Isaac Asimov, L. Sprague de Camp, and Robert Heinlein at the Philadelphia Navy Yard: In 1942 three of the country's leading SF writers – Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and L. Sprague De Camp – all started working together at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. The US had just entered WW II, and everyone wanted to contribute. Heinlein and De Camp were too old and too unfit to fight, and Asimov hated the getting-shot-and-dying part, but they still wanted to chip in. They were three of the most imaginative people in the country, so what did the Navy actually have them doing?

Choice inflection points in gamebooks/interactive fiction/CYOA come in many varieties. There a few standard storyline options in "finite-state" interactive fiction, where you don't keep track of changing statistics, or otherwise do anything other than make choices. Branches and bottlenecks are fundamental to choice paths in these things. Note that spin-off interactive fictions are sometimes belabored with extraneous factors that influence the work's structure. Aspects of making interactive fiction have appeared on the site before (green, greener; blue; bluer).

"It is possible, thanks to the magic of the internet. In 1960, five years before her death, Shirley Jackson recorded readings of "The Lottery" and "The Daemon Lover" for an outfit called Folkways Records—the only time we know of that she ever recorded performances of her own work."

From Infocom to 80 Days: An oral history of text games and interactive fiction MUDs, Usenet, and open source all play a part in 50 years of IF history.

Just a little something for the nostalgic among us, as well as an invitation to explore all the amazing stuff available in interactive fiction today from Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation, Inkle Studios, and Twine. Cool recent Previously

Earlier Tuesday, Chomsky was trending on X as false reports of his death abounded.

"Dismantle All of This Stuff: A Conversation with Noam Chomsky," from back in 2021, when he was also still alive. " One Planet, One Language: How Realistic Is Science Fiction Linguistics?" is from 2014, when Chomsky was still alive, prior to 2021.

Telepathy might initially seem a much softer, psychological proposition, tainted with a sense of the supernatural. Yet both Campbell and Clarke were lifelong advocates of the view that telepathy was highly probable, the scientific proof of its existence likely just around the corner. The promise of telepathy – soon to be achieved, not far off, only a few test subjects away – feels very familiar when reading Musk's boosterish announcements on Neuralink's latest breakthroughs. The promise that telepathy is just about to be realised is not confined to entrepreneurs and science-fiction writers alone. For more than a century, there have consistently been figures in the scientific establishment who have entertained similar hopes that telepathy would soon reach the threshold of proof, promising everything from opening a new evolutionary phase of human development to a new psychic front in the global arms race. from Tomorrow People [Aeon; ungated]

Moondrop Isle – a big text adventure you can play in your browse, written by a crew of nine authors. Features: Urban exploration! - Environmental storytelling! - Puzzles! - Secrets! - Feral guinea pigs!

Click on the dock by the shore to start. It's pretty new so you will find some some unpolished or even buggy things if you spend much time with it, but it's fun to explore. Your progress in the game will be saved in your browser but you can also type

>save

to download an interesting form of save file. If you've never played this type of game before, A Beginner's Guide to Interactive Fiction has some tips for you.

A detective searches for a mysterious second dimension, with his ability to stand on one leg being his one asset in the quest. The only thing standing in his way is the "Donut Men", a group who stalks our hero and poses their electric-wielding power as a threat. Simultaneously, a rock star needs to be plugged into an electrical supply so he can garner the power to create powerful music with the occasional destruction. David Lynch attempted to make Ronnie Rocket, or The Absurd Mystery of the Strange Forces of Existence his second film. Or his third. Or his fourth. Or his fifth. He never found the funding. Far Out magazine looks into the story of David Lynch's abandoned sci-fi opus. You can check out the screenplay here or listen to a reading on YouTube.

David Lynch's Unmade Projects: 10 Films and Shows the 'Twin Peaks' Creator Almost Directed