Aaron A. Reed’s Subcutanean is like if House of Leaves were a romance. That’s glib because it’s more than that, but you probably know if you would like it or not based on that elevator pitch. Each copy can differ based on a random seed so two copies might have fundamental or minor changes. I’m not sure how much it actually varies, but the crowdfunding patrons got a USB key with the entire work on it, so I’m a bit excited when the entire work is released in February of 2025 that it might take the form of a dynamic fiction/procgen novel that’s similar to Aaron Reed’s fascinating body of Interactive Fiction work.
I bought two copies, and read both. The differences range from the subtle to the more obvious; there is not a Choice of Games style amount of branching. The effect is somewhat uncanny! I think it would be extremely uncanny to reread a different copy after ten years without knowing about the conceit. You would certainly question your own memory!
I don’t really know if Subcutanean counts as non-IF? My understanding of the mechanics is that it’s essentially a Twine-style novel where the exact path of linkages are automatically chosen for you at generation. The experience you get is novellike in its seamless linearity, but the novel element of its composition is that the underlying text is suffused with variations as par for choice IF. It’s like saying a transcript of So Far isn’t IF, because it’s a linear sequence of text; well yes sure, but you’re reading a derivative product, and the underlying text that generated it is nonlinearly polymorphic; it seems almost glib to note that by its nature any iteration is a complete, noncomprehensive intersection of a whole that cannot be fully represented at any one time, that’s the whole point! If you remade Subcutanean in Twine with perfect autonomy of which variations generate at each interstice, it would be the same Subcutanean.
To me non-IF by an IF author is more in the line of Porpentine’s novels, which are traditional linear texts.
Right. Any branching or variation is done during text generation. The reader just reads and doesn’t make any choices or really have any interactive agency at all - they’re reading a randomized linear version of the book. Any “interaction” would be external by comparing different complete versions of it. Procgen mechanics are used to create separate unique passive reading experiences. I think the effect is basically there are parallel-universe “edits” of the narrative.
I didn’t specifically mean to argue whether it “was IF” or not; I was meaning to highlight a commercial book by an IF author that I liked. The one I chose just happened to have an element that would make it very adaptable to IF.
I don’t know Aaron’s plans for it, but I could see a choice-narrative version of it that generates the next section on the fly every time the reader clicks on a word or a link to turn a page. Or that allows you to click a paragraph and cycle through different versions of it.
In 2022 I published a short story in Kaleidotrope! “Vows Writ in Scrimshaw” is another visit to the world of my 2018 & 2019 IFComp games, Devotionalia and Heretic’s Hope.
When I was still writing poetry, traditional, paper journals were considered far more prestigious than online ones. I wish I wouldn’t have been so influenced by this fashion, as it is hard to show anybody I know online what I used to do in those old days.
