Hamlet on the holodeck: the future of narrative in cyberspace
Abstract
Stories define how we think, the way we play, and the way we understand our lives. And just as Gutenberg made possible the stories that ushered in the Modem Era, so is the computer having a profound effect on the stories of the late 20th century. Today we are confronting the limits of books themselves -- anticipating the end of storytelling as we know it -- even as we witness the advent of a brave new world of cyberdramas. Computer technology of the late twentieth century is astonishing, thrilling, and strange, and no one is better qualified than Janet Murray to offer a breathtaking tour of how it is reshaping the stories we live by. Can we imagine a world in which Homer's Iyre and Gutenberg's press have given way to virtual reality environments like the Star Trek ® holodeck? Murray sees the harbingers of such a world in the fiction of Borges and Calvino, movies like Groundhog Day, and the videogames and Web sites of the 1990s. Where is our map for this new frontier, and what can we hope to find in it? What will it be like to step into our own stories for the first time, to change our vantage point at will, to construct our own worlds or change the outcome of a compelling adventure, be it a murder mystery or a torrid romance? Taking up where Marshall McLuhan left off, Murray offers profound and provocative answers to these and other questions. She discusses the unique properties and pleasures of digital environments and connects them with the traditional satisfactions of narr…
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Previous work on player agency has been largely theoretical or inspired by design practice, focusing on defining and conceptualizing what agency is and how it manifests in relation to narrative interaction and gameplay.
“Previous work has been largely theoretical or inspired by design practice, focusing on defining and conceptualizing what agency is and how it manifests in relation to narrative interaction and gameplay e.g.[1,8,18,24,26,27,32,38].”
From ”Naked and on Fire”: Examining Player Agency Experiences in Narrative-Focused Gameplay (2021) · cites this paper as [26]
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“Murray’s Agency “Agency” is the title of the fifth chapter of Murray’s Hamlet on the Holodeck, in which she describes agency as “the satisfying power to take meaningful action and see the results of our decisions and choices” and “the thrill of exerting power over enticing and plastic materials” [16].”
Background”Naked and on Fire”: Examining Player Agency Experiences in Narrative-Focused Gameplay
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- Venue
- Choice Reviews Online
- Publisher
- American Library Association
- Published
- 1997-11-01
- Volume
- 35
- Issue
- 03
- Pages
- 35-1342-35-1342
- ISSN
- 0009-4978 (ISSN-L)
- 1523-8253
- OpenAlex
- W1486838236
- Cited by
- 2,780
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 51 · 2024: 119 · 2023: 109 · 2022: 94 · 2021: 140 · 2020: 159 · 2019: 128 · 2018: 164 · 2017: 121 · 2016: 122 · 2015: 131 · 2014: 143 · 2013: 123 · 2012: 132
- Type
- book review
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Choice Reviews Online (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Narrative Theory and Analysis
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Cultural Insights and Digital Impacts
- Social Sciences › Communication › Cultural Studies and Postmodernism
- Keywords
- digital narratives, interactive fiction, virtual reality, immersion, video games, hypertext fiction, narrative theory, role play
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