The first line and the last I have copied from the book as I believe I cannot do better than Pohl. Ok ok actually I know that I cannot compare with Pohl in any case. So why have I undertaken this project? I am hoping that I can update perhaps part of his magnificent novel and just borrow his plot to achieve something new.
My learning process in hypertext is much like any other new learning process. In the initial, everything is unfamiliar. But when I got deeper into the course it was as if the blindfolds were taken out and I can truly see for the first time. And thinking back I remember this fantastic novel by Pohl that is in essence hypertext. And I have moved from recognition to application by trying to hypertextualise this novel. I have tried to imbue the new ideas into it for example the carbon taxes.
In print novel an author has to justify points of information into the fiction. I didn't realise that I had to do this until rather late into my work. I believe that perhaps it is the legacy of the use of hypertext: it was invented out of need for help files and manuals like the incredibly huge Boeing 767 manual. Pohl had to justify himself by inserting the episodes for points of information as advertisements and TV interviews with professors of astrophysics. He has managed to keep interest in the main storyline by keeping the points of information short but containing enough information within to actually be interesting themselves to those SF fans of the hard SF variety. Incidentally, it was precisely this novel way of inserting points of information that made me remember it and on introduction to hypertext by the module that it hit me that he is writing hypertext but working it to fit it in print!
I had copied the CLASSIFIEDS section wholesale to let the reader get a feel of Pohl's method.
The star maps are from the freeware program by
And the images are largely from NASA. While the 3D models are mine. Web page making and 3D modeling are both new skills acquired during this course and I had fun doing them :)