The rotating tin cylinder within the phonograph vibrates slightly as a brass needle scrapes against it. The sound of a throat being cleared emerges from the machine’s hornshell speaker, followed by a thin, haunting voice.
This has very little to do with the Grid and Scripting and So On, but I have recently been spending idle moments in a work of Interactive Fiction (some may know such things as “text adventures”) entitled Slouching Towards Bedlam, which, stylistically I believe, may be of interest to Regular Readers - or those of you who are decidedly Irregular.
The rubber piping connected to the back of the machine convulses for a moment, a wisp of steam escaping from it. From within, comes a low whirring which slowly increases in pitch and volume. From out of the magnetophone’s horn comes a soft echo of static…
Bedlam certainly describes itself as “steampunk”, which is frequently in my experience a Bad Sign particularly where Literature is concerned - it is a crude and anachronistic word - but, with a sigh, I must admit that it is useful shorthand at times. (I can hardly disavow it when I am a High Officer of the group “The Steampunks” and use it frequently in my Commercial Announcements, simply so that those who are interested may find me. I would much rather use a more elegant term, “Counter-Historical Scientific Romantic” or similar, but hey ho, that takes up an awfully large number of precious Letters.) Certainly, by any reasonable standards, this piece would qualify, set in a London of 1885 with steam-powered hangmen, a full-size Panopticon and mechanist shops on Fleet Street owned by, erm, red-headed female technologists. The tone is dark and intense, almost Lovecraftian, the writing concise yet expressive. I have not yet finished it, but will be sad when I do - happily, I hear the promise that there are many alternative endings.
Bedlam was published in a format known as “Z-Code”, to be run on a “Z-Machine”. The history of this is too lengthy to go into here (if you are interested, dear reader, perhaps peruse the appropriate Wikipedia article) but suffice to say that it was originally developed by the masters of the art of Interactive Fiction, Infocom, in order that they might produce their products easily for all manner of different Engines, and is now available for general use via the reverse-engineered compiler known as Inform. For the Player or Creator this has two main results:
- One can run a Z-Code piece on practically any Engine, as there are interpreters now for almost anything imaginable - a list of them may be found here. I have even done so on my Portable Magnetophone, though it is not what one would call a comfortable experience. Conversely, the author must only provide one file for general use, rather than be forced to exclude certain folk.
- One can also write one’s own Z-Code pieces with ease. The latest version of the Inform compiler is an absolutely astounding effort; fellow Scripters and Engine Instructors will be astounded to hear that it is a “natural language” language that actually works, as opposed to, say, the abomination known as Applescript. If you have the slightest interest in creating these things I would advise you to visit the Home of Inform and obtain their free software forthwith.
It will doubtless not come as a particular surprise to hear that I personally have spent some time attempting to write pieces in Inform, but whilst I find myself perfectly technically capable, I also find that I have no skill with either Plot or Puzzle. I dislike Puzzles in general unless they add to the overall experience of the Piece - Bedlam so far works well in this regard, with such “puzzles” as there are being related to the plot rather than being there to slow one down - but the main issue is that I simply do not think in terms of Narrative.
Within Second Life, narrative is something that other people provide for themselves, simultaneously a collective and an individual effort with everyone’s experience being different, which is perhaps why I remain there; I can provide components, collaborate with other people’s existences, and construct my own, but when it comes to creating an overall “plot” I am completely adrift. My efforts with Inform are (if I may say so) detailed and diverting vignettes, but they have no point to them. My efforts with more traditional prose are similar, for that matter.
Still, enough introspection: I would hope that some readers might be curious enough to obtain the appropriate code for Slouching Towards Bedlam, then one of the interpreters, and enjoy the experience. Perhaps some may even wish to delve further into Interactive Fiction; I would suggest Baf’s Guide as a starting point for obtaining further pieces. A search for those given a Five Star Rating will provide many excellent examples.
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