Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction (review)

We are standing at the beginning of a new fusion of technology and literature.

—Gary McGath (p. 228)

Many of us are still waiting for a future of electronic literature that proves McGath's words correct; 20 years after they were spoken, Nick Montfort reminds us in his book, Twisty Little Passages, that few, if any, of McGath's "predictions" have come true. This fact may underlie the presence of wistful hopefulness that permeates Montfort's book. But if anything can infuse energy into the art, it is this careful and exciting study of interactive fiction (IF).

Defined as "text game," "text adventure," a "simulated world," work that "react[s] to input meaningfully," and a work that "explicitly (author's emphasis) call[s] upon the reader to interact . . . by means of queries or replies" (pp. vii-viii, 8), IF constitutes a specific genre of electronic literature whose genesis Montfort traces to the ancient riddle. Much is riding on establishing a connection between IF and the past, since many traditional literature theorists devote no attention to it.

The title of the book is borrowed from the well-known description of the terrain of a maze found in the game Adventure (p. 90). Lest anyone try to ignore the influence of IF upon contemporary culture, consider this: "Twisty little passages" became the way in which Tim Berners-Lee envisioned the "hyper-routes" of his early iteration of the World Wide Web, bringing the conceptual framework of IF to bear upon the development of the Web. Not a shabby legacy for gamers to boast of.

This reference to the Web represents only one reason among many why Montfort's book is necessary for academics to read, for it raises consciousness about IF's importance in our culture. For those involved in games, it reasserts the name of the genre, lost in the Electronic Literature Organization's move to organize the many genres of electronic literature into a succinct list of eight categories. Finally, for all of us it fleshes out "an approach" toward a "richer experience" for engagement with IF (xi) in that it

describe[s] some of the intellectual history of the form and its relationship to other literary and gaming forms, and to computing and other computer programs, while critically examining a representative selection of important works and describing their interrelationships (p. 5).

One of the book's many strengths is the history of IF it provides, beginning with its link to riddles, which Montfort defines widely as "literary and folk texts and utterances" (p. 38), such as that of The Exeter Book and kennings; literary machines of the Middle Ages and beyond, such as Ramon Llull's Ars Generalis Ultima and Ars Breva, dated 1274 CE; the I Ching and Ted Nelson's Labyrinth; role-playing games, such as Dungeons and Dragons; and, finally, adventure games like SHRDLU, Adventure, and Zork.

Other strengths include the book's many tables, figures and resources. The list of IF works and their creators reveals, for instance, the influence of Cambridge and the Acheron system upon IF, just as the list of 35 "canonical" works from Infocom reveals the variety of themes and plots reflected in IF. By the same token, the 150 primary works found in the list of works cited demonstrate yet another example of Montfort's careful research into the IF genre.

Since IF is classified as a form of electronic literature and Montfort discusses its narrative and literary aspects, it would have been helpful if he could have provided a working definition of electronic literature, as traditionalists who come across the book may wonder about it. To be honest, those who teach electronic literature wonder about it, too, so getting the perspective of one who actively creates it and critiques it could go far in helping to make the case of electronic literature's connection to literature.

Some other issues may bother a few readers. Unfamiliar terms such as "metalepsis...