My Zen Arcade

So, obviously this never came to pass, but its amazingly cool to read the emails and such.

And I am particularly fond of these two design points:

1. Shall we try to present multiple viewpoints in this version of the story? In the original version(s), the group of travellers became separated while visiting Magrathea, and again later on, with the story following either Arthur’s or Zaphod’s viewpoint. I have in mind a scheme to narrate the story in the third person, rather than the second, provided that the parser can handle declarative sentences, rather than (or in addition to) imperative ones. Example: “>ARTHUR SEARCHES FOR A GOOD CUP OF TEA. He fails to find any, but he does turn up the spork that he thought he’d lost.”

2. If there are multiple viewpoints, how does one change viewpoint? Provisional answer: with the “verb” MEANWHILE. Example: “>MEANWHILE, ON THE HEART OF GOLD. Zaphod is still trying to persuade the computer to unlock the sauna. Ford is chatting up Trillian.” Now the story begins to sound more like traditional fiction, with an omniscient viewpoint. What happens to the scene that one leaves when switching to a new viewpoint — does it go on by itself? Answer: perhaps it doesn’t matter. If one returns to the old scene to find that time has passed, one can use time travel to return to the scene as it was left.