my inexperience with the software that creates problems. In this case, I must say that my criticisms cannot be attributed to my inexperience as a user. The key problem that I faced when I began interacting with Patchwork Girl, was the lack of cohesiveness of the various strings of lexia. I read the, “A Story” heading lexia first believing this is where the bulk of the story would be revealed. After completing the other headings I proceeded to read the “A Journal” lexia. I took at least seven lexia for me to realize that the narrator had changed from Mary to Patchwork Girl. I would not have considered this a major problem had I not already gone back reading and read the story lexia several times over to try to understand what exactly was happening. For that reason, the non-linear style of revealing the story which is so critical to the theme, ultimately had a deleterious effect on my opinion. The “A Graveyard” heading is another prime example of this. The rapid shift between narrators makes an already confusing piece even more so. All in all, my criticisms are few and small. I found Patchwork Girl to be different from any other piece of literature I have ever read, electronic or otherwise. For that reason alone I feel that this work can be celebrated as a successful blending of clever plot devices, and the tools of electronic literature. I would definitely recommend this piece to anyone interested in electronic literature.
Jackson, Shelley. Patchwork Girl. Watertown, MA: Eastgate Systems, 1995. CD-Rom.

Mike Mulvey
Dr. Liu
Electronic Literature
April 14, 2010
Interacting With Interactive Fiction
When I first began creating my interactive fiction work "Institution", I noticed many of the similarities between writing IF and other types of literature. The process of constructing the basic framework of the story was in many ways the same. The task of creating interactive elements within the world of "Institution" on the other hand was drastically different than anything I have ever written before. In order for me to properly explain how I went about assembling this piece, I feel it is necessary to elaborate a bit on the theme of my story and some of the interactive elements I tried to incorporate.
The piece "Institution", opens with the player in a chair inside a cell in a mental institution. My goal was to give the player a sense of being trapped, in an effort to foster a feeling of wanting to escape. The story follows the player's character "Jack", in his attempt to escape from a mental institution aided by his mysterious friend "Sam". The character Sam claims to be Jack's best friend of years, and provides valuable advice to the player throughout the game. The tips provided by Sam are critical to discovering how to escape. Along the way, the player encounters other patients and "Dr. Landau", the chief psychiatrist of the institution. As the player continues to weave through the maze of rooms in the Institution, following Sam, it becomes obvious that no one else can see Sam, other than the player. By the end of the story the player is forced to kill Sam, at which point the game ends and Dr. Landau's dialogue reveals that Jack is actually a paranoid schizophrenic who was incarcerated for killing his best friend Sam over five years ago. After Sam is killed the game starts over again. For this reason, I found the prologue feature to be particularly useful, but the inter actor will only appreciate its meaning after playing through once.

The interactive elements helped me create a world in which the player was trapped by creating simple interactive objects like locked doors. I found it very easy to create simple inter-actable objects such as doors.

While I found creating objects with detailed descriptions to be very easy, much to my chagrin, creating other elements of the story was very difficult.
I can attribute most of my criticisms to the Inform 7, program itself. While I found the software to be interesting and useful, there were several problems that ultimately derailed the creative process. For example, every time I wrote a line of the story that Inform 7 could not understand I was shown an error prompt.
The error prompt was helpful in that it identified what line the program couldn't understand, and the manual reference, it didn't help me in any way repair the mistake. The instructions in the manual were far too basic and didn't elaborate on any of the more complex actions such as dialogue. After numerous error messages and consulting the Inform 7 Handbook repeatedly, I was still confused and had no solutions. I was only able to discover the solution through the process of trial and error. I freely admit that trial and error is a tried and true method that will eventually lead to success, but coupled with the frustrations of writing a piece of literature, I found it was more than I could take. I did eventually discover the solutions to the problems I faced while constructing dialogue with a little help from the manual.
The trial and error method, in many ways detracted from the whole experience as a whole. I don't wish to be too quick to criticize interactive fiction because of my inexperience as a user, but I feel that help system within the Inform 7 could have been better. In most cases, my errors were grammatical in nature. The manual was helpful in that it provided a few basic examples, but I believe that I would have been notably less frustrated, had Inform 7 been able to identify missing punctuation such as periods and semi-colons. In short my criticisms are more technical and nature and can primarily be attributed to my own lack of understanding of the intricacies of the program.
All criticisms aside, I found the software to be very useful in the creative process. To its credit, writing IF was unlike any other writing experience I had before. As I stated early, the ability to create interactive elements in my story kept me interested throughout the whole process. My initial fear was that I would have to alter elements of the story to make it work as an IF piece. I was surprised to find that as I was writing, I was actually adapting interactive elements to fit with the story. I also feel that the functions of the program helped me construct plot elements. As I mentioned above, at the end the player learns that he or she must kill Sam to finish the game. After Sam dies the whole piece starts from the beginning. I felt that this was appropriate as the theme is about repeating the same behaviors and actions and expecting different results. For this reason, I am willing to make that argument that IF allows the writer to create a world of fiction that would be impossible with other forms of literature. I actually found myself more inspired to continue writing each time I corrected one of the errors in my text. While my IF piece "Institution", is far from done, I feel that this work in progress is superior many of my other writings, including my short story "Institution". In summation, I found writing interactive fiction to be a rewarding experience. I would certainly recommend that anyone looking for a creative outlet explore interactive fiction as potential venue.

Mike Mulvey
Dr. Liu
Interactive Fiction Response
March 31, 2010
The is little doubt that Interactive Fiction is one of the most unique types of literature available today. By allowing the user to actively participate and make decisions that affect the plot, IF pulls the reader into the world of the narrative in a way that other forms of literature cannot. In this regard, IF can, in many ways, be considered superior to simple electronic texts. Unfortunately, I have found that the interactive elements of electronic fiction can ultimately have a deleterious effect on the overall literary experience. The goal of this analysis is not to argue that Interactive Fiction is a good or bad form of creative expression, rather that some of the interactive elements are inherently flawed. For my purposes, I will use two different pieces of IF to demonstrate what elements detract from the narrative as a whole. The first piece of IF I would like to review is titled "All Roads", written by Jon Ingold.
The electronic work "All Roads", is a good example of unique blending of interaction and narration that can be found commonly in IF. "All Roads" is puzzle-based adventure that requires the user input to advance the story as many IF works do. The work itself is one giant puzzle in which the user must provide the right sequence of inputs to move the story forward. For example, after the prologue and the first several cycles, the user finds him or herself trapped in a cell. The user must then figure out how to escape the cell by using only the materials inside the room.
The image above describes what is inside the room and some of the potential inputs. In order to escape the room the user must pick up a wine bottle, smash it, and use the shards to cut the ropes binding the protagonists hands.

While this task may appear simple at first glance, I found the puzzle to be significantly challenging. I was unaware that the wine bottle was anything more than a part of background itself. I was only able to figure out the correct sequence of inputs through an extraordinarily frustrating process of trial and error. I did feel a certain sense of satisfaction when I solved the puzzle, but after nearly an hour of frantically typing every possible input I could imagine, I found myself completely discouraged with the work as a whole. As the piece continues, the protagonist escapes the cell and the user finds himself in an alleyway outside the jail.
The cycles in the screen-shot above are a perfect example of the main criticism I have for puzzle-based Interactive Fiction. The output at the top of the screen details several alleyways and a girl bathing in the fountain. After issuing several commands, I found that I was unable to make my character do anything. Even more frustrating was the parsers inability to interpret the word fountain. The output at the top mentions a fountain, yet when I attempted to walk to the "fountain" the parser was unable to understand what I was referring to.

Eventually, I found my way down one of the alleyways and made it to a church, where I was greeted by a priest. I then bribed the priest with my gold ring but, I was captured by the captain of the guard and then executed. I played through this sequence a total of three times, and each time no matter what I did I was unable to prevent my character from dying, over and over again. Despite multiple attempts I was never able to advance the game any further than that point, no matter what I did. For this reason, I feel that the notion that Interactive Fiction is very open-ended cannot be somewhat misleading. In my experience this is not a flaw that is exclusive to "All Roads", but can indeed be found in other IF works.
As mentioned above, I feel that one of the primary drawbacks to Interactive Fiction is the lack of influence the user actually has on the story. In many regards IF has been hailed as, narrative where the user shapes the story. I feel that this assumption is false, and is no more apparent than in a work such as "For Whom the Telling Changed" by Aaron A. Reed . The electronic work "Telling" puts the user in the role of a member of a tribe, which is on the brink of warfare with their rivals. This particular piece does allow for the user to manipulate elements in the story such as the main character's gender and occupation. "Telling" allows the user to make small decisions that have no relative impact whatsoever on the plot, such as deciding which character is the storyteller.

I choose to make the protagonist a female, and to make her uncle Nabu, the storyteller. Regardless of which character is choosen the story told by the fire is always the same. Which ever character you give the feather circlet to becomes the storyteller, and begins telling the tale of Gilgamesh. I played through this piece twice and ended up giving the circlet to Nabu both times because the parser was unable to interpret the name of the other character for reasons I cannot explain.

The plot of this work itself is simplistic and in order to advance the story I found myself repeatedly entering the same input over and over again.

Each time I attempted to make the character do anything other than "Listen" the parser responded with "Now is not the time for that".


I didn't feel that I was in any way shaping the outcome or even the sequence of events, rather I was just repeatedly typing the same command to advance the story.
Although it may appear that my goal in this brief analysis was to attack Interactive Fiction, nothing could be further from the truth. I feel that IF is in many ways a unique, and valid form of literary expression. I freely admit that the criticisms mentioned above could be attributed to my somewhat simplistic understanding of Interactive Fiction. This particular type of electronic literature is predicated on user interaction, and is unique in that it allows the user to make choices that can effect the story. Yet, I find myself questioning just how much impact the user can have on the narrative's plot. Each time I begin a piece of IF, I do so with a certain level of excitement, as I feel that my actions can help shape the outcome of the story in some profound way. By the end I ultimately find myself disappointed as I never feel like I made any decisions that matter. Based on what I have seen so far IF seems to be little more than text fiction with multiple plot lines. In some cases, such as "For Whom the Telling Changed", I felt that the choices I made were relatively meaningless. While I was unable to advance the story of "All Roads", I am aware that the narrative does have more divergent story lines than I mentioned above, but I feel they are in many ways the same. My criticisms aside, I admit that IF does offer some interactive elements that are different from any other form of literature, but to the extent that the average user believes. In summation, I don't feel that the interactive elements are enough for IF to be classified as its own genre of literature.

My first E-Poem

Mike Mulvey
Dr. Liu
PowerPoint Software Writer Response
March 3, 2010
My electronic poem titled "Crash", tells my personal story of all the various car crashes I have been in throughout my life. As a power sports enthusiast I spent a great deal of time in my earlier life driving a variety of vehicles which I eventually crashed. The goal of my e-poem was to reveal how each successive crash was its own unique experience. I attempted to create a piece of literature that could accurately depict my experiences through the use of sound and animation. The options provided by Microsoft Powerpoint allowed for a perfect venue to express what a car crash is like. I will begin by detailing what visuals, sounds, and animations I chose for this electronic work, and why I chose them.
The electronic poem "Crash" begins simply with a blank blue screen. The word Crash then rockets onto the screen accompanied by the sound of a car screeching to a halt. The word Crash then halts at the center of the screen. The poem continues as the word Crash fades and text detailing my first crash appears on the screen. "The first time was the worst. The fear. The uncertainty. Even the PAIN!". This blurb details my feeling after the first time I crashed a car. Each successive phrase appears just after the phrase before disappeared from the screen. The word "Pain" appears in the color red and in bold letters. After the final statement has faded from the screen another blurb rockets onto the screen beginning with "The second time wasn't that bad. Just a bump on the head and a broken rib". Just as "and a broken rib" appears on the screen the reader hears a loud cracking sound. After the words fade again, another phrase appears; "The third time I don't recall. I only remember waking up in the hospital two hours later". When the second statement appears an ambulance siren rings out. The poem continues as the blurb on the screen disappears, and the sirens go quiet. The poem concludes as the phrase "The last time was the only real 'Accident'" spins onto the screen. The word "Accident" is also in bright red letters. I feel it is important to note at this point that this work is still a work in progress and I hope to make several additions and alterations.
I found the Powerpoint software to be very helpful in developing my electronic work. I must admit that until recently I had underestimated the capabilities of Powerpoint. The program was very accessible and easy to interact with. At the same time I did find some elements of the program difficult to use. For example, when I first began animating the text in my e-poem I found it very difficult to adjust the timing properly. I wanted to make sure that each phrase appeared on the screen only after the previous one had disappeared. It took me a great deal of time to understand how the timing of certain animations could be customized. The tutorials and help files did not really detail anything about how the user could customize the timing of the animations. Still, to Powerpoint's credit, I must admit that after roughly an hour of playing around with the software, I was able to determine how the user can adjust the timing of the entry/exit function of text on the screen. This limitation was actually due to my own negligence of the fact that each slide has a pane on the right side of the screen which has a timeline of the animations in the frame, that can be adjusted with the mouse. Apart from this small complaint, I had very little difficulty interacting with the software. In fact, I feel that the electronic elements of my poem allowed me to express myself more than I would have been able to with simple text. I feel that the motion of the words on the screen helped convey the feeling of what it is like to be in a crash. Also, by putting some text words in red I was able to effectively highlight which words and emotions I was trying to convey to the reader. The spinning motion of the words at the end of the poem were also critical to help give the reader the sense of dizziness that I experienced after each crash.
Overall, the limitations of the software were very few. I would like to continue adding more effects to this piece not in an effort to dazzle the reader, but to help them feel what it is like to be in a car crash. Ideally, I would like to make the poem more interactive, by including video as the background. Rather than simply watching the words rocket onto the screen, I feel I could evoke a stronger response from the reader by letting them watch a crash through the eyes of the driver. I also hope to make a change to the last slide, in which the words will first appear upside down and then right side up, to help the reader feel what it is like to have everything upside down as the car rolls over. I am pleased with what I have seen from the software thus far, and I am excited to see how the technological tools available will continue to improve my work.

The Benefits of the Electronic Age

Mike Mulvey
February 24, 2010
Dr. Liu
E-Poetry Interaction Response
There is no doubt that electronic poetry is a unique medium for authors to express their creativity. The original works being produced by writers all over the world, are unlike any type of literature previously available. Thanks to the vast improvements in computer animation technology, e-poetry has developed into its own literary genre. Like all other original works, e-poems are only as limited as the imagination of the person writing, and the capabilities of the computer technology of the day. For this reason, e-poems are widely varied, and one can make the definitive statement that no two electronic works are exactly the same. The goal of this analysis is to elaborate on why e-poetry is so unique, and expose the wide variety of material that falls under this category of literature. The best way for someone to gain a better understanding of the impact that technology has had on writing, is to take a look at a few examples of electronic literature. Only after analyzing some of the available literature, will one be able to fully appreciate the revolutionary impact technology has had on the modern literary work.
The first piece of original work I would like to look at is "Soliloquy" by Kenneth Goldsmith (http://vista.csus.ct.edu/webct/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct). This particular electronic poem is a prime example of computer technology can change the face of a literary work. The "title page" opens with a simple white screen that displays the name of the author and the title of the work. When the user then clicks on the word Soliloquy, they are shown a brief quote by Ludwig Wittgenstein "Don't for heaven's sake be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense!" (this is the English translation the actual quotation is in German). Directly underneath this quote is a brief piece of dialogue in which a reporter asks "Why don't you write the way you talk" followed by a response by Gertrude Stein "Why don't you read what I write". After the user clicks the "enter" icon directly beneath the blurb, a screen displaying the author's name and a right to left listing of the days of the week.


The user can then choose to click on any of the days of the week. After clicking on one of the days of the week, (in the screen shot below Wednesday was chosen), the reader is presented with another screen.


At this point, the reader now has a variety of options, by clicking on one of the numbers listed the reader can change the first word in the dialogue. In the image above, the number "1" begins the dialogue with the word "Hi". When the reader moves the mouse to different locations on the screen different pieces of the dialogue are revealed.


Moving the mouse to different locations on the screen will lead to different statements appearing on the screen.



The user can choose to cycle through all seven days of the week and by clicking on one of the numbers listed at the top, choose ten different opening statements for the dialogue.


There are thousands, if not more, possible combinations of dialogue that the user can choose from. This level of interaction actually allows the user to read the poem in a different way every time they open the file. I chose this e-poem because it demonstrates how user interaction allows electronic works to be unique to every person that reads it, each time they do so. I will elaborate more on this point later. While reader interaction is critical in this electronic work, not all e-poems prompt the reader to perform some type of action on the screen. Some e-poetry simply require the reader to read or watch what the author has created.
One common type of electronic poem, is known as a flash or action poem. In this type of electronic work, the viewer clicks the play button and watches a flash video. An example of this, is Roberto Gilli's "War" (http://www.sitec.fr/users/akenatondocks/DOCKS-datas_f/collect_f/auteurs_f/G_f/GILLI_f/Anim_f/war_f/war.html). In this work, the user must click on the word "play" to begin the poem. The poem begins with an image in the top center of the screen. The first image is a blurred black and white picture of a man's face with the words "Welcome" superimposed across the screen.

As the video continues the, word "Welcome" begins to become distorted and brake apart, all the while the blurry black and white images in the background continue to change until the word "In" becomes discernible.

The poem continues to cycle through a series of four images as the letters in the word superimposed on the screen continue to change.


If watched from beginning to end, the words read "Welcome In A New Millennium". Although the poem is technically only one phrase long, the compilation of images combined with the phrase helps illustrate the author's message.
Clearly, e-poetry can be widely varied, thanks to the creativity of the author and technology being implemented. Perhaps one of the best qualities of electronic literature, is that every time the reader looks at an e-poem, they pose the question, why did the author chose to do this? Since there are so many tools available to electronic poets, the choice of how they utilize the technology can speak volumes about the message of the poem. In "Soliloquy", the user chooses the dialogue that appears on the screen. No matter how many different place the user moves the mouse, it is difficult to create any type of coherent dialogue. On paper, this style of writing would be considered complete non-sense. Yet, this style of writing helps demonstrate the author's message in electronic literature. The quote by Wittgenstein at the beginning reveals the author's intent in his writing. The bit of dialogue at the bottom also conveys Goldsmith's message. The nonsensical nature of the dialogue in "Soliloquy" is intentional. The opening page alludes to the fact that reader interpretation of writing is everything. Goldsmith demonstrates this by showing the reader random bits of dialogue, and allowing the reader to make his own assumptions about what is going on in the conversation. In this regard, the reader interaction makes the poem what it is. The nonsensical, nature of the poem is essential to conveying Goldsmith's message. Ultimately, the electronic elements of this work help to add to the overall experience. This fact is also true of Roberto Gilli's "War". The compilation of images in the background adds to the message of the poem. All of the people in the photographs have looks of despair on their faces. These faces are intended to represent the faces of war. Imagine for a moment if the poem was simply a super-imposition of the statement "Welcome to a new Millennium". The reader would be confused and unable to interpret the meaning of this work without the slide show in the background. The unique blending of images and text flows well together and helps elaborate on the author's message. Roberto Gilli is trying to make a statement about the pain that war brings and will continue to bring in the new millennium. The pictures in the poem were the compelling aspect of the work not the text. In this way, electronic literature is significantly different from simple written text.
After reviewing several pieces of electronic literature, I feel I can definitively say that the electronic elements ultimately help convey an author's message in a way that simple text cannot. The unique blending of sounds, images, and texts works to improve the reader's whole experience. I must admit that my initial opinion of electronic literature was not a positive one. Yet, after reviewing a few more examples of e-poetry, I have completely reversed my conception of the effect technology has had on literature. Although my first blog post would indicate otherwise, I would now have to classify myself as a fan of electronic literature. Roberto Gilli's "War" was far more moving than I believed e-poetry could be. The blending of the painful faces of war with text created a far more visceral experience than simple text could produce. I look forward to further expanding my understanding of electronic literature and the technological tools used to create these unique works.

Mike, blog post #1

My initial response to e-poetry based on the pieces assigned so far is a positive one. After reading (and watching the flash poetry) the assigned poems I believe I have a better understanding of what electronic poetry. Until now, I was unaware of how technology has changed the face of literature. In a way I would say that this has perked my curiosity on the subject. At the same time, I do have some points of confusion. "The Mermaid" for example left me feeling somewhat confused. The poem was clear, and easy to interpret. The electronic version was difficult to read and did not, in my opinion, help strengthen the authors message. After reading the text only version I understand the significance of the electronic version's strange nature. If I had looked at the electronic version first I probably would not have understood the significance of the rippling effect on the screen.
However, I understand that a part of the point to reading this e-poetry was to do somewhat of a comparison between electronic and simple text literature. "The Best Cigarette", was not largely enhanced by the electronic version, in my opinion. This causes somewhat of a paradox for me, as the clarity was the same between the electronic and text versions, the very complaint I had about "The Mermaid". I can make definitive statement that I either like or dislike electronic literature. I am certain that it is something I want to learn more about as I understand now that it is so vastly different than regular print, or text literature.