By Richard Kadrey
A cave painting of a bull. A cartoonish computer graphic of a woman's body. A bolt of lightning. A frog. A nude man. A ringing phone. The sound of crickets.
Voyager's CD-ROM-based book, Cinema Volta, opens with a minimovie composed of the nonlinear images and connections of dreams and memory. Because it is not confined to static images and words on paper, Cinema Volta dodges any standard definition of "novel" or "memoir." It's a stream-of-consciousness stroll through "weird science and childhood memory," all stitched together with the words and graphics of James Petrillo, an artist and teacher at California State University at Hayward.
What separates Cinema Volta from other disc-based books (and I've seen plenty) is the depth of its writing and the use of sound and graphics. It's divided into chapters on such scientific luminaries as Volta, Morse, Edison, Bell, Tesla, and Lady Ada. These chapters are mingled with texts on Dante, Shelley, Frankenstein (both book and movie), and James Joyce's squeeze, Nora. Within each of these chapters we get a mixture of historical facts and odd, dreamlike connections. The chapter on Percy Bysshe Shelley incorporates Lord Byron as well as Mary Shelley's writing of the Frankenstein story. The Frankenstein chapter brings together images of Victor Frankenstein, his monster, computer nerds, and Petrillo's father. The stylishly laid out text of the Frankenstein chapter melts seamlessly into the chapter on Samuel Morse, then flows on to introduce Lady Ada (presented as a sexy, Warholian Bride of Frankenstein), which relates back to her father, Lord Byron....
Cinema Volta is set up so you can read the chapters in any order you wish. One very nice option allows you to click a button and have your computer read the book to you. You'll begin with the author's ruminations on the ancient cave paintings at Lascaux and move through his life, his personal memories, and the memories of famous inventors, artists, and monsters; then you'll circle back to the author himself, wondering about the nature of the machine that's letting you read
Cinema Volta, the first disc-based book for grown-ups that makes you believe there's a future for more books of this type.
Now, click your heels three times and say, "There's no place like the Home Card."
Cinema Volta: US$49.95. The Voyager Company: (800) 446-2001, +1 (914) 591 5500.
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Cinema Volta
