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Gravity's Rainhow, or The Puhlic Burning, to say nothing of Labyrinths or Un Coup de
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The issue, he argues, is that the medium can challenge and shift the roles of and the
relationship between writers, publishers and readers and can involve the reader in various
ways in the construction of the text. The textual authority of a linear constructed
argument or narrative is undermined by electronic text, and while non-linearity in itself
does not constitute the innovation it is at times made out to be, the way these structures
can be used to open up the text to reader's participation is worth exploring.
One of the key feature of the hypertext idea, a logical consequence of its "nonlinearity"
is the new role and enhanced responsibility it places on the reader. {...} A
text may be designed in such a way that it has innumerable orders, but each reading
has its temporal order, and the hypertext which can be read in a multiplicity ofways
calls for commitment from the reader who has to devise an appropriate method of
reading, or a productive path ofexploration.
Hypertext has therefore been described as "interactive" by both distributors and critics ­
a claim I want to look at more closely in the next chapter.
130 Stuart Moulthrop, "Electronic Fictions and 'The Lost Game ofSelf", The New York Review of
Science Fiction, 66 (February 1994) pp. I, 8-n (p.rr),
Chapter 2 - page86