It's a wikiworld and we're just living in it.
Yes, human civilization has reached the point where we are so advanced that publishers like Penguin can set up the very first
wikinovel for interested parties to play with.
Penguin, which embarked on the project with a group of creative writing and new media students, says it is using the novel as a test of whether a group of disparate and diverse people can create a "believable fictional voice."
"This is an experiment. It may end up like reading a bowl of alphabet spaghetti," Jeremy Ettinghausen, head of digital publishing at Penguin UK said, adding there were no plans as yet to publish the completed work.
It's called
A Million Penguins. In a perfect world this would mean that it's a sequel to
365 Penguins. No such luck. As it is, it contains thus far such stirring sentiments as, "Pity that she was unable to dance as well as she could have but what can one do? He took the dress off his victim as a keepsake, so that he can relive the dance they shared." I love it when they change tense midstream, don't you? Ah, but this is too easy to make fun of. I think we should create a wiki children's novel in retaliation. We'd have to set some ground rules like, "No ripping off J.K. Rowling. No ripping off Roald Dahl. No ripping off Laura Amy Schlitz," and so forth. But I think it'd be fun. Food for thought.
Thanks to the Powells blog for the link.Labels: Wikiality, Wikipedia
