IF Theory book?

[jacksonmead]

So I recently read Twisty Little Passages for the first time, and I was reminded of the IF Theory book (iftheory.com/). Does anyone know the current status of this? It looks like the website hasn’t been updated since 2005 (except to be vandalized with various links). Are any/all of the articles written for it? Is it possible/useful to resurrect this or something like it? I guess this could have been an email to Dave and Emily, but I thought I’d see what other people know about this.

-Kevin

[VictorGijsbers]

I haven’t heard about the IF Theory Book in years, at least not from anyone saying they were stil working on it. This project seems to be completely dead… which is a shame. But do by all means contact one of the original organisers! Perhaps they can work out something, and not let those essays go to waste.

[George]

Totally OT, but how does somebody inject links into a static web page like that?

[Eriorg]

@jacksonmead

I was reminded of the IF Theory book (iftheory.com/). Does anyone know the current status of this?

Emily Short answered that question in her blog last January. Here are the relevant excerpts:

@Emily Short

Whatever happened with the Theory Book?

The IF Theory book is on a semi-permanent hiatus, having never quite recovered its organizational direction since our original publishing plans fell through and various other issues came up. Again, this is dependent on how things go for me over the next year; it is possible I’ll have time to return to it. I do have a volunteer to help who knows a lot more than I do about the practical aspects of editing and type-setting a book. But there are no guarantees about this, and it’s lower priority than lots of other things. Many of the originally intended articles are available on line, which is a partial consolation.

I do apologize to the people who put work into the project that it has dragged out so long; at the same time, I’m very conscious that starting it up again would require a lot of reassessment of content, because IF has moved on very substantially since 2003 or so.

The iftheory website is broken — did you know that?

Yes. The original website for the theory book has been hacked to contain spam links to random junk sites.

This is not something I can fix. As far as we can tell, what happened is that the domain lapsed and was bought up by a spammer, who then reproduced the original page… but with spam links in it. Which is despicable, but I don’t have any real recourse. If I get the project up and running again, I’ll make a new website.

[jacksonmead]

@Eriorg

Emily Short answered that question in her blog last January. Here are the relevant excerpts:

Ah, thanks. And now that I’m reminded of it, I do remember reading that.

-Kevin

[Dannii]

Is it something that we could have on Lulu or another POD?

I know LaTeX and would be willing to help.

[Eriorg]

There’s an IF Theory Book update on Emily Short’s blog. The editor is now Kevin Jackson-Mead.

[emshort]

That’s correct. I was going to post here about this, then figured I’d leave it up to Kevin. However, he’s already moving forward on this; if you are a past contributor to the theory book and have not heard from him already, please do let him know your new email address so he can get in touch with you.

[jacksonmead]

Yes, sorry for not posting here sooner. It’s been a little busy.

-Kevin

[ZUrlocker]

Great to see this project move forward once again. I have read a few of the IF Theory articles I could find and I am sure this will be a great book. One suggestion: I hope the book will be about theory and practice. For a newcomer like me, I really appreciate getting some of the “best practices” about writing, design, characters, puzzles etc. I think one of the reasons Aaron Reed’s book is doing quite well is that he also includes very practical information
–Zack
www.z-machine-matter.com

[Eriorg]

The IF Theory Book (now actually called “IF Theory Reader”; I have no idea why…) has just been released

It’s available both as a printed book and as a free PDF file.

[Ron_Newcomb]

This is full of win!! Thank you to the editors/publishers/curators/grues, and all the contributors!

[ZUrlocker]

Congrats to the authors and editors for getting this finished! What a pleasant surprise. I downloaded the PDF and ordered it from Lulu.

–Zack
z-machine-matter.com

[Genstein]

Dammit, I’ve got as far as the contents page and I’m already intrigued by five or six chapters. I guess I’ll have to read the whole thing now Congratulations to all involved, and thanks for your hard work on the book.

[slackman]

All I can say is “Thanks” from the bottom of my IF NOOB Heart. I guess it really pays to look over posts when you join a forum.

And “Thanks” as well to Ron for the I7 Programmers Handbook.