The 21 Steps, by Charles Cumming (digital fiction)

March 23, 2008 by Simon Appleby

Penguin have launched a new site called We Tell Stories - subtitled Six Stories, Six Authors, Six Weeks - which is designed to showcase digital fiction. Each of the stories is a homage to a Penguin Classic, and the first is The 21 Steps, by Charles Cumming, which in title and style is obviously inspired by John Buchan’s classic The 39 Steps (which I admit that I have not yet read).

What makes this first story innovative is that is essentially a mash-up of a simple linear adventure story with Google Maps. The text appears in bubbles attached to points on the map (occasionally you get richer content, such as a text message actually shown on the display of a mobile phone, or a photo of what the narrator is describing), and as you click the links to move the story forward (there is a lot of clicking), the narrator’s journey is plotted on the map. As you switch from chapter to chapter, the style and scale of the maps change. This can be quite exciting at first - it starts in the new St Pancras International station (which I liked because they used to be a client of mine!) - but when the action is all set in one building, for example an Edinburgh hotel, it seems a bit pointless to have a bird’s eye view.

The trouble with the whole thing is, because Cumming presumably knew how his work would end up being presented, he has done things which cause the story to suffer. The locations have been chosen more for aerial appeal than for any particular plausibility, and sometimes devices have to be shoehorned in to the plot to justify some showing off, the most notable being the jaw-droppingly bad line “I used to do a bit of roof running in London as a teenager. Once you get the hang of it it’s not too difficult.” Course you did, so now you can run across the roof of Edinburgh Waverley Station, no bother!

I don’t want to disparage the effort that has gone in to this, or the boldness of the thinking - but ultimately, good digital fiction must surely share the key attributes of good analog fiction, namely engaging characters, an imaginative plot and stylish writing. Sadly, The 21 Steps does not manage to transcend its curiosity value and the story is not one that I would have stuck with to the end had I not been writing this review.

Penguin’s naming of the site We Tell Stories seems designed to assert their artistic credentials over their commercial imperatives - but the fact that the six stories are all inspired by Penguin Classics reminds us that Penguin Sell Books too. I await the remaining five with great interest.

Via Shane Richmond at The Telegraph