Reviews & Testimonials

"Meadows is one of those rare beings who is a working artist as well as theoretician. His in-depth consideration of the role of perspective and image adds new dimensions (pun intended) to the idea of interactive narrative."

- Brenda Laurel,
Author of "The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design," "Computers as Theater," and "Utopian Entrepreneur."

"Interactive narrative remains to be a holy grail of new media. Meadows' gem of a book makes a unique contribution to our understanding of how interactive narratives work and how they can develop in the future. By bringing together the ideas from a number of different fields which usually do not intersect - graphic design, interaction design, linear narrative writing, architecture, and visual art - he yields new insights and perspectives. Think of this book as your READ.ME file - an essential reading before you start working on your new game, web site, DVD, or any other new media project."

- Lev Manovich,
Author of "The Language of New Media"

"A multi-talent, Mark Meadows represents one of those new creatures that lives between art and design, science and technology. No one knows what they are capable of quite yet, but their early experiments make me want to throw all my old clothes out the window."

- Rich Gold, Xerox-PARC
Director of Research in Experimental Documents

"Pause & Effect is one of the few books to explain and address the unique effects of all kinds of narratives in interactive media. It is unusally lucid, complete, and insightful--in a field of books that are rarely any of these. Interactive and online storytelling are barely growing fields because too little has been discovered or described. Hopefully, this book will help change this."

- Nathan Shedroff,
Author of Experience Design 1

"Mark Meadows' journey as an artist, theoretician, and electronic pioneer has been remarkable to observe. He has ferocious passion for ideas, yet is grounded in the actual materials of the artforms he works within. He is open-minded and curious, essential when navigating uncharted worlds. And he has generosity of spirit, which I've seen during half a dozen engagements at the AFI over the years. With this new investigation of interactive narrative, he brings to bear all of these qualities, and we are all the richer for his contribution to understanding this emerging mode of storytelling."

- Nick DeMartino, American Film Institute
Director, New Media Ventures

Mark Stephen Meadows // pighed