Back in January, I was hoping to be able to revisit the long-dormant IF theory book project and give it an overhaul. At the time, I was applying for a fellowship that would have given me quite a lot of time to focus on new media work, of which I hoped this would have been a part. But that didn’t happen; instead, I am consulting for the video game industry and am enjoying myself quite a lot, but have very little time for major outside projects.
All the same, I was sad that I didn’t have time to finish something that I know a lot of people are still interested in seeing. If anything, the recent success of Aaron’s Inform 7 book has increased the amount of email I get from people about this project.
Recently, Kevin Jackson-Mead stepped forward to volunteer to work on the theory book, and I have taken him up on it, perhaps a little more vehemently than he originally expected. Kevin is an IF aficionado who does a lot of organizing for the Boston People’s Republic of IF group and also has substantial work background in publishing. I am stepping down as chief editor and handing the materials I had over to him. Dennis Jerz, who was working with me on the project way back in the early days, has chosen to remain involved.
Kevin is starting off by getting in touch with the original contributors. If you are one, you should already have received email from him asking about your interest in continuing to participate, and soliciting input about where the project will go from here. If you didn’t get his message, let me know and I’ll pass on your email to him, or you can contact him directly if you know where to find him. (I don’t want to post his email address here in the sight of the spambots.)
Many thanks to Kevin for being willing to take this up, and my apologies to everyone for not being able to bring it together some years back.
Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling 
Oh that’s great news. Thanks to Kevin for volunteering to take on the project. And thanks to Emily for everything so far. And to Dennis too of course. I read some of the articles years ago, and very much look forward to seeing the finished result.
Excellent news. One of the reasons I believe Aaron’s book is doing well is because it is a very practical book on learning to writing IF. It’s not just a guide to the Inform7 language but in fact conveys best practices and gives very practical advice for someone who wants to write IF and not have to make every mistake that others have made.
Some of the articles I’ve read for this book are good, but I hope it covers “Theory and Practice” and includes some of the excellent ideas and articles here on your site. While theory is interesting, I suspect most people are going to want to learn things that will help them implement better and more compelling IF.
–Zack
http://www.z-machine-matter.com
Excellent news indeed.
Please do keep up updated on this…
I lost my hopes of seeing this project finished after several contacts and getting the feedback that it was on hold, so many thanks for resuming it.
Kind Regards,
RootShell
Maybe it would be a good idea to update the respective site, to let user know of this excelent news.
1) I’m not really resuming it; I’m handing it over entirely to Kevin. :)
2) I don’t have access to the original site, so further updates aren’t possible. (If you’re curious about that, there’s more discussion here: https://emshort.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/status-of-projects/ .)
Ups… I never saw that post.
I really need to catch up with your blog… thanks for the link.