Innovative and entertaining – Arcadia by Iain Pears Review

First off, I'll address the issue of the in-app purchase of the full novel, as the prompt is buried in the text. One must read (or skip ahead) through the free portion of text to where the map lines go gray. Once I swiped to continue to the next, faded page, a box appeared prompting me to make the purchase, which I did happily. I had paused, partway through reading the first tale, to find the developer's website and send a note to technical support asking why they did not want my money. It would seem logical to include a purchase link from the app's main menu. I gave it one more try after that, and discovered the trick noted above. The review: Although I've only read partway through one tale, the app and the story impress me favorably. The homepage of the app is a story map, with colorful lines branching from the starting point to show how each character's tale intersects. Once you begin reading, a text control button offers the option of two fonts sizes and a brightness slider bar. Those with visual impairment who prefer large-print text might find the larger print still too small, but my middle-aged eyes were fine with the one option. Another icon lets one select and switch to different story lines for each character's tale, color-coded the same as the story map: Teacher, Student, Young Girl, Outlaw, Professor, Assistant, Scientist, Policeman, Manager and Oligarch. Some tales begin midway through the story, so the story map is helpful in tracking the relationships. The map also plots one's chosen path, showing open circles for unread 'pages' (as this story is free of the constraints of the printing press, a page might be three paragraphs, or 30) and solid dots for those one has read. The tale currently being followed is highlighted by a thicker line on the map -- a good navigation tool so far. I'm interested to see what happens when I switch to a new character track. One of the menu items allows the reader to clear the reading history. Where stories diverge, arrows allow one to swipe over to another tale track, or press the icon to return to the homescreen's story map to choose a new point. Notebook icons on some pages enact pop-up windows describing the universe of the story, detailing a land's geography, history, culture and climate. These are not dull, dry statistics: Iain Pears' wit is evident in this background information, such as, "There are more sheep than people, and in all probability there are more cows as well." The first notebook pop-up's description of the land of Anterworld and the college town of Ossenfud (suspiciously similar to Oxford, to my U.S.-educated mind), gives readers background and a good mental map to go with the app's actual map of the storylines. (Though, oddly, that notebook also states Anterworld has no central government capable of imposing taxes on the populace, but the tale itself mentions taxes, later called a tithe, and goes on to detail how such taxes are tallied and paid. This continuity error detracts from the story, but perhaps will be answered later in the novel.) Each page lists what tale/character interacts in that specific text, further assisting in keeping track of this innovative form of storytelling. Not being much interested in art history or detective novels about same, I'd not read Pears' work before spotting this app in iTunes. A check of others websites indicates there's a print version of the book I would probably never have picked up. I'm glad I purchased this app, and look forward to following the storylines. This seems an excellent example of the future of e-publishing, unconstrained by the linear limitations of print media. An even-larger font-size option and an easier way to make the in-app purchase would make this review five stars.
Review by Off the wifi grid on Arcadia by Iain Pears.